THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Crvir
 
 THE RISE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 
 BY 
 
 > HECTOR H. MUNRO 
 
 "On se flatterait en vain de connaitre la Russie actuelle, si Ton ne 
 remontait plus haul dans son histoire."— Le Pere Pierling. 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GRANT RICHARDS 
 
 I 900
 
 •I 
 
 i 
 
 I
 
 Dk 
 
 M 
 
 HI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 With the exception of a translation of Rambaud's 
 somewhat disjointed work, there is no detailed history 
 of Russia in the English language at all approaching 
 modern standards. The reigns of Petr the Great and 
 of some of his successors down to the present day — a 
 period covering only 200 years — have been minutely 
 dealt with, but the earlier history of a nation with 
 whom we are coming ever closer into contact is to the 
 English reader almost a blank. Whether the work 
 now submitted will adequately fill the gap remains to 
 be seen ; such is its object. 
 
 The rule observed with regard to the rendering of 
 names of places and persons has been to follow the spell- 
 ing of the country to which they belong as closely as 
 possible. The spelling of Russian words employed, and 
 curiously distorted, by English and other historians, has 
 been brought back to its native forms. There is no 
 satisfactory reason, for instance, why the two final letters 
 of boyarin should be dropped, or why they should
 
 viii THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 reappear tacked on to the equally Russian word Kreml. 
 Moskva is scarcely recognisable in its Anglicised form, 
 and Kiev can only be rendered Kieff on a system 
 which would radically disturb the spelling of most 
 English towns. 
 
 A list of works consulted is appended, arranged 
 somewhat in the order in which they have been found 
 useful, precedence being given to those which have 
 been most largely drawn upon. 
 
 IIIXTOR H. MUNRO. 
 1S99.
 
 WORKS CONSULTED 
 
 Karamzin — Histoire de I'empire russe. 1819. (French translation 
 by MM. St. Thomas et de Divoff.) 
 
 , S. SOLOV'EV — Istoriya Rossie. 1858. 
 
 Th. Schiemann — Russland, Polen und Livland. 1885. 
 
 A. Ram BAUD — History of Russia. 1879. (English translation.) 
 
 L. Paris (translator) — Chronique de Nestor. 1834. 
 
 N. KOSTOMAROV — Rousskaya Istoriya v jhizneopisaniyakh eya glav- 
 nieyshikh dieyatelen. 1874. 
 
 , N. KosTOMAROV — Sievemo Rousskiya Narodopravstva. 1886. 
 
 Sir H. H. Howorth — History of the Mongols. 
 
 Anonymous — Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen. 1879. 
 
 Von Hammer-Purgstall — Geschichte der goldenen Horde. 1840. 
 
 „ „ Histoire de lEmpire Ottoman. (French 
 
 translation.) 
 
 E. A. Freeman — Ottoman Power in Europe. 1877. 
 
 J. W. Zinkeisen — Geschichte des osmanischen Reich in Europa. 
 
 y Gennad Karpov — Istoriya Borbui Moskovskago Gosoudarstvo s 
 Pol'sko-Litovskim, 1462-1508. 1867. 
 
 "V. N." — Iz Istorie Moskvui, 11 47- 1703. 1896. 
 E. A. SoLOV'EV — Ivan IV. Groznie. 1893. 
 ^ N. A. Polevoi — Tzarstvovanie loanna Groznago. 1859. 
 Le pere Pierling — La Russie et lOrient. 1891. 
 „ „ Rome et Demetrius. 1878. 
 
 Marquis de Noailles — Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572. 
 1867. 
 
 V. B. Antonovitch — Otcherk Istorie Velikago Kniajhestva Litov- 
 skago. 1878. 
 
 N. G. Riesenkampff — Der Deutsche Hof zu Nowgorod. 1854.
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 Laszlo Szalav — Geschichte Ungarns. 1874. 
 
 A. N. MURAV'EV — History of the Russian Church. 1842. (English 
 
 translation by R. W. Blackmore.) 
 A. Pember — Ivan the Terrible. 
 A. M. H. J. Stokvis — Manuel d'Histoire, de Gent.<alogie, et do Chrono- 
 
 logie, etc. 1889. 
 Bar. Sigismund von Herberstein — Rerum Moscoviticorum mm 
 
 mentarii. 185 1. (English translation by R. H. Major.) 
 
 i
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Dawn of Russian History . i 
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 The Coming of the Varangians and the Building of 
 
 KiEviAN Russia . . . . .14 
 
 CHAPTER ni 
 The Feuds of the House of Rurik . • • 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Coming of the Mongols . . . .81 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 " The Years that THE Locust HATH eaten " 96 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Growing of the Germ . .122 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Last of the Paleologi and the First of the 
 
 Autocrats . . . . . .149
 
 xii THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 rACK 
 
 Ivan Groznie '95 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Great BoYARiN . • • • -253 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Phantom Tzar . . • 271 
 
 CHAPTER XI / 
 
 "This Side THE Hill" . . • . • 3©^ 
 
 1. — Table of Russian Princes of the Line of Rurik, 
 
 from sviatosl-w i. . . • 327 
 
 II. — House of Mstislav Vladimirovitch 328 
 
 III. — House of Souzdal-Vladimik and Sub- Houses of 
 
 Moskva and Tver . . . • • 3^9 
 
 IV. — Grand Princes and Tzars of Moskovy . 330 
 
 GLOSSARY . • J3« 
 
 INDEX ....... 332 
 
 < 
 
 LIST OF MAPS 
 
 Russia ...... Frontispiece 
 
 Grand Principality ok Moskva . .194 
 
 Plan of Moscow . .270
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
 
 Russia, which is blessed with a rich variety of tribes and 
 peoples, the despair of the ethnographical geographer, who 
 can scarcely find enough distinctive colours wherewith to 
 denote them all on his maps, is characterised by a singular 
 uniformity of physical conditions throughout the greater 
 part of its huge extent. Geographically speaking, it is 
 difficult to determine what are the exact limits of the region 
 
 o 
 
 known as Russia-in-Europe, the Oural Mountains, which 
 look such an excellent political barrier on paper, being 
 really no barrier at all, certainly not what is known as a 
 scientific frontier. As a matter of fact they are less a range 
 of mountains than a chain of low table-lands, having pre- 
 cisely the same conditions of soil, flora, and fauna on either 
 side of them. Zoologically the valley of the Irtuish forms a 
 much stronger line of demarcation, but much of Russia west 
 of the Ourals coincides more nearly in physical aspect with 
 the great Asiatic plain than it does with the remainder of 
 Europe. Southward and westward from this fancy boundary 
 stretches a vast expanse of salt, sandy, almost barren steppe- 
 land ; this gives way in time to large tracts of more or less 
 fertile steppe, partaking more of the character of prairie than 
 of desert, bearing in spring and early summer a heavy crop 
 of grasses, high enough in places to conceal a horse and 
 his rider. Merging on this in a northerly direction is the 
 " black-soil " belt, a magnificent wheat-growing country, which 
 well merits the title of the Granary of Europe. Northward 
 again is a region of dense forest, commencing with oaks and 
 
 6
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 Other deciduous trees, and becoming more and more coniferous 
 as it stretches towards the Arctic circle, where pine and fir 
 disappear, and give way to the Tundras, moss-clad* wastes, 
 frozen nine months out of the twelve, the home of reindeer and 
 Samoved. Over all this wide extent the snows and frosts of 
 the Russian winter fall with an almost equal rigour, though 
 for varying duration of time. Except on the cast, the 
 country possesses strongly-marked natural boundaries ; on 
 the south-east rises the huge pile of the Kaukasus Mountains, 
 flanked east and west by the Kaspian and Black Seas 
 respectively ; on the south-west lie the Karpathians, while 
 from north-west to north the Baltic is almost connected by 
 lake, swamp, and the deep fissure of the White Sea with the 
 Arctic Ocean. Broadly speakmg, nearly the whole area 
 enclosed within these boundaries is one unbroken plain, 
 intersected and watered by several fine rivers, of which the 
 Volga and the Dniepr arc, historically, the most important. 
 This, then, is the theatre on which was worked out the drama 
 of Russian national development. 
 
 It will now be necessary to glance at the racial and 
 political conditions which prevailed at the period when the 
 curtain rises on mediaeval Russian history. First as to the 
 ethnology and distribution of the Slavs, a branch of whom 
 was to be the nucleus round which the empire of all the 
 Russias was to gather. The lore of peoples and of tongues 
 has enabled scientists to assign to the Slavs a place in the 
 great Aryan family from which descended the stocks that 
 made their dwelling on European soil. Exactly when their 
 wanderings brought them into their historic home-lands it is 
 difficult to hazard, nor is it possible to do more than specu- 
 late as to whence they came in that distant yesterday of 
 human spate and eddy. At the epoch when Russian history, 
 in a political sense, may be said to start into existence (the 
 commencement of the ninth century), the distribution of the 
 Slavs is more easy to trace ; with the exception of an off- 
 shoot in the south-east of Europe, occupying Scrvia, Dalmatia, 
 Croatia, and Slavonia, they appear to have been gathered in 
 a fairly compact though decentralised mass in what may be
 
 THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
 
 termed North Central Europe. Holstein, Mecklenburg, and 
 Pomerania, roughly speaking, formed the country of the 
 Wends ; another group, the Czechs and Poles, inhabited 
 Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland ; while a fourth body, destined 
 to become the most important, was established in North-west 
 Russia, hemmed in by Finns on the north, Turks and Avars 
 on the east and south. These latter Slavs, the germ of the 
 future Russian nation, lived in tribal communities in the 
 midst of the mighty forests of oak, pine, birch, willow, etc., 
 which stood thick around the basin-lands of the Upper Dniepr, 
 Dvina, and Volkhov, and the source of the Volga. These 
 dense fastnesses they shared with the wolf, boar, lynx, fox, 
 bear, beaver, elk, aurochs, deer, otter, squirrel, and marten, 
 which latter especially furnished them with a valuable article 
 of commerce, the Russian marten skins being highly prized 
 in the fur markets of Europe. Seals abounded on their 
 sea-coast and in Lake Ladoga ; the numerous swamps were 
 the home of the wild goose, swan, and crane ; the eagle, 
 hawk, raven, cuckoo, and daw were familiar to them, while 
 pigeons were early domesticated among their dwellings. 
 
 In their primitive state the Slavs had this obvious 
 differentiation from their Asiatic neighbours — though essenti- 
 ally pastoral they were not nomadic. The village, as a unit 
 of politico-social life, had arrived with them at a high pitch 
 of development, which involves the supposition of long-existing 
 contributory causes, the herding together, namely, of a 
 permanent community of human beings, dependent on each 
 other for mutual convenience, security, and general well- 
 being. The viir, commune, or village was in the first place 
 the natural outcome of a patriarchal system other than 
 nomad, the expansion of the primitive association of 
 members of one or more families who had grown up together 
 under the common attraction of a convenient water-supply, a 
 suitable grazing ground, or a wood much haunted by honey- 
 bees.^ The development of agricultural pursuits necessarily 
 gave a greater measure of stability to village life, and the 
 
 ^ The gathering of honey and wax from the combs of wild bees formed an 
 important industry among the Polish and Russian Slavs.
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 peasant insensibly rooted himself to that soil in which he had 
 sown his crops and planted his fruit-trees. Thus far the 
 life-story of the tribal Slavs travelled along familiar lines, but 
 here it came to an abrupt halt. The village unit acquired a 
 well-defined theory and practice of government, but it did 
 not germinate into the town. The few townships that were 
 to be found in Slavic lands owed their being for the most part 
 not to any inward process of accumulation, but to e.vtraneous 
 and exceptional circumstances. While Teutonic jxroples 
 were raising unto themselves burgs and cities, and banding 
 themselves in guilds and kindred munici|)al associations, the 
 Slavs remained content with such protection as their forests 
 and swamps afforded, such organisation as their village 
 institutions supplied. The reason for this limitation in social 
 progress was an organic one ; in the Slav character the 
 commercial spirit, in its more active sense, was almost 
 entirely wanting. Trade by barter, of course, e.visted among 
 them, but their medium of exchange had not got beyond the 
 currency of marten and .sable skins. The market, the wharf, 
 and the storehouse were not with them institutions of native 
 growth. 
 
 From their earth of forest, swamp, and stream, which 
 paled them in from an outer world, and from the sky above, 
 which they had in common with all living folks, the eastern 
 Slavs had drawn inspirations for the thought-weaving of a 
 comprehensive catalogue of gods. Their imaginations gave 
 deific being to the sun, moon, stars, winil, water, fire, and air, 
 but most of all they reverenced the lightning. In their dark, 
 over-.shaded forest homes it was natural that the sun, which 
 exercised such mystic sway in the blazing lands of the 
 Orient, should yield place to the swift, dread might which 
 could split great trees in its spasm of destruction and shake 
 the heavens with its attendant thunder. Accordingly the 
 arch-god of Slavic myth was Pcroun, in whom was personified 
 the spirit of the lightning. Under the name of Svaroga 
 (the different tribes probably had variant names for the same 
 god, and sometimes, perhaps, varying gods for a common 
 name) he was worshipped as the liegetter of the Fire and
 
 THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
 
 Sun Gods. The latter was sometimes known as " Dajh'bog," 
 but in old folk-songs the Sun is Dajh'bog's grandchild. The 
 Wind-God was designated " Stribog." The personality of 
 these nature-deities was not left entirely to the worshippers' 
 fancy, Peroun at least being represented in effigy by more 
 than one idol, which conformed to the human pattern from 
 which so few divinities have been able to escape. A 
 slightly more advanced conception of the supernatural was 
 embodied in the worship of Kolyada, a beneficent spirit who 
 was supposed to visit the farms and villages in mid-winter 
 and bring fertility to the pent-in herds and frost-bound seeds. 
 The festival in honour of Kolyada was held about the 25 th 
 of December, the date when the Sun was supposed to triumph 
 over the death in which Nature had gripped him and to 
 enter on his new span of life. 
 
 Blended with Eastern mysticism there was, no doubt, in 
 their religious ideas a considerable sprinkling of Northern 
 magic. In their dark and lonely forest dwellings there was 
 likely to be something more than a natural dread of that 
 lurking prowler which stamped such an eerie impression 
 upon the imaginations of primitive folks in many lands. 
 The shambling form, the wailing howl, and the narrow eyes 
 that gleamed wicked hunger in the winter woods gave the 
 wolf a reputation for uncanny powers, and the old Slavic 
 folk-songs clearly set forth a belief in wehr-wolf lore. 
 
 In the matter of disposing of their dead the Slavs of 
 Eastern Europe had a variety of customs and usages, some 
 of which were probably local practices of the different tribes. 
 In general the body was burned and the bones enclosed in 
 a small vessel, which was placed upon a post near the road- 
 side. Grave-burial was also in vogue, hill-sides being chosen 
 for that purpose. Drinking and feasting were usual accom- 
 paniments of the funeral rites, while the opposite extreme 
 was sometimes exhibited by the slashing and scratching of 
 the mourners' faces in token of griefs 
 
 Thickly mingled with the Slav homesteads in the lake 
 regions of Peipus, Ladoga, and the forest country stretching 
 
 ^ S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie.
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 eastwards, were the outlying villages of the Finns, who seem 
 to have lived in harmony with their alien neighbours without 
 at the same time showing the least tendency towards a 
 fusion of national characteristics. Branches of the same 
 people, Tchouds and Livs, occupied the lands of the Baltic 
 sea-board on the north-west. South of these, wedged in 
 between the Slavs of Poland and those of the east, in the 
 marshy forest-lands of the Niemen basin, were the Lit'uanians, 
 a people of Indo-European origin, who were divided into the 
 sub-tribes of Lit'uanians, Letts, and Borussians (Prussians;. 
 Of doubtful affinity with the first-named were the Yatvyags, 
 a black-bearded race dwelling on the extreme eastern limit 
 of the Polish march. The Lit'uanians were even more ill- 
 provided with towns and strongholds than their Slav 
 neighbours, but they had at least a definite system of tribal 
 government, remarkable for the division of the sovereign 
 power between the prince {^Rikgs) and the high-priesthood, 
 the former having control of outside affairs, including the 
 important business of waging war, the latter administering 
 matters of justice and religion. The gods of the Lit'uanians 
 were worshipped under the symbolism of sacred trees, and 
 the religious rites included the putting to death of deformed 
 or sickly children ; this was enacted, not with the idea that 
 bloodshed and suffering were acceptable to the Higher 
 Powers, but rather because the latter were supposed to 
 demand a standard of healthy and physical well-being on 
 the part of their worshippers.^ 
 
 In the lands lying to the south and south-east, where 
 the forests gave way bit b)- bit to the open wolds of the 
 steppe country, the Slavs had for neighbours various tribes 
 of nomads, for the most part of Turko-P'innish origin, and 
 these completed the encircling band of stranger folk by 
 which the primitive forest dwellers were shut in from the 
 outside world. At this yonder world it is now necessary to 
 take a glimpse. 
 
 Europe towards the middle of the ninth century was 
 still simmering in a state of semi-chaos, out of which were 
 
 * S. Solov'ev,
 
 THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
 
 shortly to be evolved many of the national organisms which 
 have lasted to modern times. Charles the Great, by the 
 supreme folly of dividing amongst his three sons the empire 
 he had so carefully built up, had to a great degree undone 
 the work of his life, and political barriers are rather difficult 
 to trace after the partition of Verdun (843), though in the 
 dominions assigned to Charles II. some semblance of the 
 later kingdom of France may be traced. Germany was in a 
 transition state ; the strong hand which had established 
 dependent and responsible dukes and counts in the various 
 Teutonic provinces — Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria, 
 and Karinthia — had been withdrawn, and as yet these princes 
 had not erected their fiefs into independent hereditary 
 duchies. Scarcely tamed and civilised themselves, the 
 frontier districts of the east were bordered continuously by 
 Danes, Wends, Czechs, Avars, and Slavonians, ever ready to 
 make hostile incursions upon their territory. Hamburg in 
 those days stood as a frontier town, almost an outpost in an 
 enemy's country, and formed with Paderborn and Bremen 
 the high-water mark of the Frankish expansion on the north- 
 eastern marches. 
 
 In England national unification was in a more advanced 
 stage ; Wessex had gradually absorbed the other constituents 
 of the so-called Heptarchy, with the exception of Mercia, 
 which still held out a nominally separate existence. London, 
 at this period a wooden-built town surrounded by a wall of 
 stone, was beginning to be commercially important. 
 
 In Spain the Christians had established among the 
 mountains of Asturias the little kingdom of Leon, and were 
 commencing the long struggle which was eventually to drive 
 the Moors out of the peninsula. 
 
 South of Rome and the Imperial territories in Italy, the 
 duchy of Benevento alone foreshadowed the crowd of princi- 
 palities and commonwealths which were to spring into exist- 
 ence in that country. 
 
 To the east the Byzantine Empire, pressed by the 
 Saracens in its Asiatic possessions, by Bulgars and Slavs on 
 its northern boundary, severed from Rome, Ravenna, and the
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Western world by divergencies of ritual and dogma, humiliated 
 by military reverses in various quarters, still loomed splendid 
 and imposing in her isolation, and the dreaded Greek fire, if 
 no longer "the Fire of old Rome," helped to make her 
 navies respected in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. 
 
 But if she still attracted the attention of the world, 
 civilised and barbarian, it was scarcely by the exhibition of 
 any grand moral qualities ; her annals were one long record 
 of vicious luxuries, servile flatteries, intrigues, disaffection, 
 and cruelties, which grew like an unhealthy crop of fungi in 
 an atmosphere charged with the gases of theological dogma- 
 tism. Revolution succeeded revolution, and each was 
 followed by a dreary epilogue of torturings, executions, 
 blindings, and emasculations, while synods and councils 
 gravely discussed the amount of veneration due to pictures 
 of the Virgin, or the exact wording of a litany. In one 
 respect, however, the first Christian State approached the 
 New Jerusalem of its aspirations, namely, in upholstery and 
 artificial landscape gardening, and its gilded gates and rooms 
 of porphyry, its jewelled trees with mechanical singing-birds, 
 might well challenge comparison with the golden streets and 
 walls of precious stones and sea of glass that adorned the 
 Holy City of the Apocalypse. 
 
 North of what might be termed the European mainland 
 of the Eastern Empire, between the south bank of the 
 Danube and the ridge of the Balkans, was wedged in the 
 kingdom of Bulgaria, a Turko principality whose territory 
 waxed and waned as its arms were successful or the contrary 
 in the intermittent warfare it carried on against its august 
 neighbour. Though never rising to the position of a con- 
 siderable power, and at times being reduced to complete 
 subjection, it continued to give trouble to the Byzantine 
 State for many centuries, and the adjoining Zupanate of 
 Servia was from time to time brought under the alternate 
 suzerainty of whichever factor was in the ascendant. 
 
 Beyond the Danube the Magyars had not as yet estab- 
 lished themselves in Hungary, in the lands lately overrun 
 by the Avars, and a considerable section of that country
 
 THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
 
 was absorbed in the great Moravian kingdom, a Czech state 
 whose existence was coterminous with the ninth century, 
 and which also embraced within its limits the vassal duchy 
 of Bohemia, the latter country having, however, its separate 
 dynasty of dukes. 
 
 Farther north, Poland had scarcely commenced to have 
 a defined existence in the polity of Europe. Its people, if 
 the early annals are not merely fables borrowed from the 
 common stock of European folk-lore, had elevated to the 
 dignity of sovereign duke a peasant nicknamed Piast, from 
 whom sprang the family of that name who held the throne 
 not less than 600 years. From the fact that the Poles 
 remained independent both of the Western Empire and of the 
 neighbouring Moravian power, may be deduced the assump- 
 tion that they already possessed some degree of cohesion 
 and organisation — more perhaps than distinguished them in 
 later stages of their history. 
 
 On the north shore of the Black Sea the most easterly 
 possession of the Byzantine Empire was Kherson, a port in 
 the Krim peninsula, and here the territory of the Caesars 
 came into contact with the Empire or Kakhanate of the 
 Khazars, a Turko-Finnish race whose dominions stretched 
 in the ninth century from Hungary to the shores of the 
 Kaspian, and north to the source of the Dniepr. They 
 appear to have attained to a comparatively high degree of 
 civilisation, and they kept up commercial and diplomatic 
 relations with Byzantium and the two Kaliphates of Bagdad 
 and Kordova. Their national religion was a form of paganism 
 (subsequently they embraced Judaism), but in spite of 
 differences of faith and race one of their princesses became 
 the wife of the Emperor Constantine V. Their two principal 
 cities were Itil, on the Volga, and Sarkel (the White City), 
 on the Don. Several of the Turanian and Slavonic tribes 
 on their north-west borders acknowledged their authority 
 and paid them tribute, but at the commencement of the 
 ninth century their power was already declining. 
 
 On their north-east frontier the Khazars had for neieh- 
 hours the Bulgarians of the Volga, an elder branch of the
 
 10 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 tribe which had settled in the Balkans. Bolgary, " the 
 great City," was their capital, and a trading centre much 
 frequented by the merchants and dealers of the various semi- 
 barbaric nations in their vicinity, as well as by the more 
 highly-civilised Khazars and Persians. 
 
 Northward of all, in the bleak mountain regions of 
 Skandinavia, on the roof of Europe as it were, dwelt the 
 Norsemen, those wild and warlike adventurers who were to 
 leave the impress of their hand on the history of so many 
 countries. In those days, when Iceland and Greenland 
 were as yet undiscovered, Norway, Sweden, and Finland 
 formed a stepping-stone to that unknown Arctic Sea which 
 contemporary imagination peopled with weird and grimly 
 monsters — for the North had its magic lore as well as the 
 shining East. And the fierce vikings, fighting and plunder- 
 ing under their enchanted Raven banner, seemed in those 
 credulous times not far removed from the legendary war- 
 locks and griffons of whom they were presumed to be the 
 neighbours. 
 
 As has been already noticed, the Khazars were essenti- 
 ally a trading nation, and much of the commerce of the 
 farther East filtered through their hands into Eastern Europe. 
 According to one authority ^ the products of the East, after 
 crossing the Kaspian Sea, were conveyed up the Volga, and 
 after a short land journey reached the Baltic by way of 
 Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga. It is not easy to see why 
 the shorter and simpler route along the Don and the Black 
 Sea to Constantinople and the Mediterranean was not pre- 
 ferred, especially as the balance of power, and consequently 
 of luxury and wealth, lay rather in the south of Europe 
 than in the north. It was this trade, however, which built 
 up the importance, possibly caused the birth, of Novgorod, 
 that fascinating city which rises out of the mists that shroud 
 the history of unchronicled times with the tantalising name 
 of New Town, suggesting the existence of a yet older one. 
 What was the exact footing of Novgorod in the early 
 decades of the ninth century — whether an actual township, 
 ^ Ralston, Early Russian History,
 
 I THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY II 
 
 with governor and council, giving a head to a loose con- 
 federation of neighbouring Slavic tribes, or whether merely 
 a village or camp, the most convenient station where " the 
 barbarians might assemble for the occasional business of war 
 or trade " ^ — it is difficult at this distance of time to 
 determine. Seated on the banks of the Volkhov some little 
 distance from where that river leaves Lake Ilmen's northern 
 shore, and connected with the Baltic by convenient water- 
 ways, it not only tapped the trade-route already referred to, 
 but occupied a similar favourable position with regard to 
 another important channel of traffic — that between the North 
 and Byzantium by way of the Dniepr and Black Sea. 
 Wax, honey, walrus teeth, and furs went from the frozen 
 North to the " Tzargrad," as the Imperial city was called by 
 the Slavs, and in exchange came silks and spices and other 
 products of the South. Furs and skins, of otter, marten, 
 wolf, and beaver especially, were in growing demand in 
 Europe, where, from the covering of savages, they had been 
 promoted to articles of luxury among the wealthy of 
 Christendom. With the land covered by dense forest, or 
 infested by savage tribes, and the seas scoured by pirate 
 fleets, traders preferred to keep as much as possible to the 
 great river-routes, and the large, placidly-flowing rivers of 
 the Russian plain were peculiarly suited to their purposes. 
 Thus the early human wanderers adopted the same methods 
 of travel, and nearly the same lines of journey, as the birds 
 of passage, ducks, plovers, and waders use to this day in 
 their annual migrations, winging their way along the coasts 
 and river-courses from Asia to Europe and back again. 
 
 Shut up in their own constricted world of forest, lake, 
 and swamp, the Novgorodski and neighbouring Slavs would 
 get, by means of these waterways, glimpses of other worlds, 
 distant as the three points of a triangle, and as varied in 
 manners, customs, and products ; news of Sarkel, Itil, and 
 the Great City, Bolgary, and strange countries yet farther 
 east, where men dwelt in tents and rode on camels and 
 hunted the panther, whose spotted skin was more richly 
 
 ^ Gibbon.
 
 12 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 marked than that of any forest lynx ; visits from mariners 
 of perhaps their own nationality, bringing tales of northern 
 seas, of ice-floes, walruses, sturgeons, and whales ; of Wends 
 who preyed on the vessels driven on to their inhospitable 
 shore ; and, more important still, of Varangian sea-rovers who 
 were beginning to force themselves on the Finns and Slavs 
 of the sea-coast ; above all, tidings from bands of merchants 
 of the City of Wonders that guarded the entrance to the 
 Farther Sea, with its gates and palaces, and temples and 
 gardens and marts, its emperor and saints, and miracles and 
 ceremonials, like unto nothing they had experience of 
 themselves. 
 
 It is just at this point that the history of the Slavs of 
 Lake Ilmen and its neighbourhood becomes largely con- 
 jectural. That they were brought in some measure under 
 the subjection of Varangian invaders appears tolerably 
 certain, and, favoured no doubt by the natural advantages of 
 their position, girt round with an intricate network of forest 
 and swamp, or, still better, protected perhaps by the poverty 
 of their communities, they seem to have freed themselves 
 from this foreign yoke, as the Saxons of England from time 
 to time drove out the Danes. It was in consequence, 
 probably, of this common danger that the Slavs were drawn 
 into closer confederation, with the unfortunate result that 
 domestic quarrels became rife among them, and each clan 
 or volost was at enmity with its neighbour. " Family 
 armed itself against family, and there was no justice." ^ 
 This sudden ebullition of anarchy rather suggests that the 
 Varangian intruders had swept away previous institutions or 
 elements of order, and left nothing capable of replacing 
 them, or else that the native Slavs were unable to grapple 
 with the new problems of administration on an extended 
 scale. Evidently, too, the vigorous Norsemen had obtained 
 the reputation of being something more than mere un- 
 disciplined robbers and raiders, and their domination seemed 
 more desirable than the turmoil and dissension attendant 
 upon a state of self-government. And in support of this 
 
 ^ Chronicle of Nestor,
 
 I THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 13 
 
 deduction, almost the first definite event recorded in the 
 national chronicles is the resolve of the people of Novgorod 
 to call in the leaders of a tribe known as the Russ Varangians 
 to restore order in their land. 
 
 (Controversy has arisen among Russian historians as to 
 the probable nationality or extraction of these " Russ " 
 foreigners, who, like the Angles, gave their name to the 
 country of their adoption, and some writers have assumed 
 them to have been Slavs from Rugen or the south coasts of 
 the Baltic, and not of Skandinavian origin. Apart, however, 
 from the decidedly Norse form of their leaders' names — 
 Rurik, Sineus, Truvor, Oleg, etc. — the manner of their 
 coming and their subsequent history harmonises exactly 
 with that of the various Skandinavian offshoots who in- 
 vaded and established themselves in Normandy, England, 
 the Scottish islands, Ireland, and Sicily, Under their 
 vigorous rule the Slavic settlement around Novgorod ex- 
 panded in a few years into an extensive principality, impos- 
 ing tribute on and drawing recruits from the neighbouring 
 tribes, and carrying the terror of the Russian name into the 
 Black and Kaspian Seas.) 
 
 Whether the " invitation " was genuine, emanating from 
 the desire of the Ilmen folk to secure for themselves the 
 settled rule of capable leaders, or whether the presence of 
 the strangers had to be accepted as a disagreeable necessity, 
 to mitigate the humiliation of which a legendary calling-in 
 was subsequently invented, must remain a matter for con- 
 jecture ; but with the incoming of this new element 
 Russian history develops suddenly in scope and interest/ 
 
 ^ S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie. Karamzin, Histoire de Russie. Chronique 
 de Nestor. Schiemann, Russland, Polen, und Livland. N. P. Barsov, 
 Otcherke Rousskoy istoritcheskoy Geografie. V. Thomsen, The Relations between 
 Ancient Russia and Scandinavia.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS AND THE 
 BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 
 
 Whatever the nature of the causes that led up to this 
 irruption of stranger folk, the fact and, to a certain extent, 
 the manner of their coming is substantially set forth in the 
 old chronicles. Like ocean demi-gods riding out from the 
 sea into the ken of mortal men came three Russ- Varangian 
 brothers, Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor, with a mighty host of 
 kinsfolk and followers, steering eastward in their long, 
 narrow-beaked boats through the waterways that lead from 
 the Finnish Gulf into the lake-land of the Slavs. Separating 
 their forces, Rurik established himself at — according to 
 some accounts, built — the town of Ladoga, on the banks of 
 the Volkhov, twelve miles from its entrance into the Lake 
 Ladoga, thus interposing himself between Novgorod and the 
 sea. His brothers settled at Bielozersk and Izborsk respect- 
 ively, the latter occupying an important position near Lake 
 Peipus and the Liv border, the former pushing a Varangian 
 outpost among the Finnish tribes to the east ; all three, 
 whether from accident or design, choosing the vicinity of an 
 open stretch of water. The date of this immigration is 
 fixed by the chronicler at 862, which is regarded as the 
 starting-point of the Russian State. Two years later Rurik, 
 by the death of both his brothers, was left in sole chieftaincy 
 of the adventurers. From his first stronghold he soon 
 shifted his headquarters to a point farther up the Volkhov's 
 course, over against Novgorod, where he built himself a 
 citadel ; from thence he eventually made himself master of 
 the town, not apparently without some opposition from the
 
 CHAP. II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 15 
 
 inhabitants. Henceforward the Skandinavian chief was un- 
 disputed prince of the Slavonic people who had invited him 
 into their country ; the neighbouring districts of Rostov and 
 Polotzk were brought under his authority, and Novgorod 
 became the capital and centre of a state which reached from 
 Lake Peipus to the Upper Volga, and from Ladoga to the 
 watershed of the Dvina and Dniepr. In thus extending 
 and consolidating his power and welding his Skandinavian 
 following and the discordant Slavic elements into one 
 smoothly-working organisation, Rurik evinced qualities of 
 statesmanship equal in their way to those displayed by 
 William the Norman in his conquest and administration of 
 England. The absence of any national cohesion among the 
 Slavs, while facilitating the Norse intrusion and settlement, 
 increased the difficulty of binding them in allegiance to a 
 central authority ; yet within the space of a few crowded 
 years the Varangian ruler enjoyed an undisputed sway in 
 the lands of his mastery such as few princes could in those 
 unordered times rely on. Not the least difficult part of 
 Rurik's task must have been the control of his own wander- 
 lusting countrymen, turned loose in an extensive and vaguely- 
 defined region, with rumours of wealth and plunder and 
 fighting beckoning them to the south. In the nature of 
 things such temptation would not be long resisted, especially 
 as the Dniepr offered a convenient if insecure passage to the 
 desired lands, and a short time after the first Norse settle- 
 ment two Skandinavian adventurers, named Askold and Dir, 
 broke away from the main body with a small following, 
 possibly with the idea of enlisting themselves in the Varangian 
 Guard at Byzantium. They did not immediately pursue their 
 journey, however, farther than Kiev, a townstead of the 
 Polian Slavs,^ standing on a low bluff above the west bank 
 of the Dniepr. Here they established themselves as Rurik 
 had done at Novgorod, and, reinforced perhaps by roving 
 bodies of their countrymen, set up a second Russian State, 
 
 ^ Kiev was subsequently invested with a past of respectable antiquity, the 
 consecration of its site being attributed to the Apostle Andrew ; it makes its 
 entry on the pages of the Chronicle, however, simply as a gorodok, or townlet.
 
 i6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 without losing sight, however, of the original object which 
 had drawn them southwards. Consequently in the summer 
 of 865 an expedition of from ten to fifteen thousand men, 
 presumably recruited from both Slavs and Norsemen, em- 
 barked in their long, narrow war-boats and sailed for 
 Byzantium, plundering and burning along the coast of the 
 Black Sea, and finally riding into the harbour. The audacity 
 of the attack, or perhaps the warlike reputation of the 
 invading host, seems to have paralysed the inhabitants of 
 the city, and the authorities had recourse to supernatural 
 invocation to deliver them from this new danger. The 
 robe of the Virgin was removed from its venerated shrine 
 in the Blacherne Chapel, escorted in solemn procession to 
 the shores of the harbour, and dipped in the water, where- 
 upon arose a tempest that drove the heathen fleet in disorder 
 out to sea. That, at least, is the account of the transaction 
 given by the Byzantine chroniclers. 
 
 Whether such a command over the atmospherical forces 
 impressed the -barbarian chiefs with the desirable qualities of 
 so militant a religion, or whether the glories of the Tzargrad 
 as seen dimly from their boats had insensibly attracted them 
 to the worship of the " cold Christ and tangled trinities," 
 which was so much a part of the Byzantine life, it was said 
 that Askold, shortly after the miscarriage of the expedition, 
 professed the Christian faith. This much at least seems 
 certain, that the Greek patriarch Photius was able in the 
 year 866 to send to Kiev a priest with the title, if not the 
 recognition of Bishop, and that from that time there existed 
 a small Christian community in that town. 
 
 The Chronicle of Nestor^ almost the only record of this 
 period of Russian history in existence, is silent on two inter- 
 esting points, namely, the works and fightings in which 
 Rurik was presumably engaged on behalf of his infant state, 
 and the attitude of the Khazars towards the adventurers 
 who had filched Kiev and the adjoining territory from their 
 authority. 
 
 The only further item in the Chronicle relating to Rurik 
 is the announcement of his death in the year 879, his child
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 17 
 
 son Igor and the governance of the country being entrusted 
 to Oleg, a blood relation of the late Prince, The reign of 
 this chieftain was of great importance to the fortunes of the 
 germinating Russian State, and if Rurik played the part of 
 a William the Bastard, Oleg may not unwarrantably be 
 compared with Charles the Great. The rumours which had 
 reached the North of a Varangian power that had sprung 
 up among the tribes of the Slavic hinterland had attracted 
 thither streams of roving warriors, eager to share the 
 dangers and divide the fruits of their kinsfolks' enterprise. 
 Thus both Rurik and the Kievian adventurers had been able 
 to maintain an easily-recruited standing force of their own 
 countrymen for purposes offensive and defensive. The 
 larger designs of Oleg, however, required a larger army, and 
 he enlisted under his captaincy Slavs and Finns in addition 
 to his Varangian guards. Having spent three years in 
 gathering and perfecting his resources, he advanced in 882 
 into the basin-land of the Dniepr and moved upon Smolensk, 
 the stronghold of the independent remnant of the Slav tribe 
 of Krivitches. By virtue, possibly, of his position as leader 
 of an army partly drawn from men of that tribe, he was 
 allowed to take undisputed possession of the place, which 
 was henceforth incorporated in the Russ dominion. Still 
 following the course of the Dniepr, as Askold and Dir had 
 followed it before him, he entered the country of the 
 Sieverskie Slavs and made himself master of their head 
 town, Lubetch. 
 
 By these successive steps Oleg had brought himself 
 nigh upon Kiev, the headquarters of the rival principality, 
 which was possibly the object he had had in view from the 
 commencement of his southward march. For to the rising 
 Russ-Slavonic State Kiev was at once a menace and an 
 injury ; not only did it offer an alternative attraction to the 
 Norsemen pouring into the country, the natural reinforce- 
 ments of Oleg's following, but its separate existence cut 
 short the expansion of the northern territor}'', and, above all, 
 hindered free intercourse with Byzantium and the south. 
 To the sea-rovers, reared among the rude and penurious 
 
 C
 
 i8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 lands that lay dark and uncivilised between the Baltic and 
 the Arctic Sea, Byzantium was a dazzling and irresistible 
 attraction ; rich beyond their comprehension of riches, 
 luxurious to a degree unknown to them, renowned for every- 
 thing except renown, she seemed a golden harvest ripe for 
 the steel of the valorous and enterprising. Between this 
 desired land and the Novgorodian principality the territory 
 of Askold presented a vexatious obstacle, and it was in- 
 evitable that the sagacity of Oleg should aim at its destruc- 
 tion. At the same time it was understandable that he 
 should seek to avoid an armed conflict with his fellow- 
 countrymen, the Varangians of Kiev, and to effect his 
 purpose by stratagem rather than by force. To this end he 
 approached the town, laid an ambuscade on the banks of 
 the Dniepr, and in the guise of a trader travelling from 
 Novgorod to Byzantium, sought speech with the Kievian 
 rulers. Askold and Dir came out unwittingly to see this 
 wayfarer, and found no man of wares and whining suppli- 
 ance ; found rather one whose face they well knew, and 
 with him a small lad whose significance was swiftly made 
 plain to them. " You are not of the blood of princes," 
 cried a voice of triumph and boding in their ears, " but here 
 behold the son of Rurik." And therewith rushed out the 
 hidden ones and slew the unsuspecting chieftains. And in 
 guerdon of this stroke Oleg was accepted as sovereign by 
 the people of Kiev, the Russian State was solidified, and 
 the supremacy of Rurik's dynasty received a valuable 
 
 recognition. 
 
 The town of Kiev, advantageously situated at a pleasant 
 elevation above the west bank of the Dniepr, and command- 
 ing the waterway to the coveted south, compared favourably 
 with Novgorod, built among the flat marshes that bordered 
 Lake Ilmen and surrounded by the Finn-gripped coasts of 
 Ladoga. The advantages of the former were not lost upon 
 its conqueror, who saluted it with the title of " mother of all 
 Russian cities " (so the Chronicles), and thenceforth it became 
 the capital of the country. It was now necessary to secure 
 the connection between the newly-won territory and the
 
 11 THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 19 
 
 districts lying to the north. West and north of Kiev dwelt 
 the Drevlians, a fierce and formidable Slavic tribe, whose 
 country was fortified by natural defences of forest and 
 marsh. Against them Oleg turned his arms, and once more 
 victory went with him ; the Drevlians, while retaining their 
 own chieftain, were reduced to the standing of vassals, and 
 an annual tribute of marten and sable skins was imposed 
 upon them. Within the next two years the Russian ruler 
 completed the subjugation of the Sieverskie and enthralled 
 the remaining lands of the Krivitches, both of which tribes 
 had hitherto owned allegiance to the Khazars. The grow- 
 ing Russian dominions were now put under a system of 
 taxation, the sums levied being devoted in the first place to 
 the payment of the Varangians in the Prince's service. The 
 contribution of Novgorod was assessed at the yearly value 
 of 300 grivnas, a token of its substantial footing at this 
 particular period. 
 
 It was about this time that the Ougres or Magyars, the 
 ancestors of the modern Hungarians, squeezed out of their 
 Asiatic home by the pressure of the Petchenigs, burst 
 through the Khazar and Kievian territories and settled 
 themselves in Moldavia and Wallachia, and finally in 
 Hungary. Their passage through the Dniepr basin-land 
 would scarcely have been undisputed, and the Magyar 
 Chronicles speak of a victory over Oleg ; the Russian 
 chronicler is silent on the subject. This scurrying horde 
 of nomad barbarians, unlike the Avars who preceded them, 
 or the Petchenigs and Kumans who followed in their wake, 
 crystallised in a marvellously short space of time into a 
 civilised European State, and became an important neighbour 
 of the Russian principality. 
 
 In 903 the young Igor was mated to a Varangian 
 maiden named Olga, who, by one account, was born of 
 humble parents in the town of Pskov and attracted the 
 Prince by her beauty. Other accounts make her, with more 
 probability, a near relative of the Regent, of whose strength 
 of character she seems to have inherited a share. 
 
 In 907 Oleg was in a position to put into practice a
 
 20 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 project which had probably never been lost sight of, the 
 invasion, namely, of the Byzantine Empire, including an 
 attack on Constantinople itself, a project dear to the Russian 
 mind in the tenth century as well as in later times. 
 His footing differed essentially from that of Askold and Dir 
 in their attempt at a like undertaking. No longer the 
 leader of a mere troop of adventurers, Oleg swayed an army 
 inspired by a long series of successes and confident in the 
 sanction and prestige of the princely authority. Slavs, 
 Finns, and Varangians were bonded together in a repre- 
 sentative Russian army, trained, disciplined, and, above all, 
 reliant on the ability of their captain. In their long, light 
 barques they went down the Dniepr, hauling their craft 
 overland where the rapids rendered navigation impossible, 
 and thence emerged into the Black Sea ; the boats were 
 escorted along the river-banks by a large body of horsemen, 
 but the Chronicle does not tell whether this branch of the 
 expedition made its way through Bessarabia and Bulgaria 
 into the Imperial territory, and probably it only served to 
 guard the main body from the attacks of hostile tribes in 
 the steppe region. Arrived in the waters of the Bosphorus 
 the invaders landed and ravaged the country in the vicinity 
 of Constantinople, burning, plundering, and slaughtering 
 without hindrance from the Greek forces, Leo VI., " the 
 Philosopher," shut himself up in his capital and confined his 
 measures of defence to placing a chain across the entrance 
 of the harbour. So much had the Eastern Empire become 
 centralised in the city of Constantinople, that it was ap- 
 parently a matter of small concern if the very suburbs 
 were laid waste, or else Leo was waiting with philosophic 
 patience for a supernatural intervention. The Virgin, how- 
 ever, not obliging with another tornado, the invaders turned 
 their impious arms against the city itself. According to 
 popular tradition, Oleg dragged his boats ashore, mounted 
 them on wheels, spread sail, and floated across dry land 
 towards the city walls. Possibly he attempted the exploit, 
 successfully carried out some five hundred years later by 
 Sultan Mahomet II.. of hauling his vessels overland into the
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 21 
 
 waters of the harbour, a labour which would be facilitated 
 by the lightness and toughness of the Russian craft. At 
 any rate the effect of the demonstration was salutary ; the 
 Emperor, alarmed at such a display of energy, determined 
 to come to terms with his barbarous enemy, — first, however, 
 the Russian chronicler alleges, trying the experiment of an 
 offering of poisoned meats and fruits to Oleg and his war- 
 men.^ A study of the history of Byzantium fully supports 
 the likelihood of such a stratagem, which, had it succeeded, 
 would have been hailed as a miraculous epidemic, sweeping 
 the heathen away from the threatened city. The gift was 
 prudently declined, and the more prosaic and expensive 
 method of buying off the invaders had to be resorted to. 
 The treaty which was concluded between the Greeks and 
 the Russians shows that the latter were fully alive to the 
 advantages accruing from a free commercial intercourse with 
 Constantinople. Besides the levy of a fixed sum for every 
 man in the invading fleet, contributions were exacted for 
 Kiev and other towns under the Russian sway, which 
 arrangement gave to all a share in the national victory. 
 More solidly advantageous, under certain specified conditions, 
 Russian merchants were to be permitted right of free com- 
 merce at Constantinople. 
 
 The Christian Emperor and the pagan Prince called 
 upon their respective deities to witness the solemn pact 
 between them, and Oleg, having hung his shield in triumph 
 on the gate of the Tzargrad, returned to Kiev loaded with 
 presents and covered with the glory of a successful campaign. 
 Five years later the great Varangian, loved and honoured 
 by his people, feared and respected by his foes, finished his 
 long reign of three-and-thirty years. Tradition has it that 
 the soothsayers foretold that his death should be caused by 
 his favourite horse, whereupon he had it led away and never 
 rode it more. Years after, learning that it was dead, he went 
 to see the skeleton, and placing his foot upon the skull, 
 taunted the warlocks with their miscarried prophecy, where- 
 upon a snake wriggled out and inflicted a bite, of which he 
 
 ^ Chronicle of Nestor.
 
 22 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 died. The same legend crops up in the folk-lore of many 
 
 lands. 
 
 In venturing to compare Oleg with Charles the Great, 
 whose life-work lay in somewhat similar lines, it may be 
 noted of the former that his results were obtained with 
 comparatively little bloodshed, and that he strengthened the 
 position of the dynasty while forming the empire over which 
 it was to rule. The fairest and most fertile districts of 
 Russia were added to the principality during his regency, 
 and, more important still, the peoples whom he subjugated 
 were permanently welded into the confederation. The Slavs 
 of Kiev in the later years of Oleg were essentially the 
 " men " of the Russian State, a rapidity of assimilation which 
 was scarcely observable in the case of the Bavarians and 
 Frisians of the Frankish Empire, or the Saxons of Norman 
 England. In the matter of religion, too, the heathen Prince 
 contrasts favourably with the great Christian Emperor, and 
 though the worshipper of the Christ who " came not to send 
 peace but a sword " into the world may have butchered his 
 nonconforming subjects with the honestest conviction of 
 well-doing, it is pleasanter to read of the toleration which 
 the follower of Peroun extended to the Christian communities 
 within his realm. 
 912 Igor, who after a long minority succeeded to a more 
 extensive and firmly established principality than his father 
 had bequeathed him, was occupied at the commencement of 
 his reign in suppressing a revolt of the Drevlians and 
 UHtches, the least well affected of the Slav tribes subject to 
 his rule, who had refused payment of the yearly tribute. 
 The gathering-in of this impost was entrusted to Svenald, 
 a Varangian to whom Igor deputed the internal management 
 of the realm ; after a three-years' struggle the rebels were 
 mastered and the amount of their tribute increased. A new 
 source of uneasiness arose at this juncture from the arrival 
 in South Russia of the Petchenigs, a Finn-Turko tribe who 
 migrated from the plains of Asia in the wake of the Magyars 
 and settled in the steppe-land on either side of the Dniepr. 
 The city of Kiev enjoyed an immunity from attack from
 
 II 
 
 THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 23 
 
 their horde by reason of the strong force at hand for its 
 defence, and the Russians, moreover, were interested in 
 keeping up a good understanding with neighbours who 
 commanded the waterway to the south. But to the newly- 
 erected Hungarian State the new-comers were a veritable 
 thorn in the flesh, and Moldavia became a debatable ground 
 between the two peoples. It was an act of weakness on the 
 part of Igor and his advisers, with a large fighting force at 
 their disposal, to have permitted the establishment of a 
 dangerous enemy or doubtful ally in such undesirable near- 
 ness to their capital, and in a position which threatened their 
 principal trade-route. This policy of peace was all the 
 more ill-judged as the restless spirit of the Varangian war- 
 men required some outlet for its employment, and might 
 fittingly have been turned to the advantage of the State. 
 Their lust for adventure and pillage found vent instead in 
 independent raids, and in the year 914 a fleet of 700 
 Russian ships appeared, somewhat like the proverbial fly 
 in amber, on the waters of the Kaspian, where they plundered 
 along the Persian coast.^ Another troop penetrated into 
 Italy in the service of the Byzantine Emperor. 
 
 If the saying, " Happy is the country that has no history " 
 will hold good in every case, the bulk of Igor's reign must 
 have been a period of prosperity, for nothing further is heard 
 of Russia or its Prince till the year 941, when, like a recurring 
 decimal, an expedition against Constantinople is recorded 
 by both Greek and Russian annalists. Whether difficulties 
 had arisen in the trading relations of the two countries, 
 whether the rupture was forced by a war party among the 
 Varangians, or whether Igor was fired with the ambition, to 
 which old men are at times victims, of doing something 
 which should shed lustre on his declining years — he was now 
 not far off seventy — the Chronicles do not indicate, and 
 " what was it they fought about " is lost sight of in the details 
 of the fighting. With a fleet variously written down at from 
 1000 to 10,000 boats, Igor descended by the old waterway 
 into the Black Sea and ravaged and plundered along the 
 
 1 Schiemann, Russland, Polen, und Livland.
 
 24 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 coasts of the Bosphorus. The Imperial fleet was absent on 
 service against the Saracens, with the exception of a few 
 vessels scarcely deemed fit for action, which were lying in 
 the harbour. It occurred to the Greek Emperor Romanes, 
 after many sleepless nights, to arm these despised ships and 
 galleys with the redoubtable Greek fire and steer them 
 against the hostile flotilla, a desperate expedient which was 
 crowned with success ; the mysterious flames, which the 
 water itself was unable to quench, not only enwrapped the 
 light barques of the Russians but demoralised their crews, 
 and a hopeless rout ensued. The Greeks were, however, 
 unable to follow up their advantage, and Igor rallied his men 
 for a descent on the coast of Asia Minor, where he consoled 
 himself by pillaging the surrounding country. Here he was 
 at length opposed by an army under the command of the 
 patrician Bardas and forced to make his way to Thrace, 
 where another reverse awaited him. With the remains of 
 his army the baffled prince made his way back to Kiev, 
 leaving many of his hapless followers in the hands of the 
 Greeks. Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona, present at Constan- 
 tinople on an embassy, saw numbers of them put to death by 
 torture. The Northman was not, however, at the end of his 
 resources ; with an energy surprising for his years, he set to 
 work to gather an army which should turn the scale of 
 victory against the Byzantians, their magical fire and intimacy 
 with the supernatural notwithstanding. To this end he sent 
 his henchmen into the bays and fjords of the Baltic to call 
 in the sea-rovers to battle and plunder under his flag. The 
 invitation they were not loth to accept, but many of them 
 showed a disinclination to bind themselves under the leader- 
 ship of the Russian Prince, and rushed instead, like a brood 
 of ducklings breaking away from their foster-mother, into the 
 charmed waters of the Kaspian, where they carried on an 
 exuberant marauding expedition. A sufificient number, how- 
 ever, followed Igor in his second campaign against the 
 Tzargrad to swell his ranks to a formidable host, and word 
 was sent to the Greek capital, from Bulgarian and Greek 
 sources, that the waters of the Black Sea were covered with
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 25 
 
 the vessels of a Russian fleet. The Emperor did not hesitate 
 what course to adopt, but hastily despatched an embassy to 
 meet the invader with offers to pay the tribute exacted by 
 Oleg and renew the treaty between the two countries. The 
 Imperial messengers fell in with Igor at the mouth of the 
 Danube, and their proposals were agreed to after a consulta- 
 tion between the Prince and his dyoujJiiniki} who in fact 
 gained without further struggle as much as they could have 
 hoped for in the event of a victory. Igor returned to Kiev 
 as a conqueror, loaded with presents from Romanos, who 
 sent thither in the following year his ambassadors with a 
 text of the treaty. This was sworn to by the Prince and 
 his captains before the idol of Peroun, except in the case of 
 the Christian minority, who performed their oath at the altar 
 of S. Elias. The fact of a Christian cathedral — a designa- 
 tion probably more ambitious than the building — being 
 established at Kiev at this period speaks much for the 
 toleration shown to the foreign religion by the followers of 
 the national god. 
 
 Igor did not long enjoy the fruits of this success. 
 Baulked of their expected campaign, his men of war chafed 
 at the inaction of the old man's court, and envied the com- 
 parative advantages thrown in the way of Svenald's body- 
 guards. It was a custom of the Russian rulers to spend one- 
 half of the year, from November till April, in visiting the 
 scattered districts of their dominion, for the double purpose 
 of keeping in touch with their widely-sundered subjects and 
 gathering in the revenue. This winter harvesting of the 
 tribute (which Igor in his declining years left in the hands 
 of his deputed steward) is interesting as being probably the 
 earliest stage of Russian home trade. For the most part the 
 payment in kind consisted of furs and skins, the bulk of 
 which went from the various places of collection in boat-loads 
 down to Kiev, from thence eventually making its way to the 
 sea marts of Southern Europe. The forest country of the 
 Drevlians, rich in its yield of thick-coated sables and yellow- 
 chested martens, lay in convenient neighbourhood to Kiev, 
 
 ^ Members of war council.
 
 26 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 and thither the Prince's men clamoured to be led for the 
 purpose of gleaning an increased tribute. In a moment of 
 fatal weakness Igor consented, and in the autumn of 945 
 set out to close his reign as he had begun it, in a quarrel 
 with " the tree people " over the matter of their taxing. The 
 armed host which accompanied the Prince overawed the ,j 
 
 resentment bred by this stretching of the sovereign claims, fl 
 
 but the apparent ease with which the imposts were gathered " 
 
 in tempted Igor to linger behind his returning main-guard 
 for the purpose of exacting a further levy. The exasperated 
 Drevlians, hearkening to the counsel of their chieftain, Mai, 
 " to rise and slay the wolf who was bent on devouring their 
 whole flock," turned suddenly upon the fate-blind Igor in the 
 midst of his importunings and put him to a hideous death. 
 Two young trees were bent towards each other nearly to the 
 ground, and to them the unfortunate tyrant was bound ; then 
 the trees were allowed to spring back to their normal posi- 
 tion. Thus did the tree people avenge their wrongs. 
 
 The safest standard by which to judge a reign of the 
 inward history of which so little can be known is the measure 
 of stability which it leaves behind it. The widow of the 
 murdered Prince and his young heir Sviatoslav came peace- 
 ably into the vacant throneship, and it is no small tribute to 
 the statecraft of Rurik and his successors that the grandson 
 of the Varangian stranger and adventurer should inherit, at 
 a tender age and under the guardianship of a woman, the 
 Russian principality without opposition and without question. 
 
 The young Kniaz,^ notwithstanding the Slavonic name 
 which he was the first of his house to bear, was brought up 
 mainly among Skandinavian influences, his person and the 
 domestic management of the State being entrusted to Varan- 
 gian hands. His mother Olga bore no small share of the 
 administration, and the vigour and energy of her doings were 
 well worthy of the heroic age of early Russia. The first 
 undertaking which was called for, alike by political necessity 
 and the promptings of revenge, was the chastisement of her 
 husband's murderers. With the idea possibly of averting 
 
 1 Kniazy Prince ; velikU-Kniaz, Grand Prince.
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 27 
 
 the Storm by a bold stroke of diplomacy, the latter had sent 
 messengers to the widowed princess suggesting a connubial 
 alliance with the implicated chieftain Mai, a proposal which 
 was met with a feigned acceptance. Having lulled the 
 apprehensions of the Drevlians, Olga marched into their 
 country with a large following and turned the projected 
 festivities into a massacre, after which she besieged the town 
 of Korosten,^ the scene of Igor's death, and the last refuge 
 of the disconcerted rebels. The Chronicle of the monk of 
 Kiev gives a quaint, old-world account of the manner of the 
 taking of Korosten. All the summer the inhabitants defended 
 themselves stubbornly, and the princess at last agreed to 
 conclude a peace on receipt of a tribute, which was to consist 
 of a live pigeon and three live sparrows from each homestead. 
 How they caught the sparrows is left to the imagination, but 
 the tribute was gladly paid. At the approach of evening 
 Olga caused the birds to be set free, each with a lighted 
 brand fastened to its tail, whereupon their homing instincts 
 took them back to their dwellings in the thatched roofs and 
 barns of Korosten, with the result that the town was soon in 
 a blaze, and the inhabitants fell easy victims to the swords 
 of the besiegers. Thus was avenged the death of Igor, the 
 son of Rurik. 
 
 Shortly after this exploit Olga left Kiev and went into 
 the northern parts of her son's realm, fixing her court for 
 some years at Novgorod and Pskov, and raising the 
 prosperity of those townships by keeping up a connection 
 with the Skandinavian lands. Later she turned her thoughts 
 towards the south, not with warlike projects, as her fore- 
 runners had done, but with peaceful intent. Accompanied 
 by a suitable train she journeyed, in the year 957, to 
 Constantinople, where she was received and entertained with 
 due splendour by the Emperor Constantine-born-in-the- 
 Purple and the Patriarch Theophylact. Here, in the 
 metropolis of the Christian religion, surrounded by all the 
 splendours of ritual of which the Greeks were masters, this 
 surprising woman adopted the prevalent faith, received at 
 
 1 Now Iskorosk, on the Usha.
 
 28 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the hands of her Imperial host and sponsor the baptismal 
 name of Helen, and became " the first Russian who mounted 
 to the heavenly kingdom " — a rather disparaging reflection 
 on the labours of the early Church at Kiev. 
 
 Loaded with presents from the Imperial treasury, Olga 
 returned to her son, whom she strove fruitlessly to detach 
 from the gods of his fathers to the worship of the new 
 deities she had brought from Constantinople. The Russian 
 mind was not yet ripe for the mystic cult of the Greek or 
 Latin Church, and the conversion of the Prince's mother 
 made little impression on either boyarins or people. In the 
 year 964 Sviatoslav definitely assumed the government of 
 the country, and struck the key-note of his reign by extend- 
 ing his sway over the Viatitchcs, the last Slavonic tribe who 
 paid tribute to the Khazars. This was only preliminary to 
 an attack on that peo{)le in their own country. The fate 
 of their once powerful empire was decided in one battle ; 
 the arms of the young Kniaz were victorious ; Sarkel, the 
 White City, fell into his hands, the outlying i^ssessions of 
 the Khazars, east and south, were subdued, and the 
 kakhanate was reduced to a shadow of its former glory. 
 It would have been a wiser policy to have left untouched, 
 for the time being, the integrity of a State which was no 
 lon<Ter formidable, and which interposed a civilised barrier 
 between the Russian lands and the barbarian hordes of the 
 East, and to have pursued instead a war of extermination 
 against the Petchcnigs. Sviatoslav was himself to experience 
 the disastrous results of this mistake. 
 968 In the following year the centre of interest shifts from 
 the south-east to the south-west. The Greek Emperor, 
 Nicephorus Phocas, irritated against his vassal Peter, King 
 or Tzar of Bulgaria, in that he had not exerted himself 
 against the Magyars, who were raiding the Imperial 
 dominions, turned for help, according to the approved 
 Byzantine policy, to another neighbour, and commissioned 
 Sviatoslav to march against Bulgaria. .A large sum of 
 Greek gold was conveyed to Kiev by an ambassador from 
 the Plmperor, and in return the Russian Prince set out for
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 29 
 
 the Danube with a following of 60,000 men. The onset of 
 the invaders was irresistible, and the Bulgarians scattered 
 and fled, leaving their capital, Pereyaslavetz, and Dristr, a 
 strongly fortified place on the Danube, in the hands of the 
 conqueror. To complete the good fortune of Sviatoslav the 
 Tzar Peter died at this critical moment, and the Russian 
 Prince settled down in his newly-acquired city, undisputed 
 master of Bulgaria. East and west his arms had been 
 successful, but in the very heart of his realm he had left a 
 dread and watchful enemy, who would not fail to take 
 advantage of his absence. While his army was at quarters 
 in the head city of the Bulgarians, his own capital was being 
 besieged and closely pressed by the Petchenigs, that " greedy 
 people, devouring the bodies of men, corrupt and impure, 
 bloody and cruel beasts," as the monk of Edessa portrays 
 them ; in which certificate it is to be hoped they were over- 
 described. The folk in the beleaguered city, among the 
 rest the aged Olga and the young sons of Sviatoslav, were 
 in straits from want of food, and must have succumbed if 
 one of their number had not made his way by means of a 
 feint through the enemy's camp, and carried news of their 
 desperate condition to a boyarin named Prititch who was 
 luckily at hand with a small force. On his approach the 
 Petchenigs drew off, thinking that the Prince himself had 
 returned with his army, and Kiev was relieved from the 
 straits of famine. Sviatoslav meanwhile had learned of the 
 danger which threatened his realm and household and 
 hastened back from I^ulgaria, Even this narrowly staved- 
 off disaster did not open his eyes to the menace which these 
 undesirable neighbours ever held over him and his, and he 
 contented himself with inflicting a severe defeat on them 
 and concluding a worthless peace. Possibly he found it 
 hard to arouse among his followers any enthusiasm for a 
 campaign against an enemy who had no wealthy cities to 
 plunder or riches of any kind available for spoil. In any 
 case he was bitten with the desire, to which rulers of Russia 
 seem to have been periodically subject, of shifting the seat 
 of his government to a fresh capital. Before his mother
 
 30 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 and his boyarins he declared his project of fixing his seat at 
 Pereyaslavetz in preference to Kiev, and enumerated the 
 advantages of the former. From the Greeks came gold, 
 fabrics, wine, and fruits ; from Bohemia and Hungary horses 
 and silver ; from Russia furs, wax, honey, and slaves. To 
 Olga, with the hand of death already on her, the question 
 was not one of great moment, and four days later she had 
 made her last journey to a vault in the cathedral of Kiev. 
 A certain compassion is excited by the contemplation of 
 the aged queen, dying lonely in a faith that her husband 
 had never known, which her son had not accepted, just as 
 the realm over which she had ruled so actively was to be 
 enlarged and its political centre shifted. Her death removed 
 the last obstacle to Sviatoslav's design, the last that is to 
 say with which he reckoned. Before departing for Bulgaria 
 the Prince set his sons, who could not at this date (970) 
 have been of a very mature age, in responsible positions, 
 Yaropalk, the elder, becoming governor of Kiev, and Oleg 
 prince of the Drevlians. The Novgorodskie, who had been 
 left for many years to the hireling care of Sviatoslav's 
 deputies, demanded a son of the princely house as ruler, 
 threatening in case of refusal to choose one from elsewhere 
 for themselves ; here the stormy spirit of Velikie Novgorod 
 shows itself for the first time. Happily the supply of sons 
 was equal to the demand ; by one of Olga's maidens named 
 Malousha the Prince had become father of Vladimir, destined 
 to play an important part in the history of Russia, and 
 to him, under the guardianship of his mother's brother 
 Drobuinya, was confided the government of the northern 
 town. Having thus arranged for the present security and 
 future confusion of his territories by instituting the system 
 of separate appanages, Sviatoslav set out for his new possession 
 beyond the Danube. " A prince should, if possible, live in 
 the country he has conquered," wrote the political codist of 
 mediaeval Italy, and the Russian monarch found that even 
 his brief absence had lost him much of the fruits of his 
 victory. The Bulgarians mustered to oppose his march 
 with a large force, and a desperate battle ensued, in which
 
 II THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS 31 
 
 defeat was only staved off from the invaders by the heroic 
 exertions of their leader. Pereyaslavetz was retaken, and 
 Sviatoslav again became master of the Balkan land, per- 
 mitting, however, Boris, son of the late Tzar, to keep the 
 gold crown, frontlet, and red buskins which were the 
 Bulgarian marks of royalty. The Greeks now repented 
 their folly in having established in their immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, within a few short marches of Constantinople, a 
 prince who was far more dangerous to them than ever the 
 Bulgarian Tzars had been. John Zimisces, who had 
 succeeded the ill-fated Nicephorus on the precarious throne 
 of the Eastern Empire, called upon Sviatoslav to fulfil the 
 engagement made with his predecessor and evacuate the 
 Imperial dependency. The Prince in possession contemptu- 
 ously refused to comply with this demand, and threatened 
 instead to march against Constantinople and drive the 
 Greeks into Asia. Fortunately for the Empire at this crisis 
 her new ruler was a soldier of proved ability, and knew also 
 who were the right men to rely on for active support and 
 co-operation. On the other hand Sviatoslav prepared for 
 the coming struggle by enlisting the aid of the Bulgarians 
 themselves, the Magyars, and even roving bodies of 
 Petchenigs. With this mixed force he burst into Thrace, 
 ravaging the country up to the walls of Adrianople, where 
 the Imperial general Bardas- Scleras, brother-in-law of 
 Zimisces, had entrenched himself. Here in the autumn of 
 
 970 the fierce bravery of the Russians and their allies was 
 matched against the Greek generalship, with the result that 
 Sviatoslav was forced to retire into Bulgaria, The recall of 
 Bardas to suppress an insurrection in Capadocia prevented 
 him from following up his advantage, and gave the Russians 
 an opportunity for retiring from a position which was no 
 longer safe. Sviatoslav, however, either did not see his 
 danger, or chose to disregard it rather than return home 
 baffled and empty-handed. Accordingly he spent the year 
 
 97 1 in aimless raids into Macedonia, while his wily enemy 
 made the most elaborate preparations for his destruction. 
 In the spring of 972 Zimisces advanced with a large army
 
 32 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 into Bulgaria, while a Greek fleet blocked the mouths of the 
 Danube, cutting off" the Russian line of retreat. Sviatoslav 
 with the bulk of his army was encamped at Dristr, and here 
 tidings came that the Emperor had crossed the Balkans 
 and, after a stubborn resistance, taken P^reyaslavetz — " the 
 Town of Victory" — and possessed himself of the person of 
 Prince Boris. Nothing daunted, Sviatoslav led his army 
 against that of Zimisces, and a battle ensued which, from 
 the heroic valour with which it was contested and the 
 important issues involved, deserves to be recognised as one 
 of the decisive battles of history. Both leaders showed the 
 utmost personal courage, and victory for a long while hung 
 doubtful, but at length the Greek forces prevailed and 
 Sviatoslav was driven back upon Dristr, his last stronghold 
 in Bulgaria. This time the Imperial success was followed 
 up, and the town was attacked with a vigour and determina- 
 tion which was only equalled by the stubbornness of the 
 defence. The Russians made sorties by day, retreating 
 when outnumbered, under the protection of their huge 
 bucklers, to within the walls of the town, from whence they 
 issued at night, to burn by the light of the moon the bodies 
 of their fallen comrades, and sacrifice over their ashes the 
 prisoners they had taken. By way of propitiating their 
 gods, or possibly the Danube, which was covered with the 
 boats of their enemies, they drowned in its waters cocks 
 and little children.^ The Magister John, a relation of the 
 Emperor, having fallen into their hands in a skirmish, was 
 torn in pieces and his head exposed on the battlements. 
 The besieged, however, were daily reduced in numbers and 
 weakened by want, and Sviatoslav resolved on a last bid for 
 victory. Swarming forth from behind their battered 
 ramparts, the men of the North met their foes in open 
 field, and the wager of battle was staunchly and obstinately 
 contested. Sviatoslav was struck off his horse and nearly 
 killed, but the Russians did not give way until mid-day, 
 when a dust-storm blew into their faces and forced them to 
 yield the fight, leaving outside the walls of Dristr, according 
 
 ^ Solov'ev.
 
 II IHE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 
 
 33 
 
 to the Byzantine annalists, 15,000 slain. The monkish 
 chroniclers, as usual, attributed the hard -won victory to 
 supernatural intervention, and while the Imperial soldiers 
 were resting from their exertions a story was circulated 
 throughout the camp giving the credit of the day to an 
 apparition of S. Theodore of Stratilat, who had appeared in 
 the thick of the battle mounted on a white horse. The 
 Russian defeat, whether due to saint, army, or dust-storm, 
 was sufficiently decisive to bring the Prince to sue for terms, 
 which were readily granted by the Emperor. The Russians 
 engaged to withdraw from Bulgaria and to live at peace 
 with the Eastern Empire ; the Greeks on their part engaged 
 to permit Russian merchants free commercial intercourse 
 at Constantinople. More than this, the Emperor requested 
 the Petchenigs to allow Sviatoslav and his thinned host 
 unmolested passage to his own territories. Whether this 
 was done in good faith, or whether secret instructions were 
 given to the contrary, is a matter of opinion, or at most of 
 induction ; it is pleasanter to set against the general 
 treachery of Byzantine statecraft the fact that Zimisces was 
 a brave man, and to give him credit for the honour which 
 is the usual accompaniment of courage. 
 
 The importance of this defeat cannot be over-estimated, 
 and it is interesting to speculate as to the possible results of 
 a victory for Sviatoslav — a victory which might well have 
 changed the whole course of European history. A powerful 
 Slavonic principality with its headquarters in the basin of 
 the Danube would have attracted to itself, by the magnetism 
 of blood, the kindred races of Serbs, Kroats, Dalmatians, 
 Slavonians, and Moravians, all of which, with the exception of 
 the first-named, were eventually absorbed into the Germanic 
 Empire ; while Bohemia, instead of gravitating towards the 
 house of Habsburg, would more naturally have entered the 
 Russian State-organism. From Pereyaslavetz to Constanti- 
 nople is a short cry, and it is reasonable to conjecture that 
 under these circumstances the Slav and not the Turk would 
 in due course have stepped into the shoes of the Paleologi. 
 The palace intrigues, treason, and assassination which placed 
 
 D
 
 34 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 John Zimisces on the throne of the Caesars at this critical 
 juncture in the affairs of the Empire had an effect on the 
 destinies of Europe which can only be likened in importance 
 to the Moorish defeat on the plain of Tours at the hands of 
 Charles Martel. 
 
 After a meeting between the leaders of the two armies, 
 during which the Emperor sat his horse on the river bank 
 while the vanquished Prince stood, simply clad, in a boat 
 which he himself helped to work, the latter made his way 
 towards Kiev with the remnant of his following. But the 
 enemy which his short-sighted policy had neglected to crush 
 was waiting for him now in the hour of his extremity ; the 
 Petchenigs held the cataracts of the Dnicpr, where the 
 returning boats must be dragged ashore, and notwithstanding 
 their agreement with Zimisces, blocked the passage of the 
 Russian army. Sviatoslav waited at the mouth of the river 
 till the coming of spring, when he risked a battle with his 
 savage enemies, and lost. Warrior to the last, he died 
 fighting, and tradition has it that his skull became a drinking- 
 cup for the chief of the Petchenigs ; of the mighty host 
 which had started out for the conquest of Bulgaria but few 
 made their way back to Kiev. Thus perished Sviatoslav, 
 in spite of his Slavonic name a thorough type of the 
 Varangian chieftain. Brave, active, and enduring, his chivalry- 
 was in advance of his age, and it is told of him that he 
 always gave his enemies fair warning of attack, sending a 
 messenger before him with the tidings, " I go against you." 
 He was, however, more a fighter than a general, and did not 
 display the statesmanlike qualities of Rurik, Oleg, and Olga, 
 while the unhappy results of his partition of the realm 
 between his three sons were immediately apparent at his 
 death. Yaropalk did not enjoy any authority over the 
 districts ruled by his brothers, who lived as independent 
 princes. The inevitable quarrels were not long in breaking 
 out. Consequent on a hunting fray in the wooded Drevlian 
 country between the retainers of Oleg and Yaropalk, in 
 which one of the latter's men was killed, an armed feud 
 sprang up between the brothers, which came to a tragic end 
 
 I
 
 II 
 
 THE BUILDING OF KIEV I AN RUSSIA 35 
 
 in a fight around the town of Oubrovtch. Oleg, worsted in 977 
 the battle, was thrown down by the press of his own soldiers 
 as he was seeking to enter the town, and trampled to death 
 in the general stampede. Yaropalk is said to have been 
 plunged in remorse at this untoward event, but the news 
 was otherwise interpreted at Novgorod and caused the hasty- 
 flight of the young Vladimir to Skandinavian lands, beyond 
 the reach of his half-brother's malevolence. Yaropalk sent 
 his underlings to hold the vacant principality, and thus 
 became for the time sole ruler of Russia. The outcast, 
 however, after two years of wandering in viking lands, 
 reappeared suddenly at Novgorod with a useful following of 
 Norse adventurers, and drove out his brother's lieutenants, 
 following up this act of defiance by moving at the head of 
 his men towards Kiev. On the way he turned aside to 
 Polotzk, then held as a dependent fief by a Varangian named 
 Rogvolod. This chief had a daughter, Rogneda, trothed in 
 marriage to Yaropalk, and Vladimir, by way of ousting his 
 half-brother from all his possessions, sent and demanded her 
 hand for himself The maiden haughtily refused to wed the 
 " son of a slave," and added that she was already pledged 
 to Yaropalk ; whereupon the headstrong lover stormed the 
 town, slew her father and two brothers, and bore off the 
 unwilling bride — a wooing which somewhat resembles that 
 of William the Norman and Matilda of Flanders some half- 
 hundred years later. The despoiled rival had, on the 
 approach of Vladimir and his war-carles, shut himself up in 
 Kiev, but growing doubtful of the goodwill of the inhabitants, 
 he suffered himself to be persuaded by false counsellors to 
 move into the small town of Rodnya. In consequence of 
 this faint-hearted desertion Kiev threw open her gates to 
 Vladimir, who followed up his good fortune by besieging 
 the Prince in his new refuge. Pressed by assault without 
 and famine within — the miseries suffered by the Rodnya 
 folk have passed into a proverb — the hunted Kniaz rashly, 
 or perhaps despairingly, agreed to visit his peace- feigning 
 brother at his palace in Kiev. Yaropalk alone was allowed 
 to enter the courtyard doors, behind which lurked two
 
 36 THE RTSE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Varangian guards, who used their blades quickly and well, 
 and Vladimir reigned as sole Prince of the Russians. 
 980 The early years of the new reign were devoted to family- 
 founding on a generous scale, the Prince, by his several 
 wives and concubines, becoming the father of manifold sons, 
 all of whom bore names of distinctly Slavonic resonance. 
 By the raped Rogneda he had Isiaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav, 
 Vsevolod, and two daughters ; a second wife, of Czech origin, 
 presented him with Vouytchislav ; a third was the mother 
 of Sviatoslav, and a fourth, of Bulgarian nationality, was 
 responsible for Boris and Glieb. In addition to his own 
 ample offspring he adopted into his family Sviatopolk, the 
 posthumous son of Yaropalk. But the pressure of family 
 cares did not absorb his undivided attention. On the 
 western border several Russian strongholds in the district of 
 Galitz (Galicia) had been seized during the embarrassed 
 reign of Yaropalk by Mscislav, Duke of Poland, and for the 
 recovery of these Vladimir set his armed men in motion. 
 Tcherven, Peremysl, and other places fell into his hands, 
 but the wars on the Polish march dragged on at intervals 
 and outlasted the reigns of both princes. This was the 
 first clash of the two neighbour nations whose history 
 was to be so dramatically interblended. The Duke of 
 Poland had his hands so full with the intrusive affairs of 
 Bohemia, Hungary, the Western Empire, and the Wends, 
 that he was obliged to content himself with a policy of 
 defence on his eastern border, and Vladimir was able to 
 turn his arms in other directions. In 982 he suppressed a 
 revolt of the Viatitches, and in the next year extended his 
 authority among the Livs as far as the Baltic. According 
 to the Chronicle of the Icelandic annalist Sturleson, these 
 people paid tribute to the Russian Prince, but his sway over 
 them could only have lasted a while, as they certainly enjoyed 
 independence till a much later date. Two years later he 
 made a successful raid into the country of the Volga- 
 Bulgarians, which he wisely followed up by a well-marketed 
 peace, and returned to Kiev not empty-handed. 
 
 At this period the Christian religion was making its
 
 II THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 37 
 
 final conquest of the outlying princes and peoples of Europe. 
 The double influence of the Holy Roman Empire and the 
 Papal See — the latter now free from any dependence on the 
 Byzantine Court — gave that religion a powerful advertisement 
 among the outlandish folks, and as each nation was brought 
 into subjection to, or enjoyed intercourse with the great 
 central State, so the rites and ceremonies of the prevailing 
 worship were displayed before their eyes with all the glamour 
 and sanction of Imperial authority. The Saxon annalist, 
 Lambert of Aschaffenburg, recounts, for instance, how Easter 
 was kept at Quedlingburg in the year 973 by the Emperor 
 Otho I. and his son (afterwards Otho II.), attended by envoys 
 from Rome, Greece, Benevento, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, 
 Slavonia, Bulgaria, and Russia, " with great presents." The 
 feasts and devotions observed in the little town, the services 
 in the hill-top abbey, founded by Henry the Fowler, the 
 processions of chanting monks with lighted tapers — all in 
 honour of the Man-God who had died in a far country, but 
 who rose triumphant to live above them in the sky and 
 behind the high altar — would not fail to make deep im- 
 pression on the heathen visitors. The western Prince was 
 so much greater and richer and more powerful than their 
 princes, might not the western gods be greater than their 
 gods ? Bohemia, which early in its history came into close 
 contact with the Empire, had already adopted Christianity, 
 and in Poland Vladimir's contemporary and sometime an- 
 tagonist, Mscislav, had in 966 entered the same faith. 
 Hungary was still pagan, though its conversion was to come 
 in the lifetime of the reigning Duke (Geyza), while in 
 Norway, towards the close of the century, the worshippers 
 of Wodin were to be confronted with the alternative of 
 death or baptism. 
 
 In no country was the transition from paganism to 
 Christianity effected in so remarkable a manner as in Russia. 
 Vladimir, who had shown much zeal in erecting and orna- 
 menting statues of Peroun at Kiev and Novgorod, grew 
 suddenly dissatisfied with the national worship, without at 
 the same time feeling special attraction towards any substitute.
 
 38 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 While contemplating a desertion of the old religion he 
 naturally wished to replace it with the most reliable form 
 of faith obtainable, and for this purpose trusty counsellors 
 were sent on a mission of inquiry to Rome, to Constanti- 
 nople, to the Volga-Bulgarians (who had embraced Islam), 
 and to the Jews — probably those dwelling among the 
 Khazars. When the scattered envoys returned, the result 
 of their investigations was laid before Vladimir, and this 
 young man in search of a religion examined and compared 
 the pretensions of the competing creeds. Circumcision and 
 abstinence from wine put the cult of the Prophet out of 
 court ; the first of these objections applied equally to the 
 Jewish doctrine, and the vagabond condition of its votaries 
 offended the monarch's idea of an established religion. The 
 Romish faith was unacceptable by reason of the claims, 
 which her head was beginning to assert, of supreme 
 dominion in things spiritual and active interference in 
 temporal matters ; moreover, her ritual, especially as the 
 Russians may have seen it practised in the infant churches 
 of Bohemia, Poland, and Eastern Germany, was overshadowed 
 and eclipsed by the splendid ceremonial of the Greek Church, 
 particularly in the services of S. Sophia at Constantinople. 
 " The magnificence of the temple, the presence of all the 
 Greek clergy, the richness of the sacerdotal vestments, the 
 ornaments of the altar, the exquisite odour of the incense, 
 the sweet singing of the choirs, the silence of the people, 
 in short, the holy and mysterious majesty of the ceremonies, 
 all struck the Russians with admiration." ^ The recital of 
 these splendours inclined the Prince to a favourable con- 
 sideration of the Greek faith, if indeed he had not previousl)- 
 had leanings towards that religion, and the finishing touch 
 was added by an argument which appealed to his family 
 pride. " If the Greek religion had not been the true religion, 
 would your grandmother Olga, the wisest of mortals, have 
 adopted it ? " asked the partisans of the new doctrines ; and 
 the matter was settled. But Vladimir had a procedure of 
 his own for the delicate process of changing his religion : 
 
 * Karamzin,
 
 II 
 
 THE BUILDING OF K IE VI AN RUSSIA 39 
 
 not as a humble penitent was he going to enter the true 
 Church. For the baptism of a sovereign prince an arch- 
 bishop was an indispensable requisite, and it did not suit his 
 ideas of dignity to apply for the loan of such a functionary 
 to the Greek Emperors, who would have been only too glad 
 to oblige him in the matter. Vladimir chose rather to 
 capture his archbishop. For this purpose he engaged in 
 one of the most extraordinary expeditions which history has 
 furnished. Setting out from Kiev with a large host, he 
 made his way down the Dniepr and along the Black Sea 
 coast to the ancient town of Kherson, a self-governing 
 dependency of the Eastern Empire. Closely besieging it, 
 he was met with a desperate resistance, and only made him- 
 self master of the place by cutting off the springs which 
 supplied it with water. From this position of vantage he 
 sent to the brothers Basil and Constantine, who shared the 
 Greek Imperial throne, a request or demand for the hand 
 of their sister Anne. The circumstances of these princes 
 did not admit of a refusal ; the celebrated generals Bardas 
 Sclerus and Phocas were in active revolt against the suc- 
 cessors of John Zimisces, and another change of dynasty 
 seemed imminent ; consequently Vladimir's suggested alliance 
 was agreed to on the stipulation that he became a Christian 
 and furnished the Imperial family with some Russian auxili- 
 aries. The Princess Anne was despatched to join her destined 
 husband, who was forthwith baptized by the Archbishop of 
 Kherson in the church of S. Basil, and the marriage ceremony 
 followed. The Prince returned to Kiev with his bride and 
 a strange booty of priests, sacred vessels, and saintly relics, 
 having restored unfortunate Kherson, for which he had no 
 further use, to the Greek Emperors, and sent them the 
 promised succours. By this satisfactory arrangement Basil 
 and Constantine were able to conserve their possession of 
 the Byzantine Empire, while Vladimir on his part " obtained 
 the hand of the princess and the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Fantastic as this procedure of conversion may at first 
 sight appear, there was probably sound policy underlying it ; 
 the Russians would be reconciled to the deposition of their
 
 40 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 wonted gods, and the acceptance of fresh ones from their 
 old enemies, the Greeks, by the consoling reflection that 
 their Prince had, at the sword's point, " captured " the new 
 religion from alien hands. Priests have taught that there 
 is but one way of entering the true faith ; Vladimir demon- 
 strated that there are at least two. 
 
 The conversion of the people followed in due course ; 
 the wooden statue of Peroun, with its silver face and 
 moustache of gold, was thrown down, flogged with whips, 
 and hurled into the Dniepr, whose waters cast it up again 
 on the bank. The affrighted people rushed to worship 
 their old god, but the Prince's men pushed him back into 
 the current, and Peroun the silver- faced was swept down 
 the stream and vanished into the purple haze " where the 
 dead gods sleep." 
 
 On the banks of the same river that had engulfed their 
 fallen idol the inhabitants of Kiev were mustered by com- 
 mand, and after the Greek priests had consecrated its waters, 
 into it plunged at a given signal the whole wondering 
 multitude, men, women, and children, and were baptized in 
 one batch. A like scene was enacted at Novgorod, with 
 the substitution of the Volkhov for the Dniepr, and through- 
 out Russia the transition was effected in an equally success- 
 ful manner. No doubt the cult of the ancient pantheism 
 lingered for a while, especially in the remoter districts, but 
 it was merged in time in the saint worship of the new 
 religion, and the old heathen festivals and year -marks 
 became, under other names, those of the Christian calendar. 
 The feast of Kolyada and the birthday of the Sun slid 
 naturally into the celebrations of the Nativity without losing 
 aught of its festive character. In similar fashion the institu- 
 tions of the Greek Orthodox Church everywhere took root 
 in the country till they became part of the life of the people. 
 Kiev henceforth is a city of churches and shrines, with its 
 Cathedral of S. Sofia and its Golden Gate, in ambitious 
 imitation of Constantinople. 
 
 The adoption of Christianity in its Greek form exercised 
 a momentous influence on the history of Russia. Up to
 
 II 
 
 THE BUILDING OF K IE VI AN RUSSIA 41 
 
 this point she had been travelling in the same direction as 
 the erowinsT nations around her, and seemed destined to 
 take her place in the European family ; but by taking as 
 her ghostly sponsor the decaying Byzantine State, which 
 could scarcely protect its own territories, instead of cultivating 
 the alliance of the all-powerful Roman Papacy, she prepared 
 herself for a gradual isolation from Western civilisation and 
 Western sympathy. For although the actual temporal power 
 of the Holy See did not extend much beyond the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the Eternal City, the moral ascendancy 
 which the Church possessed over some fifteen kingdoms and 
 a crowd of lesser states gave her the disposal of an ever- 
 available fund of temporal support, and enabled her to 
 extend her protection or assistance to all the bodies politic, 
 great or small, within her communion. Witness, for instance, 
 the vast armies she was able to send careering into the 
 " Holy Land " on behoof of Jerusalem-bound pilgrims, and 
 later, the troops she could raise from various parts of the 
 Empire for the reinforcement of the Teutonic Order in its 
 struggles with the heathen Prussians and Pomeranians. 
 Russia, by her adoption of the Greek instead of the Roman 
 faith, put herself beyond the pale of Catholic Christendom, 
 and in the hour of her striving with the Mongol Horde could 
 look for no help from Western Europe ; when she emerged 
 from that strife she was less European than Asiatic. In 
 like manner the Greek Empire, two hundred years later, 
 fell unbefriended into the hands of the Ottomans. And in 
 civilisation as well as in war the dominions of the princes 
 of Kiev suffered from their lack of intercourse with Rome ; 
 the visits of cardinals and nuncios would have served as a 
 constant link between Russia and the West, and have stimu- 
 lated the growth of towns in the wild lands that led up to 
 the Dniepr basin. What in fact Rome did for Hungary, 
 on the latter's entry into the Latin Church — raising her 
 from the position of a semi-barbarous state to that of an 
 important kingdom — that might she have done under similar 
 circumstances for the Eastern principality. There is, of course, 
 another side to this reckoning ; Russia, at least, was spared
 
 42 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 some of the distractions and unhappinesses which radiated 
 from the throne of the apostles, while her ver>' isolation in 
 matters of religious polity helped to preserve for her a strong 
 individuality which other Slav or Magyar nations lost as 
 the price of their intercourse with Catholic-Teutonic Europe. 
 Possibly her history is not even yet sufficiently developed 
 for a final assessment of the matter, but for present purposes 
 it is necessary to note a turning-point in her political evolu- 
 tion — a turn towards the East. 
 
 Although Christianity was become opposed to the {practice 
 of polygamy, Vladimir's first act after his baptism had been 
 to increase his connubial establishment by marriage with 
 the Imperial princess. Three more sons had been added 
 to his already ample family, and, disregarding the lesson of 
 the disturbances which had followed the partition of the 
 realm between himself and his half-brothers, the Prince 
 resolved to parcel out his dominions among his surviving 
 sons and his nephew. Eight principalities were carved out 
 from the parent stem, and became each the share of a de- 
 pendent kniaz, to wit, Novgorod, Polotzk, Rostov, Mourom, 
 the Drevlian country, Vladimir (in Volhynia), Tmoutorokan, 
 and Tourov, 
 
 In 998 the Russian arms were turned successfully 
 against the Krovatians on the Galician frontier, and against 
 the ever troublesome Petchenigs, who continued to disturb 
 the southern borders at intervals during the reign. 
 
 Another war broke out later in the north. Vladimir 
 had given refuge, and possibly support, to Olaf, aspirant to 
 the Norwegian crown, then held by Erik, and when Olaf 
 at last succeeded in ousting his rival, the latter, in revenge, 
 " came into the realm of King Vladimir," in the vigorous 
 words of the Icelandic saga, and " fell a-harrying, and slew 
 men-folk, and burnt all before him, and laid waste the land ; 
 and he came to Aldeigia-burg,^ and beset it till he won the 
 stead. There he slew many folk and brake down and burnt 
 all the burg, and thereafter fared wide about Garth-realm ^ 
 doing all deeds of war." It was four years before Vladimir 
 
 1 Old Ladoga. 2 Qld Skandinavian name for Russia.
 
 II 
 
 THE BUILDING OF K IE VI AN RUSSIA 43 
 
 was able to drive the " spear-storm bounteous Eric " away 
 from his northern coasts. The date of this war is uncertain ; 
 probably it stretched into the second decade of the new 
 century. Vladimir, who had lost his Imperial throne-mate 
 in loii, was confronted in 10 14 with a domestic trouble 
 of another nature; his son Yaroslav, Kniaz of Novgorod, 
 refused to continue the yearly tribute which that principality 
 was wont to pay into the Grand Prince's treasury, and 
 declared himself independent of Kiev. Vladimir made 
 ready to march against his rebellious son, who on his 
 part prepared to resist his angry father, but the sudden 
 failing of the old man's powers and an inroad of the perennial 
 Petchenigs delayed the struggle. Vladimir's favourite son 
 Boris, Prince of Rostov, was put in charge of the forces sent 
 against the invaders, and during his absence the monarch 1015 
 ended his days at Berestov (a village near Kiev), leaving the 
 succession to the Grand principality an open question. 
 
 The character of this Prince, to whom the Church gave 
 the title of " Holy," and who was commemorated by his 
 subjects as " the Great," is a difficult one for the historian to 
 appraise. The excesses of a stormy and well-spent youth 
 were atoned for, in the eyes of the monkish chroniclers, by 
 an old age of almsgiving and other decorative virtues, and 
 in most respects the doings of his reign gave evidence of 
 wise and wary management. The splitting up of his kingdom 
 was a flaw in his statecraft which had, however, the sanction 
 of custom in the times in which he lived. 
 
 The only member of the Grand Prince's family within 
 reach of Kiev at the moment of his death was his nephew 
 Sviatopalk, ruler of the province of Tourov, in which capa- 
 city, according to the contemporary Chronicle of Ditmar, 
 Bishop of Merseburg, he had, at the prompting of his father- 
 in-law Boleslas, King of Poland, raised a rebellion against 
 Vladimir. The attempt was frustrated and punished by the 
 imprisonment of the rebel and his wife, but apparently a 
 reconciliation had taken place between the uncle and nephew, 
 and Sviatopalk was at large, and, what was more important, 
 on the spot when the throne of Kiev became empty. The
 
 44 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 boyarins of the court, ill-disposed towards a prince who was 
 outside the immediate family of their late master, tried to 
 keep back the tidings of his death while they sent mes- 
 sengers to recall Boris from his fruitless campaign against 
 the Petchenigs. The corpse was wrapped round in a 
 covering, let down by ropes from a palace window in the 
 dead of night, and borne hurriedly to the church of the 
 Bogoroditza (Mother of God) at Kiev. Rumours of the 
 Prince's death, however, began to fly about the city, and all 
 precautions were rendered abortive by the tell-tale sight of 
 the crowds which flocked to lament over his body. Sviato- 
 palk proclaimed himself Grand Prince, rallied the boyarins to 
 his side by a timely distribution of gifts, and then proceeded 
 to strike, with the instinct of self-preservation, at the several 
 kinsmen who were within reach. Prince Boris was surprised 
 and slain one night in his tent near the banks of the Alta, 
 being, the Chronicles relate, engaged in prayer at the time of 
 his murder. This circumstance procured for him the post- 
 humous honour of sainthood, and he became a national fetish 
 in the calendar of the Russian Church. His brother Glieb, 
 decoyed from his principality of Mourom by a feigned 
 message from his defunct father, was waylaid while travelling 
 down the Dniepr and met the same doom — shared also in 
 the attendant glory of subsequent canonisafion. Sviatoslav, 
 Prince of the Drevlian country, taking natural affright at 
 Sviatopalk's deeds, which seemed to foreshadow the extinc- 
 tion of the sons of Vladimir, fled towards Hungary ; at the 
 foot of the Karpathian Mountains, however, he was overtaken 
 and killed by the Grand Prince's men. PVom this scene of 
 slaughter and violence there escaped a shivering fugitive, the 
 Princess Predslava, a daughter of the luckless house of 
 Vladimir, who made her way with all speed to Novgorod : 
 there she found her brother Yaroslav red with the blood of 
 his subjects, shed in cold vindictiveness rather than in hot 
 quarrel. The hideous wrath and dole called forth by the 
 doings of Sviatopalk mastered all other passions, and led the 
 Prince to throw himself on the goodwill ofHiis misused 
 people ; and the men of Novgorod, foregoing their private
 
 II THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 45 
 
 griefs, turned their rage and their weapons against the 
 monster of Kiev. A thousand Varangians and fourteen 1016 
 thousand Russians marched southward with Yaroslav against 
 Sviatopalk, who on his part had got together a large force, 
 including a troop of Petchenigs. A battle was fought on 
 the Dniepr banks near Lubetch, which resulted in the over- 
 throw of the usurper, who fled to Poland, leaving the throne 
 of Kiev to his triumphant rival. 
 
 Yaroslav did not remain long time in peaceable possession. 
 Boleslas " Khrabrie," the warlike King of Poland, having by 
 the Peace of Bautzen composed his outstanding differences 
 with the Germanic Kaiser (Heinrich II.), burst into Russia at 
 the head of a large army, defeated Yaroslav on the banks of 
 the Bug, and reimposed his son-in-law upon the people of 
 Kiev. The ousted prince withdrew to Novgorod, and but 
 for the insistance of his subjects would have sought sanctuary, 
 as his father had done under similar circumstances, in Skan- 
 dinavian lands. The Novgorodskie, not wishing to be left to 
 the wrath of Sviatopalk, kept their prince with them by the 
 simple expedient of destroying all the boats available for his 
 flight. Sviatopalk himself smoothed the way for a renewal 
 of the strife on more equal terms. The Poles had been 
 distributed in scattered winter quarters throughout the 
 province of Kiev, and Boleslas himself had estafetished his 
 court in the city. Possibly the Russian Kniaz was impatient 
 of the prolonged presence of the Poles in his lands, and deemed 
 that heroic measures were needed to hasten their departure ; 
 anyhow he devised and carried out the plan of a general 
 massacre of the unwelcome guests. Boleslas hastily left 
 Kiev with the remnant of his men, bearing with him as much 
 treasure as he could lay hands on, and retaining in his hold 
 the Red Russian towns on his border. The departure of 
 the Poles brought as a consequence the onfall of Yaroslav, 
 and Sviatopalk was obliged to seek support among the 
 Petchenigs before venturing to take the field against his 
 cousin. The two forces met near the ^anks of the Alta, and 1019 
 there was waged a fierce and stubborn battle, the like of 
 which, wrote the Kievian chronicler, had never been seen in
 
 46 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 Russia. Towards evening Yaroslav's men gained the victory, 
 and Sviatopalk, half-dead with fatigue, delirious with fear, and 
 unable to sit his horse, was borne litter-wise through the 
 whispering night in wild flight across a wild countr>', hunted 
 ever by phantom foemen, and moaning ever to his bearers 
 piteous entreaty for added speed. The fugitive checked his 
 spent course in the" deserts of the Bohemian border, where 
 he died miserably, and contemporary legend, recalling the 
 circumstances of his birth, asserted that he was born for 
 crime. In which case he fulfilled his purpose. 
 
 Yaroslav was now master of Kiev and Novgorod and 
 Grand Prince of Russia, but the family arrangements of 
 Vladimir's many heirs had not yet adjusted themselves. 
 From Isiaslav, Kniaz of Polotzk, sprang a line of turbulent 
 princes who contributed a fair share to the domestic troubles 
 of Russia during the next hundred years.^ Still more for- 
 midable for the time being was Mstislav, whose family 
 portion was Tmoutorakan, a province bordering on the 
 Black Sea. In conjunction with the Greek Imperial General 
 (1016) Andronicus he had driven the Khazars from the Tauridc and 
 put a finishing touch to their existence as a European State. 
 Other victories over the Tcherkess tribes in his neighbour- 
 hood swelled both his ideas and his resources, and he began 
 to feel his remote steppe-girded province too small for him. 
 In 1023, while Yaroslav was away in the Souzdal country, 
 Mstislav burst with his warriors into the grand principality 
 and seized upon Tchernigov in the Sieverski plain. The 
 harassed Grand Prince fled to Novgorod — his usual city of 
 refuge — and sent urgent messengers over the Baltic to call 
 in the ever-ready Varangians to his aid. In response came 
 a large force, led by one Hako (in the Russian Chronicle 
 Yakun), who has come down to posterity as suffering from 
 sore eyes and wearing a bandage over them broidered with 
 gold — a human touch in the portrait of one of these half- 
 mythical seeming vikings. The avenging army came into 
 the Tchernigov land and met their foes on the banks of a 
 small river, the two forces sighting one another just as night 
 
 ^ See genealogical table.
 
 n THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 47 
 
 was falling and a nasty storm creeping upon them. As the 
 storm broke over the Grand Prince's host, accompanied by 
 thunder peals and torrents of rain, out of the night there 
 rushed in on them the war-men of the intrepid Mstislav, who 
 rivalled with his wild battle-shock the tumult of the elements. 
 In the darkness men fought hand to hand with a foe they 
 could not see ; the storm in the heavens rolled away, but the 
 humans fought on, their arms flashing in the gleam of the 
 stars, " a combat without comparison, murderous, terrible, and 
 truly frightful." ^ A charge by Mstislav and his body-guards 
 decided the day — or rather the night — and Yaroslav fled 
 from the field of this epic struggle to his haven in the North. 
 Hakon of the sore eyes left on the ground his gold-wrought 
 bandage as a trophy for the victorious Tchernigovskie. 
 Mstislav did not push his advantage to the extent of depriv- 
 ing Yaroslav of his princely dignity, and five years later a 
 pact was made between the brothers which left the younger 
 in possession of the lands he had won east of the Dniepr. 
 Yaroslav was thus enabled to turn his attention to the out- 
 lying regions of the realm, where his authority had lapsed 
 during the long civil strife. In the year 1030 Livland was 
 again brought under some sort of subjection, and the town of 
 Youriev (the German Dorpat) founded near Lake Peipus. 
 The domestic troubles of Poland, where Mieceslav II., son of 
 Boleslas Khrabrie (who had died 1025), was waging a hotly 
 contested war with his brothers and the Kaiser Konrad II., 
 gave an opportunity for regaining the Red Russian towns 
 which perennially changed hands according to the respective 
 strength and weakness of the two countries. Yaroslav, in 1031 
 conjunction with his half-brother, invaded Poland and wrested 
 back the lost territory. In 1034 died Mstislav, at the end 
 of a day's hunting, having shortly before lost his only son 
 Evstaf Of all the sons of Vladimir this intrepid warrior 
 "with dark .face and large eyes" seems most to have en- 
 chained the imagination of the national chronicler. 
 
 Yaroslav, freed from the disquieting possibility of trouble 
 which Mstislav must always have presented, made himself 
 
 ^ Clu-oniqtie de Nestor.
 
 48 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 still more secure by seizing and imprisoning, on pretext of 
 disaffection, Soudislav of Pskov, another member of the 
 princely house. Shortly afterwards he was called upon to 
 defend Kiev from an attack of the Petchenigs. Near the 
 walls of the city Yaroslav joined issue with the barbarians, 
 his vanguard consisting of Varangians, flanked right and 
 left by the men of Kiev and Novgorod. After a battle which 
 lasted till evening the Petchenigs broke and fled, leaving 
 enormous numbers of dead on the field, and losing many 
 more in crossing the rivers which impeded their flight. On 
 the ground of this victory Yaroslav founded the Cathedral 
 of S. Sofia, extending at the. same time the boundaries of 
 Kiev so as to include this building, and enclosing the city 
 with a stone wall. Well might the Kicvians rejoice as they 
 watched the new works, which were alike the witness of 
 their growing prosperity and a memorial of a past danger ; 
 they had at last grasped their nettle, and the might of the 
 Petchenigs, which had hung so long like a menacing 
 shadow ready at any moment to ride out of the steppe a 
 grim reality, was for ever shattered. And as the new 
 cathedral rose before them their hopes might soar to a point 
 which would raise the mother of Russian cities to the level 
 of Constantinople. 
 
 Amid their own congratulations and complacency came 
 news of the misfortunes of a neighbouring and rival state ; 
 possibly across the border, through Krobatian and Drevlian 
 lands, more probably by a less direct route, by word of 
 merchants from the Oder and Weichsel filtering down from 
 Novgorod or Polotzk, tidings would reach them of wild 
 doings in Poland. Mieceslav II. had "passed in battle and 
 in storm " ; and diminished though his territories were under 
 stress of German, Russian, and Bohemian filchings, they 
 were more than a handful for his widow and youthful son to 
 manage. Richense, daughter of Ehrcnfrid, I'falzgraf of the 
 Rhine, tries to play the Queen-mother with the support of 
 a hierarchy itself not yet firmly established ; but she is no 
 Olga, moreover she is a German. The bishops are German 
 too, and throne, hierarchy, new religion, and all are involved
 
 II THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 49 
 
 in the whirlwind of a reaction that scatters them in all 
 directions, Richense to the court of the Emperor in Saxony, 
 her son, Kazimir, to France, where he enters the service of 
 Mother Church as a monk of the celebrated Abbey of Cluny. 
 Yaroslav, taking advantage of the weakness of his western 
 neighbour, began in 1040 a series of campaigns against the 
 tribes which inhabited the dense marsh and river- sected 
 forests lying to the north-east of Poland, between Russia 
 and the Baltic. The Yatvyags first occupied his attention, 
 though it is doubtful if he acquired more than a transient 
 sway over them. He next turned the weight of his arms 
 against the Lit'uanians, upon a section of whom at least he 
 imposed a tribute. The year 1041 found him actually in 
 Polish territory, in the province or palatinate of Mazovia, 
 which had separated from the lands of the Polish crown — if 
 such a designation can be used during an interregnum — 
 under the rule of a heathen noble named Mazlav, from 
 whom the province took its name. Meanwhile the force of 
 the reaction in Poland had spent itself, the bishops retook 
 possession of their dioceses, and Kazimir was fetched, with 
 the Pope's permission, from the peaceful seclusion of the 
 Burgundian monastery to the management of a country 
 smouldering with the embers of anarchy and religious 
 persecution. Yaroslav seized the opportunity to form an 
 alliance with the young Duke of Poland, by virtue of which 
 the contested Galician or Red Russian March was definitely 
 ceded to the Grand Prince, who on his part helped Kazimir 
 to defeat the rebel Voevoda ^ of Mazovia and reannex that 
 province to his duchy. The good understanding between 
 the princes was cemented by the marriage of Kazimir with 
 Mariya, sister of Yaroslav. 
 
 Russia was thus freed from the apprehension of trouble 
 both on the Polish frontier and on the side of the steppes, 
 where the power of the Petchenigs was effectively 
 broken. A new war-cloud, however, rose in the south, 
 
 ^ Although loth to introduce a fresh spelling for a word which has already 
 been rendered in some dozen or more forms by English, French, and German 
 historians, I have thought it best to follow the Russian orthography of this 
 Slavonic title. 
 
 E
 
 so 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 emanating from a quarrel among Greek and Russian 
 merchants at Constantinople, in which one of the latter 
 was killed. Yaroslav demanded satisfaction from the 
 Greek Emperor, Constantine Monomachus, and not obtaining 
 1043 it, he sent an army against the Greeks, confiding its direction 
 to his eldest son Vladimir and a boyarin named Vyatcha. 
 Scorning the overtures for peace which came at late moment 
 from the frightened Emperor, the Russians met their enemies 
 in a naval fight, wherein the Greek fire and the inevitable 
 storm played their accustomed parts. Six thousand of 
 Vladimir's men were forced to abandon their damaged 
 vessels and attempt to make good their retreat overland, led 
 by Vyatcha, who would not desert them in their extremity. 
 Constantine, instead of resting content with the victory 
 which fortune had given him, or following it up with a 
 vigorous pursuit, satisfied himself with half- measures, 
 returning in premature triumph to his capital while he sent 
 the remainder of his ships to hunt the Russians out of the 
 Bosphorus. Vladimir meanwhile had rallied his fleet and 
 turned fiercely at bay, destroying twenty-five of the Byzantine 
 vessels and killing their admiral. Consoled by this success 
 he returned home, carrying with him many prisoners. The 
 division which had attempted the land passage was less 
 happy ; overpowered by a large Greek force near Varna, 
 the survivors were taken captive to Constantinople, where 
 many of them, including the brave boyarin, were deprived 
 of their eyesight. 
 
 This was the last of the series of expeditions made by 
 the early rulers of Russia against Constantinople, expeditions 
 which suggest a parallel with those against Rome which 
 exercised such a fatal fascination over the Saxon and 
 Franconian Emperors of Germany at the same period. Not 
 for many a long century were the Russian arms to push 
 again across the blue waters of the Danube into the land 
 of their desire. In 1046 peace was formally concluded 
 between the two countries, and the blinded prisoners were 
 allowed to return to their native land. 
 
 The remaining years of Yaroslav were years of peace
 
 II THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN RUSSIA 51 
 
 and prosperity within his realm. Allied with the Court of 
 Poland by the double marriage of his sister with Duke 
 Kazimir, and of the latter's sister with his . second son 
 Isiaslav, he was in like manner connected with the house 
 of Arpad by the marriage of his youngest daughter Anastasia 
 with Andrew I. of Hungary ; with Harold the Brave, after- 
 wards King of Norway, who espoused his eldest daughter 
 Elizabeth ; and with the royal family of France by the 
 marriage of his second daughter Anne with Henri I. And 
 not only by court alliances was the Russia of this period 
 connected with the other states of Europe. Commerce had 
 made great strides in the last half-hundred years, and Kiev, 
 in the zenith of her fortunes, attracted traders from many 
 lands ; besides her 300 churches she had 8 markets, there 
 were separate quarters for Hungarian, Hollandish, German, 
 and Skandinavian merchants, and the Dniepr was constantly 
 covered with cargo vessels. Novgorod was another important 
 centre of trade and foreign intercourse. A more convenient 
 medium of exchange, always a stimulating factor in commerce, 
 was gradually superseding the hides and pelts which were 
 the earliest articles of sale and barter ; the first step had 
 been to substitute leather tokens cut from the skins them- 
 selves, called kounas, from kounitza, a marten (being generally 
 cut from a marten pelt). These were replaced, as silver 
 grew more plentiful in the country, by coins of that metal, 
 stamped with rude representations of the reigning prince. 
 
 Following the time -hallowed custom of his forbears, 
 Yaroslav in his last days divided the lands of his realm 
 among his surviving sons. (Vladimir, the eldest, had died 
 in 1052.) Isiaslav became, after his father's death. Grand 
 Prince of Kiev, his four brothers being settled respectively 
 in the sub-provinces of Tchernigov, Pereyaslavl, Smolensk, 
 and Volhynia. Polotzk was still held by the other branch 
 of the family. Yaroslav died at Voutchigorod on the 19th 
 February 1054. On a winter's day his corpse was borne in 
 mournful procession along the snow-clad road to Kiev, there 
 to rest in a marble tomb in a side chapel of the Cathedral 
 of S. Sofia.
 
 52 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, ii 
 
 Under Yaroslav Russia enjoyed a prosperity and position 
 that was lost in the partitions and discords of his successors, 
 and this circumstance was probably responsible for the 
 somewhat flattering estimate that was formed of his character 
 by subsequent chroniclers.^ As patron of Kiev and benefactor 
 to the Church he was naturally glorious and good in the 
 eyes of Nestor, and by some writers he has been styled " the 
 Russian Charlemagne," on account of the code of laws which 
 he formulated for his country. Concerning his piety, he 
 lived in an age when much giving from the State treasury 
 to church or monastery counted for such, and it is recorded 
 of him that his dying words charged his sons to " treat each 
 other as brothers " and " have great tenderness " one for 
 another. His own brother still lay in the prison that was 
 his living tomb for over a score of years. 
 
 1 Karamzin, Solov'ev, Schiemann, Rambaud, Chronique de Nestor.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 
 
 The history of Russia during the next two hundred years is 
 little more than a long chronicle of aimless and inconsequent 
 feuds between the multiple Princes of the Blood — "the 
 much-too-many " of their crowded little world — overlaid and 
 beclouded with strange-sounding names recurring and clashing 
 in a luxuriant tangle of pedigree, and further embarrassed 
 by a perpetual shifting and reshifting of the family ap- 
 panages. Here and there the figure of some particular kniaz 
 stands out for a space from the ravelled skein that the old 
 historians painstakingly wove upon the loom of their 
 chronicles, but for the most part the student searches in vain 
 for glimpses of the real life-story of Russia during this barren 
 and over-trampled period. 
 
 The city of Kiev, carrying with it the dignity of the 
 Grand-princedom and the nominal authority over the whole 
 realm, was the key-stone of the body politic as Yaroslav left 
 it, but the loosely-ordered theory of succession which obtained 
 in the Slavonic world led to a perpetual dislocation of this 
 local and ill-defined supremacy, and robbed the arch-throne 
 of any chance of making good its claimed dominion over 
 the other units of the State. Under Isiaslav I. and the 
 brothers, son, and nephew who succeeded him in promiscuous 
 order,^ Kiev became merely a focussing point for the pro- 
 fusion of quarrels and petty revolutions which were set in 
 perpetual motion by the restless ambition of the neighbouring 
 Princes of Polotzk, Smolensk, and Tchernigov. The last- 
 ^ See Table I. for Grand Princes of Kiev.
 
 54 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 named province passed into the possession of Oleg Sviato- 
 slavitch^ (nephew of Isiaslav), and from him sprang the 
 house of Olgovitch, which held the fief of Tchernigov for 
 many generations and convulsed South Russia again and 
 again in its attempts to grasp the throne of Kiev, this 
 hereditary feud of the Olgovitchie with the branch of 
 Vsevolod being the most understandable feature of the pre- 
 vailing strife-storms of the period. A factor which might 
 have been supposed to make for unity and self-help among 
 the detached Russian rulers, but which instead frequently 
 served to complicate the distresses of the country, was the 
 appearance in the south-east, shortly after the death of 
 Yaroslav, of a new enemy, rising phcenix-like on the ruin of 
 the Petchenigs. The Polovtzi, or Kumans, a nomad race of 
 Turko origin, were even fiercer and more cruel than the tribe 
 they had replaced, and their fighting value was such that 
 the princes, though frequently banding in short-lived leagues 
 against them, were often tempted to invoke their aid in 
 pressing family quarrels, and even stooped to mate with 
 their chieftain women — a woful falling away from the bridal 
 splendours of the Court of Yaroslav. 
 
 During the reigns of Isiaslav's three immediate successors 
 two figures stand out prominently amid the bewildering 
 plurality of princes, respectively playing the part of good 
 and evil geniuses of the country. Vladimir Monomachus, son 
 of Vsevolod, sometime Prince of Kiev, fulfils the former 
 function with commendable assiduity, righting wrongs and 
 averting national disasters after the most approved chivalric 
 pattern, and ever ready to improve the occasion by the 
 delivery of irreproachable sentiments — if these were not 
 fathered upon him by the chroniclers of the time. Through- 
 out the turmoil which distinguishes the close of the eleventh 
 century he hovers in the background, like the falcon of Ser 
 Federigo, with his air of " if anything is wanting I am here." 
 The other side of the picture — and picture it doubtless is, in 
 a large measure, painted by the prejudice and ornamented 
 by the fancies of the old-time annalists — is the wayward 
 ^ The affix vitch signifies son of: Sviatoslavitch — son of Sviatoslav.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 55 
 
 Prince of Polotzk/ ever ready to devise new troubles for his 
 groaning country, always managing to elude the consequences 
 of his transgressions against the peace. Naturally he 
 achieves the reputation of having more than human powers ; 
 rumour has it that he traversed the road from Kiev to 
 Tmoutorakan in a single night, and the unholy wight could 
 in Kiev hear the clock of the Sofia church at Polotzk striking 
 the hours. The suddenness with which he would appear 
 before the gates of some distant town gave rise, no doubt, to 
 the belief that he assumed the form of a wolf on these occa- 
 sions : " He sped, in blue obscurity hidden, as a wild beast, 
 at midnight to Bielgrad, at morning . . . opened the gate 
 of Novgorod, destroyed the glory of Yaroslav, and hunted as 
 a wolf from Dudutki to Nemiga." ^ Wonders of an evil 
 nature were reported from his capital, where malevolent 
 spirits rode on horseback through the streets day and night, 
 wounding the inhabitants. What with the intermittent 
 attacks of the princes of the house of Yaroslav and the 
 eerie enemies within the town, it must have required excep- 
 tional nerve to be a citizen of Polotzk. In iioi closes the 
 eventful life of the wehr-wolf prince, who makes his last lone 
 journey into the " blue obscurity," where perhaps his " white 
 soul " yet hies in wolf's gallop over the eternal plains. 
 
 Four years earlier (1097) an interesting gathering had 
 taken place of the numerous princes of the line of Yaroslav, 
 who were assembled together in the town of Lubetch, " on 
 the same carpet," and swore on the Holy Cross to live in 
 peace and friendship with each other. With a limited 
 number of fiefs and a superabundant supply of Princes of 
 the Blood, many of whom were necessarily in the position 
 of have-nots, it was scarcely likely that the public pact 
 would be very long-lived, but a decent lull might have been 
 looked for before the outbreak of new dissensions. David 
 Igorovitch, cousin of the Grand Prince Sviatopalk, went 
 straight from the council of peace, from the carpet-in-common 
 and the bekissed cross, to stir up fresh strife in the West 
 
 ^ Vseslav Briatcheslavitch. 
 '•^ "The Song of the Expedition of Igor."
 
 56 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAX EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Russian country, and the series of wars which ensued was 
 remarkable for the armed participation of Kalman, King of 
 Hungary. The reason for this foreign intermeddhng, which 
 ended in signal discomfiture and a hurried retreat across the 
 Karpathians, is not obvious. " What were the causes of this 
 war," wrote a Hungarian annalist.^ " are not to be ascertained." 
 It was, however, the opening of a long chapter of western 
 encroachments in the affairs of the Red Russian provinces, 
 while in the steppe-lands of the south, Tmoutorakan and 
 other territory slipped into the hands of the Kuman 
 tribesmen. 
 1113 The accession of Vladimir Monomachus to the dignity 
 of VeHkie Kniaz gave Kiev for the time being greater im- 
 portance as the sovereign State, since the lands of P^r^ya- 
 slavl, Novgorod, and Souzdal were also held in the monarch's 
 family. Under his son Mstislav the Novgorodskie pushed 
 their arms into Livland and took the town of Odenpay 
 (bear's head), and later these hardy and enterprising folk 
 swept the desolate Finnish northlands into their wide 
 dominion. The character of Vladimir (who died in 1125, 
 and was succeeded by Mstislav) exercised a lively hold on 
 the imaginations of his countr}*men, and he is yet reckoned 
 among those sovereigns " whose earthly diadems beamed in 
 anticipation of the crowns they were to receive in Paradise." 
 This much may fairly be said of him, that during his career, 
 and particularly during his reign, Russia enjoyed a greater 
 measure of cohesion than she experienced under his im- 
 mediate successors, and that this was in no small measure 
 the outcome of a carefully thought-out and scrupulously 
 applied policy. But the greatest monument to Vladimir's 
 memory is the parchment document which he left for the 
 guidance of his sons, and which is preserved in the archives 
 of his country as a precious historical relic 
 
 " Bear in mind that a man ought always to be employed" 
 is one of the admonitions of this remarkable homily, though 
 if the persons addressed imitated the example therein dis- 
 played it was scarcely needed. " For my part I accustomed 
 
 ^ Georg Pray.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 57 
 
 myself to do everything that I might have ordered my 
 servants to do. Night and day, summer and winter, I was 
 perpetually moving about. I wished to see everything with 
 my own eyes. ... I made it my duty to inspect the 
 churches and the sacred ceremonies of religion, as well as 
 the management of my property, my stables, and the eagles 
 and hawks of my hunting establishment. I have made 
 eighty-three campaigns and many expeditions. I concluded 
 nineteen treaties with the Polovtzi. I took captive one 
 hundred of their princes, whom I set free again ; and I put 
 two hundred of them to death by throwing them into rivers. 
 No one has ever travelled more rapidly than I have done. 
 Setting out in the morning from Tchernigov, I have arrived 
 at Kiev before the hour of vespers." (A feat surpassed by 
 the goblin-post of the Prince of Polotzk.) " In hunting 
 amidst the thickest forests, how many times have I myself 
 caught wild horses and bound them together ? How many 
 timies have I been thrown down by buffaloes, wounded by 
 the antlers of stags, and trodden under the feet of elks ? A 
 furious boar rent my sword from my baldrick ; my saddle 
 was torn to pieces by a bear ; this terrible beast rushed 
 upon my steed, whom he threw down upon me. But the 
 Lord protected me." 
 
 There is a suspicion of exaggeration in the number of 
 campaigns enumerated, besides " many expeditions," and the 
 hunting reminiscences are almost too full of incident ; neither 
 do wild horses, as a rule, inhabit the thickest forests. 
 Allowing for these enlargements of old age, however, the 
 outlines are probably true. 
 
 " Oh, my children," the testator continues, " fear neither 
 death nor wild beasts. Trust in Providence ; it far surpasses 
 all human precautions." In order, presumably, not to risk 
 all his eggs in one basket, he qualifies this pious aphorism 
 with the follovvinp; excellent advice : " Never retire to rest 
 till you have posted your guards. Never lay aside your 
 arms while you are within reach of the enemy. And, to 
 avoid being surprised, always be early on horseback." 
 
 With the disappearance of Vladimir Russian political
 
 58 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 life lapsed into the distracting turmoil of family feuds, em- 
 bittered now afresh by the jealousies of the elder and younger 
 branches of his descendants, in addition to the existing 
 elements of discord furnished by the houses of Tchernigov 
 and Galitz and the sporadic turbulence of the people of 
 
 Novgorod. 
 
 It is interesting to compare and contrast the condition 
 of the Russian State at this period with that of the neigh- 
 bouring Germanic Empire, whose constitution and scheme of 
 government was not widely different, and to examine the 
 possible causes of the decay of the Grand-princely power in 
 the one, and the survival of the Imperial ascendency in the 
 other. The Western Empire had, like Russia, her periods 
 of internal confusion, but however weak or unfortunate an 
 individual Kaiser might be, his title and office always carried 
 a certain weight of authority, a certain glamour of reverence 
 with it, while in the Eastern State it is sometimes difficult 
 to remember who was at any given time in possession of 
 the arch-throne of Kiev. Probably the greater stability of 
 German institutions was due to their greater complexity ; 
 side by side with the oligarchy of sovereign Dukes and 
 Margraves there had grown up, fostered by the sagacious 
 foresight of successive Emperors, a crop of free cities and 
 burghs, enjoying a large measure of independence, while 
 another element was introduced by the extensive temporal 
 possessions and powers of many of the German prelates. 
 These interwoven and antagonistic interests were naturally 
 fertile of disputes and petty conflicts, in which events appeal 
 was sure to be made, sooner or later, to the Emperor, whose 
 intervention was seldom fruitless ; for where a man, or a 
 community, had many possible enemies, it was less easy to 
 defy the sovereign power. If, therefore, each little fragment 
 of the State was a law unto itself, the final supremacy of 
 the Emperor was always in evidence, and in the same way 
 some overweening vassal preparing to wage war on his 
 sovereign liege might have his hand stayed by the irritating 
 incursion of the Herrschaft of a mitred abbot or an aggrieved 
 Burg upon his own dominions. In the Russian Weal, on
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF KURIK 59 
 
 the contrary, no such delicately adjusted conditions existed. 
 With the exception of Velikie Novgorod, nothing was inde- 
 pendent besides the princes of the house of Rurik ; towns, 
 clergy, and boyarins " went with " the various appanages to 
 which they belonged, and shared the fortunes of the prince 
 who for the time being ruled over them. Hence there was 
 nothing beyond an empty title and the control of an un- 
 certain quantity of treasure to advance the Grand Prince 
 above the standing of his brothers and cousins. In conse- 
 quence of this weakness of the central authority it follows 
 that there was little to bind the mass together in a cohesive 
 whole. Besides the kinship of the princes there were, perhaps, 
 only two elements which prevented a splitting asunder of 
 the federation : one was the physical aspect of the country, 
 which presented no natural divisions which might have been 
 resolved into political ones. As certainly as Denmark was 
 destined to break away, in spite of artificial acts of union, 
 such as that of Kalmar, from the other Skandinavian lands, 
 so certainly was Russia likely to remain united. The wide 
 plains, intersected by far-winding rivers, offered no obvious 
 barriers which might have marked off a separate kingdom 
 of Tchernigov or Polotzk, and each district was too dependent 
 on the others to become permanently estranged. The other 
 factor which made for unity was the bond of a common, 
 and as regards their western neighbours, a distinct religion. 
 The Greek-Christian faith, with all its attendant ceremonials 
 and mysteries, had taken deep root among the Slavs of 
 Russia, and had assimilated itself with the national life of 
 the people. The beauties of the old cathedrals of S. Sofia 
 at Kiev, S. John Theologus at Rostov, and S. Dimitri at 
 Vladimir, bore evidence of the care that was lavished on the 
 decoration of these temples of Christian worship. The 
 Metropolitan of Kiev, as Primate over all the Russian 
 churches, served as a link with the capital city which the 
 Grand Prince did not always supply. 
 
 Novgorod, which has been mentioned as an exception to 
 the state of subserviency prevalent among the other Russian 
 towns, derived her strength and importance from her situation,
 
 6o THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 which commanded both the Baltic and the Russian overland 
 trade. Although the Hansa League had not yet taken 
 definite shape, the elements of the later organisation were 
 already in existence. The commercial life of the Baltic 
 centred in Wisby, capital of the island of Gothland, and to 
 this convenient meeting-place came, twice a year, German, 
 Swedish, Russian, Danish, and Wendish merchants to ex- 
 change their various wares and supply the needs of their 
 respective trade-circles. After the Wisby markets were over 
 many of the traders from Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, etc., 
 made their way to Novgorod, where they early possessed a 
 factory and a separate place of worship, even as the 
 Xovgorodskie, since the middle of the twelfth centurj-, 
 had their church and quarter at Wisby. The intercourse 
 with enterprising merchant folk from other lands — and 
 merchants needed to be adventurous in those days — infused 
 a spirit of energy' and independence into the inhabitants of 
 Novgorod, while the wealth at their disposal enabled them 
 to extend their domination far over the bleak, but by no 
 means barren, northlands of Russia, even to the further side 
 of the Ourals. This extensive over- lordship, again, gave 
 them control of many sources of commerce, and the produce 
 of Arctic seas and sub-Arctic forests filtered through their 
 hands into the channels of Baltic trade. Walrus teeth, the 
 blubber oil from seals, and the down of sea -haunting birds 
 formed the harvest of the frozen ocean ; forest and lake 
 furnished their markets with furs, raw leather, tallow, fish, 
 and tar ; cultivated lands yielded fla.x and hemp, honey and 
 wax — the latter an important commodity in the times when 
 the Church kept tapers burning day and night in thousands 
 of shrines throughout the greater part of Europe. In 
 exchange for these products the merchants of W' isby and of 
 the German " Hof " at Novgorod bartered metal wares and 
 manufactured goods. Of raw metals came tin from the 
 celebrated mines of Cornwall, copper from the Swedish 
 uplands, and iron from Bohemia and the Netherlands. 
 Spanish lead found its way through Bruges and Antwerp.^ 
 * N. G. Riesenkampff, Der Deutuhe Hof zu Ncrwgorod,
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RUE IK 6i 
 
 Thus Novgorod was the staple of a flourishing and far- 
 reaching trade, even though the rise of the Italian maritime 
 republics had in a large measure diverted the commerce of 
 the East from its old Russian waterway, and the wealth and 
 importance of this world-faring traffic took the city out of the 
 limitations oi the Russian realm, even as Lubeck and her 
 sister towns stood beyond the bonds of the Empire. To the 
 other Russian cities their respective rulers were the mainspring 
 of their being, and each prince might have locally adapted 
 the boast of the great Louis ; to the Novgorodskie their 
 prince was only an incident in a busy existence. This spirit 
 of liberty and impatience found vigorous expression in the 
 year 1 138 when the citizens of Novgorod, with those of the 
 subject towns of Pskov and Ladoga, in Vetche assembled, 
 solemnly deposed their prince on the following grounds : 
 that he had no care for the poorer people ; that he only 
 loved pleasures, falcons, and dogs ; that he had coveted the 
 government of Pereyaslavl ; that in a battle mth the 
 Souzdalians he had been the first to leave the field ; that he 
 had no fixed policy, but was at times on the side of the 
 house of Tchemigov, at times on the side of its enemies. 
 The citizens had a quaint and efiective way of dealing with 
 a troublesome minority' in carrjnng through their frequent 
 prince -purgings. According to an old Slavonic custom 
 (retained in Poland till her downfall^, the decisions of the 
 Vetche or the Diet had to be of one voice ; however, " the 
 majority had the resource of drowning the minority in the 
 Volkof,'" ^ and the bridge over that river was not unseldom 
 the scene of violent party strife. The great bell of Yaroslav 
 would clang out the curfew of the dethroned kniaz, who was 
 thenceforth " shown the wa\' " out of his erstwhile principality. 
 On an occasion when the Grand Prince Sviatopalk II. wished 
 to foist his son on the people of Novgorod, the elders of the 
 city grimly sent him word to keep the young prince at home, 
 " unless he has a head to spare." 
 
 \\'ith the onward march of days and deeds in the stormv 
 times of the twelfth century two facts, indeed, begin to stand 
 
 ^ Rambaud, History of Ruisia.
 
 62 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 forth. One is the waning power and import of Kiev, 
 consequent on the many changes of masters to which she 
 was subject ; " the Mother of Russian cities " passed into 
 the keeping of one prince after another, like a dainty piece 
 of carrion dropped and snatched and fought over by a parcel 
 of kites or crows. Side by side with this decline of the 
 southern city is to be marked the silent growth of a new 
 principality in the lands of the north-east, where Urii 
 " Dolgoroukie " (the Long-armed), son of Vladimir Mono- 
 machus, had nursed the savage, forest-choked marchland of 
 Souzdal into a well-ordered province, enjoying from its very 
 remoteness and seclusion a domestic calm which was to be 
 found nowhere else in the wide Russian realm. Among the 
 towns which he founded, or advanced from the position of 
 tribal villages, was one on the banks of the Moskva, to which 
 was given the name of the river that watered it, a name to 
 be one day of first importance in Russian history. On the 
 death of Urii (i 1 57) his son Andrei, albeit one of a numerous 
 family, succeeded him in the undivided sovereignty of 
 Souzdal. Turning his back on glittering but unprofitable 
 Kiev, with its thousand shrines and general odour of sanctity 
 and its unhealthy political atmosphere, he established himself 
 at Vladimir-on-the-Kliasma, strong in the possession of a 
 bejewelled ikon of the Virgin, of Greek manufacture — if it 
 were not, as was asserted, the handiwork of the Apostle 
 Luke. From this vantage - ground of possession and 
 authority the wary kniaz proceeded to sweep away with 
 unsparing hand the gaping brood of his brothers and 
 nephews, who were exiled wholesale, together with such 
 boyarins as were suspected of favouring a splitting-up of 
 Andrei's dominion. The banished Urievitch princes retired 
 to Constantinople, where they were honourably received by 
 the Greek Emperor Manuel, who, amid the vigorous wars 
 which he carried on with most of his neighbours, maintained 
 terms of friendship with the princes of Russia. Shortly 
 after this state-stroke the Prince of Souzdal became em- 
 broiled with the turbulent Novgorodskie, whose newly-elected 
 Prince Roman was son of the then Velikie Kniaz of Kiev.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 63 
 
 Andrei was minded to show who really was master in the 
 Northern Russian world, and turned his arms, not upon 
 Novgorod, but upon Kiev. Against the devoted city 
 gathered, in obedience to the behest of Andrei, a mighty host 
 of princes, with their boyarins and followers ; Mstislav of 
 Souzdal, Roman of Smolensk, Vseslav of Polotzk, Oleg of 
 Sieversk, the Rostislavitches, and many another, banded 1169 
 themselves together, under the leadership of the first-named, 
 to assist at the death of a fiction. The Grand Prince en- 
 trenched himself in his capital and defended the walls for 
 two days against the assaults of his enemies. On the 8th 
 March the walls were stormed and the " Mother of Russian 
 cities " was given over to sack and pillage. In one wild 
 moment all the reverence and religious piety of the Slavonic 
 nature was scattered to the winds, and churches, monasteries, 
 and the cathedrals of S. Sofia and the Dime shared the 
 general disaster. Sacrilegious hands bore gleefully through 
 the roaring streets a spoil of holy ikons, illuminated missals, 
 crosses, priestly robes, and all the trappings of an outraged 
 religion ; even the bells were torn down from their campaniles 
 to serve as plunder for the victorious invaders. 
 
 Kiev still existed as a city, but on her Golden Gate the 
 conquerors might fitly have hewed the epitaph, " Ichabod. 
 Thy glory is departed from thee." 
 
 The Grand Prince made his escape from the toils of his 
 enemies, and one of the sons of Urii succeeded to what was 
 left of the submerged dignity; but the real centre of authority 
 had shifted. Souzdal extended its influence over nearly the 
 whole of the Russian land ; the Princes of Galitz and 
 Tchernigov and the republic of Novgorod alone maintained 
 their independence. The latter government, indeed, despite 
 the internal disorders with which it was from time to time 
 afflicted, had risen to a power which might well cry halt to 
 the most ambitious potentate. Not only had it held its own 
 against the leagued princes of Northern Russia, but it had 
 valiantly repelled the onslaught of a foreign enemy. The 
 union of the crowns of Sweden and Gothland, the pact 
 between the houses of Swerker and Jeswar, and the gradual
 
 64 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 dying out of the pagan minority had given the Swedes com- 
 parative domestic quiet, and at the same time leisure to turn 
 their attention to attacks on their neighbours. Hence it 
 was that Karl VII., in the year 1164 (while Sviatoslav yet 
 reigned at Novgorod), invaded the Russian northlands and 
 besieged Ladoga, which was defended by the citizens with 
 great spirit. The arrival of Sviatoslav with the Posadnik 
 Zakharie and the Novgorodskie forces was followed by the 
 complete defeat of the Swedish host, only a remnant of which, 
 according to the city Chronicles, succeeded in making good 
 its escape. This exploit gives some idea of the power and 
 position of Velikie Novgorod, which at this period matches 
 the standing of Lubeck in the days of the Kaiser Karl IV. 
 Against so dangerous a rival it was inevitable that Andrei, 
 dreaming of autocracy 300 years before its time, should 
 bend the whole crushing weight of his resources and influence, 
 and seek to whelm Novgorod in the same humiliation that 
 had befallen Kiev. The inhabitants of the threatened city 
 saw an ominous league of their enemies gathering together ; 
 the Princes of Smolensk, Polotzk, Mourom, and Riazan joined 
 their forces to those of Mstislav Andreivitch, the conqueror 
 of Kiev, under whose banner marched the men of Souzdal, 
 Rostov, Vladimir, and Bielozersk. At the head of the 
 citizens stood their Kniaz, Roman, the Posadnik Yakun, and 
 the Archbishop Ivan. These prepared by every means in 
 their power to resist the formidable army whose skirmishers 
 were ravaging the country for miles around and lighting the 
 winter sky with the fires of hundreds of blazing villages. 
 The doubt voiced by a poet of a later century — 
 
 Though kneeUng nations watch and yearn, 
 Does the Primordial Purpose turn ? 
 
 found no expression in the minds of these early Russians, in 
 whose civil discords the members of the Holy Family of 
 heaven were supposed to take as keen an interest as the 
 gods of Olympus in the skirmishes round Troy. When the 
 1170 attack closed in upon the city the Archbishop, attended by 
 his clergy, carried round the ramparts, during the thick of 
 the fight, a standard with a representation of the Virgin.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 65 
 
 An impious arrow struck the sainted ikon, which thereupon 
 turned its face towards Novgorod and let fall a shower of 
 tears upon the Archbishop ; this was too much for the nerves 
 of the Souzdalians, who seemingly were near enough to 
 witness the miracle, and a headlong flight ensued, in which 
 many were slain and many taken prisoners. In the words 
 of the Novgorodskie Chronicle, "You could get ten Souz- 
 dalians for a grivna." It is difficult to discern, under the 
 mass of legend, what was the real cause of this panic. The 
 warriors who had laid ruthless hands on the hallowed sanc- 
 tuaries of the Russian capital were not likely to be cowed 
 by a provincial representation of the Virgin ; had they not 
 their own apostle-wrought ikon of the Mother of God at 
 Vladimir ? Whatever the cause of defeat, it gave a serious 
 check to Andrei's projects of undisputed supremacy. Nov- 
 gorod, however, was not secure from the enmity of the Prince 
 of Souzdal, from whose province she drew her supplies of 
 grain, and the Posadnik and Archbishop followed up their 
 victory by timely overtures for peace, which was effected by 
 the dismissal of Roman and the subsequent " free election " 
 of a prince from the Souzdal family. Four years later the 
 dreaded northern Kniaz suffered the penalty of being in 
 advance of his times. The high hand with which he had 
 ruled in his own province had inspired among his boyarins 
 and courtiers a fear which might on occasion become danger- 
 ous. And the occasion arrived, when one summer's evening 1177 
 a band of twenty conspirators, including the chamberlain of 
 his household, burst into the old man's sleeping-chamber in 
 his palace at Bogolubov (a suburb of Vladimir) and stabbed 
 wildly at him in the uncertain twilight. Favoured by the 
 dusk and confusion, Andrei managed to crawl away into 
 hiding ; a light was procured, and by the track of his 
 streaming wounds he was hunted down and the assassins 
 finished their task. Vladimir, which he had raised to the 
 position of his capital over the older towns of Souzdal and 
 Rostov, mourned the grim fate of her patron, but throughout 
 the rest of the province the long -repressed feelings of the 
 inhabitants ran riot in bloodshed and pillage. The affrighted 
 
 F
 
 66 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 clergy, clad in their priestly vestments and bearing the sacred 
 ensigns of their religion, went in solemn processions through 
 the towns, invoking the assistance of the Most High God to 
 quell a revolt which threatened the submersion of their world. 
 Andrei had tried to weld into a disciplined kingdom materials 
 that were as yet only fitted for a modified anarchy, tempered by 
 attachment to a loosely-ordered succession of princes ; dream- 
 ing of despotism, he had at least died the death of a despot. 
 
 And while they do to death the only prince who had 
 shown them the way to the safety which lay in union and 
 centralisation, far away on the banks of the Okon, in the 
 desert resfion which borders Northern China and Manchuria, 
 is growing from insignificance to an overmastering weight 
 of supremacy the tribe, horde, locust-swarm of the swarthy 
 Mongols. 
 
 The disorders which marked the disappearance of Andrei's 
 overshadowing personality from the throne of Souzdal were 
 soothed, after a long struggle between his reflucted kinsfolk, 
 by the final establishment of Vsevolod, brother of the mur- 
 dered prince, surnamed " Big-nest " in allusion to his large 
 family/ Applying himself to the ordering of his own pro- 
 vince, he meddled but languidly in the seething troubles of 
 the Dniepr-watered principalities, where the house of Olgo- 
 vitch was enjoying a fitful revival of importance. A scion 
 of that strenuous family at this time embarked on an enter- 
 prise which, though fruitless from a military point of view, 
 was crowned with a halo of glory and immortalised in an 
 epic poem of great beauty. " The Song of the Expedition 
 of Igor, Prince of Sieverski," or, more shortly, the Song of 
 Igor, one of the earliest Slavonic folk-songs that has been 
 handed down from the dead past, has been translated into 
 many languages, but never before into English, so that it 
 is well worth reproducing in part in a history of Russian 
 development. It deals with a campaign undertaken by Igor 
 Sviatoslavitch, Prince of Severski, and his brother Vsevolod, 
 against the Polovtzi in their own country, of its disastrous 
 result, and the ultimate return of Igor. 
 
 1 See Table III. for house of Souzdal.
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 67 
 
 Brothers, were it not well that we, after the old custom, began 
 the song of the unlucky campaign of Igor, the seed of Sviatoslav ? 
 That we celebrate him in the heroic songs of our time, and not in 
 the manner of Boyan ? If the sage Boyan wished to tune to one a 
 song, it was as if a squirrel sprang up the tree, or a gray wolf hied 
 along the plain, or a blue eagle soared to the clouds. . . . 
 
 Igor looked forth and saw that the sun had hidden his face, 
 and a mist had enveloped his warriors. Then spoke Igor to his 
 army : " Brothers and soldiers, it is better to fall in battle than to 
 yield one's life ; so will we mount our mettlesome horses and gain 
 the Blue Don by daylight." Yearning filled the soul of the Prince, 
 and the wish to see the noble Don led him to forget many evil 
 tokens. " I will break a lance," cried he, " on the farthest verge of 
 the Polovtzi land, or bow my head with you, Russians, and with my 
 helmet draw water from the Don." O Boyan, thou nightingale of 
 the olden days, if thou hadst inspired these warrior-bands, alighting 
 on the Tree of Thought and hovering in the spirit of the clouds, 
 thou hadst, O nightingale, united this severed time (that which is 
 Past with that which Is). . . . Not a storm-wind drove the falcons 
 over the wide plain, nor hurried the flocks of daws to the glorious 
 Don. Or thou mightest, sage Boyan, thus have sung : The steeds 
 are neighing this side the Sula, the war-song resounds in Kiev, the 
 trumpets are crashing in Novgorod. The standards wave in Poutivl, 
 where awaits Igor his loved brother Vsevolod. And to him saith 
 the bold, war-lusting Vsevolod, "O Igor, my only brother, my 
 bright Sun, truly are we twain the seed of Sviatoslav. Brother, let 
 thy spirited w^ar-horses be saddled ; already are mine saddled and 
 waiting at Koursk, and my Kourskies are right warriors, born 'neath 
 the blare of the trumpets, and nurtured at the point of the lance. 
 The roads are familiar to them ; they know the passes, their bows 
 are strung, the quiver is open, the sabres are burnished, and they 
 themselves press forward, like gray wolves on the bleak wold, in 
 pursuit of honour and princely renown." Then set Prince Igor his 
 foot in the golden stirrup and rode forth into the wide plain. The 
 sun blurs the way through the gloom, the night groans in storm and 
 wakes the birds, swells in chorus the howling of beasts, the evil Div 
 shrieks down from the tree-tops and summons the strange lands to 
 listen, from the Volga, and the sea-coast, and along the Sula and to 
 the Suroz and Khorsun, to the idol at Tmoutorakan. The Polovtzi 
 hastened by pathless ways to the glorious Don ; at midnight 
 shrieked the wheels of their carts, as though flight-circling swans 
 screamed loud. Igor pressed with his war-men to the Don. But 
 already the bird on the oak warned him of misfortune, the 
 wolves set the ravines in alarm, the eagles with loud screams
 
 68 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 called hither the beasts to the banquet, the foxes barked at the 
 purple shields. 
 
 O Russian band, already art thou this side the hill ! 
 
 Long lasts the night, the twilight dawn not yet foretells the 
 coming of the Sun, darkness clothes the fields, the flute of the 
 nightingale is hushed, while the croaking of the daws resounds, but 
 the Russians have bedecked the stretching plain with their purple 
 shields, and strive after honour and the glory of princes. 
 
 On Friday early have our warriors defeated the war-hordes of 
 the Polovtzi, and they thenafter scattered wnth arrow-swiftness in 
 the plain, bearing away the lovely Polovtzi maidens, and with them 
 also gold and precious silken stuffs ; with costly rugs, with cloaks 
 and vestments the Polovtzi strewed the streams, marshes, and 
 swamps. The golden standards with the white pennons, the purple 
 horse-housings and the silver staff fell to the brave Sviatoslavitch. 
 Oleg's brave nest-brood slept on the field, thenafter they are flown 
 afar ; they were not born to suffer ill, neither from falcon, nor spar- 
 hawk, nor from these, heathen Polovtzi, the black ravens. Gsak 
 sped like a gray wolf, and Kontchak followed him on the road to 
 the glorious Don. 
 
 Right early the other morning rose a blood-red promise of the 
 sun, black clouds drew in from the sea, that would have darkened 
 four suns, and torn were they by blue flashes ; there was brewing a 
 mighty storm of thunder, and bolts rained over the majestic Don ; 
 then at the stream Kayala, by the mighty Don, lances were broken 
 and sabres blunted on Polovtzi helmets. 
 
 O Russian band, still art thou this side the hill ! 
 
 There blew the Wind (Stribog's grandchild) ^ bolts from the sea 
 against Igor's brave fighters ; the Earth shuddered, mournfully 
 flowed the rivers, dew-drops spangled the fields, the banners rustled. 
 
 Forth from the Don, from the sea, and from all sides around 
 came the Polovtzi ; they surrounded the Russian troop, with yells 
 the children of the devils filled the plain, but the brave Russians 
 guarded themselves behind the purple shields. Thou Wild- Bull 
 Vsevolod, thou art in the rank that is foremost, slinging thy arrows 
 at the fighters, and with thy sword of steel batterest the helmets, 
 and where thou chargest, there where thy golden helmet glitters, 
 there lie the heads of the Heathen and the Avaric helmets, smashed 
 by thy hardened sabre, thou Wild- Bull Vsevolod, and there was thy 
 grief so great at the wound of thy brother, thou hadst both honour 
 and life forgotten, and the town of Tchernigov, and the throne of 
 thy fathers, even as the caresses of thy sweet and beauteous wife 
 Glebovna. ... So is it ever in the time of fighting and war, but 
 1 Stribog was the Slavonic wind-god.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 69 
 
 never yet has been heard of such a battle as this ; from early morn 
 till the even, from eve to red dawn, nought but flying arrows, and 
 the clashing of sabres on helmets, and steel lances splintering in the 
 far plain of the Polovtzi-land. The black earth under the hoofs of 
 the horses is with bones emplanted, which spring up from the 
 Russian soil watered with blood amid stress of grievous sorrow. 
 What is the stamping I hear? What is it I hear ringing in the 
 morning early before the red Dawn ? . . . . 
 
 So for a day they fought, and for two days, but on the third, 
 towards mid-day, sank the banner of Igor. 
 
 There on the banks of the rapid Kayala the brothers were 
 sundered. . . . 
 
 The grass drooped its head in mourning and the tree bowed 
 sorrowfully earthward. . . . 
 
 The war of the princes against the Heathen had ceased, for one 
 brother saith to another, " That belongeth to me, and this belongeth 
 also to me." And of each little thing the princes say, "A great 
 matter," and stir up strife with one another, while on all sides of 
 the Russian land the warlike heathen press forward. 
 
 But Igor's brave war-men shall never wake again. . . . Loudly 
 weep the Russian women, " Alas ! that never more can our thoughts 
 to our dear husbands be wafted, that our eyes shall never, never 
 again behold them, and gold and silver never more be stored." 
 And therefore, brothers, Kiev groaneth aloud in sorrow and 
 Tchernigov in grief; woe streameth through the land, and pain, in 
 full flood, through Russia, but ever more and more were the princes 
 growing in hatred, while the warlike Heathen raged through the 
 land, and from every holding had as tribute a squirrel pelt. . . . 
 
 [The despairing lamentations of the saga are changed to rejoic- 
 ing over the unexpected return of Igor, who had made his escape 
 from the Polovtzi land.] 
 
 The Sun shines in the heaven since Prince Igor is on Russian 
 land. The maidens sing on the Danube, and their voices reach 
 over the sea to Kiev. Prince Igor rides through the Boritchev-ford 
 to the Holy Mother-of-God of Pirogosha. The country is gladsome 
 and the towns rejoice.^ 
 
 This folk-song, apart from its intrinsic beauty, is valu- 
 able as a relic of Russian thought and feeling at a time 
 when the old pre-Christian ideas were still blended with 
 
 1 Rendered into English partly from H. von Paucker's German translation, 
 Das Lied 7Jon der Heerfahrt Igor's Fiirsten von Seversk, and partly from a 
 modernised Russian reproduction of the Slavonic text.
 
 70 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 the sentiments of the newer traditions, and it is interesting 
 to mark how the ghosts and gods of old Slavonic myth are 
 mixed up with the saints and virgins of the Orthodox faith. 
 Not unworthy of notice, too, are the sage strictures on the 
 poHtical evils of the day, the perpetual quarrelling among 
 the Princes of the Blood, which, however, continued with 
 unabated vehemence despite the common bond which 
 existed in a common enemy. On the north and north-east 
 the armies of Novgorod and Souzdal extended the Russian 
 influence in the lands of the Finns and Bulgars, but on 
 the south-east, south, and west occurred encroachments 
 which the princes were too enfeebled by internal feuds to 
 resist. The Kuman (Polovtzi) hordes held the banks of 
 the Dniepr almost up to the walls of Kiev and Biel- 
 gorod, as the Petchenigs had done before them ; amid the 
 dense forests of Lit'uania, on the border of Polotzk, was 
 rising into importance the Lettish State which was to 
 become a formidable factor in Russian and Polish annals ; 
 and the kings of Hungary cast greedy eyes on the fair 
 province of Galitz, held in the feeble and precarious grasp 
 of Vladimir, unworthy successor of a line of valiant Red 
 Russian princes. 
 
 The occupant of the throne of S. Stefan was not the 
 only interested onlooker at the spectacle of misgovernment 
 provided by the Prince of Galitz ; his nearest neighbour 
 on the Russian side was Roman of Volhynia, the same 
 Roman who had held Novgorod against the might of 
 Andrei, and who had been thrown over to procure for the 
 city a substantial peace. This prince, whose forefathers 
 in the direct line back to the first Igor had all been 
 sovereigns of Kiev, was possessed of exceptional qualities 
 of energy and enterprise, and saw himself fitted to replace 
 the effete and impolitic Vladimir in the important and 
 Magyar-threatened principality of Galitz. Between the war- 
 like and strenuous efforts of this battle-loving kniaz, who 
 was renowned for the eagle-swoop rapidity with which he 
 was wont to hurl himself upon his enemies, the assiduous 
 intrigues and invasions of Bela III. of Hungary, and the
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 71 
 
 occasional intervention of the princes of Poland, the West 
 Russian lands were kept in a continual ferment ; in the words 
 of the saga, " Men's lives were shortened by the wars of the 
 brother princes. Then seldom in the Russian land was 
 heard the call of the husbandman, but often indeed the 
 ravens croaking as they divided the corpse among them, 
 and the cry of the corbies as they called to each other to 
 come to the banquet." Long time the clashing factions 
 warred and schemed, but Roman at last broke down all 
 opposition without and within. In dismal plight were then 
 those notables of Galitz who had resisted his incoming ; 
 according to Polish accounts he treated the disaffected 
 boyarins with a savagery unworthy of a brave prince. 
 The unfortunate objects of his ill-will were dismembered, 
 flayed, riddled with arrows, buried alive, and done to death 
 in various other barbarous ways.^ " To eat a drop of 
 honey in peace, one must first kill the bees," was his ex- 
 planation of this severity. This prince, who, in the words 
 of the Russian Chronicles, " walked in the ways of God," 
 was soon called upon to defend his " drop of honey " against 
 the Princes of Tchernigov and Kiev — a coalition brought 
 together by jealousy and dislike of the vigorous Roman, for 
 whom, however, it was no match. Gathering together his 
 Galician and Volhynian retainers, and calling to his aid 
 the Tchernie-Kloboukie (" Black-caps," a name given to the 
 nomads of the western steppes other than the Polovtzi), 
 he threw himself with the famous eagle-swoop upon Kiev, 
 the centre-point of his enemies. In vain did its Grand 
 Prince Rurik and the Kniaz of Tchernigov apply themselves 
 to repel his attack ; the Kievians, who had a trained eye 
 for the strongest side, threw open the Podolian Gate, and 
 the redoubtable Roman swirled with his warriors into the 
 lower city. His opponents did not stay to dispute the 
 upper quarter with him, and the victorious Prince of Galitz 
 was able, with the assent of Vsevolod of Souzdal, to bestow 
 the time-worn capital on one of his own kinsfolk. At the 1202 
 request of the Metropolitan, Alexis Comnenus, and on 
 
 ^ Kadlubek, Origine et rebus gestis Polonoriiin.
 
 72 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 behalf of the Greek Imperial family, the indefatigable 
 Roman made a diversion against the Polovtzi, who were 
 ravaging the Thracian border. Having successfully drawn 
 off their attack and destroyed their camps, he returned in 
 triumph to Galitz, During his absence Kiev, which had 
 betrayed the cause of Rurik, experienced in full measure 
 the resentment of that prince ; calling to his assistance the 
 Polovtzi — " children of the devils," but useful on occasion — 
 he let them loose on the miserable inhabitants. The 
 Kuman warfolk passed over the city like a swarm of 
 locusts over a barley field ; nothing escaped their devour- 
 ing fury except the foreign merchants who defended 
 themselves behind the stone walls of the churches, which 
 became veritable sanctuaries in the midst of a blazing, 
 blood-streaming Kiev. The cathedrals and monasteries 
 suffered as severely from the heathen pillagers as they had 
 done at the hands of the Christians at the previous sacking 
 of the city : " They stripped the Cathedral of S. Sofia, the 
 Church of the Dime, and all the monasteries, monks and 
 nuns, priests and their wives, old and cripple, they killed, 
 but the young and strong they drove into captivity." ^ 
 
 The death of Roman in battle with the Poles near 
 Zawichwost (1205) left Red Russia once more a prey to 
 domestic strife and foreign inroad. 
 
 On the 14th April 12 12 came to an end the thirty- 
 seven years' reign of Vsevolod, the last days of which were 
 clouded by a quarrel with his eldest son and natural heir, 
 Konstantin. The latter, whether from statesmanlike motives 
 or mere grasping ambition, refused to cede to his brother Urii 
 the patrimony of Rostov designed for him, in consequence 
 of which Vsevolod bequeathed to the injured younger son 
 the succession to the grand principality of Vladimir- 
 Souzdal, which would otherwise have been the share of 
 Konstantin. Vsevolod, overweighted by the Russian 
 chroniclers with the title of " Great," shared in his youth the 
 exile of his brothers on the accession of Andrei, and 
 received his education amid Byzantine influences. In this 
 
 ^ S. Solov'ev.
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 73 
 
 connection it is interesting to note that the scheme of poHcy 
 unfolded during his long reign bears some resemblance to 
 that favoured by the Greek Emperors, Avoiding for the 
 most part the employment of open force against Novgorod, 
 he contrived, nevertheless, to be always to the fore in the 
 affairs of the republic, in the aspect either of a bogey or 
 a patron, in any case a factor to be reckoned with. Kiev 
 he allowed to pass backwards and forwards from one hand 
 to another, and in this way contributed to the decline of 
 her importance and the consequent advancement of his 
 own capital as the head-town of Russia. This pacific 
 policy gave his Souzdalian subjects a measure of peace and 
 tranquillity unknown to their brothers in the other provinces, 
 but it permitted the dangerous aggrandisement of princes 
 of lesser strength and more limited resources. 
 
 The Grand Prince's Greek upbringing and possible 
 Greek sympathies may have influenced the Russian hier- 
 archy in the decision they were called upon to make during 
 his reign between adherence to or desertion of the distressed 
 Church of Constantinople. For evil times had fallen upon 
 the Orthodox communion ; since the eastern and western 
 Christians had solemnly and bitterly quarrelled over the 
 merits of the respective formulas " proceeding from the 
 Father by the Son," and " proceeding from the Father and 
 the Son," — the celebrated controversy of the Filioque^ — 
 the two Churches had drifted wider and wider apart, and 
 the hatred existing between them found expression in the 
 massacre of the Latin or Roman Catholic inhabitants of 
 Constantinople in the year 11 83, when young and old, sick 
 and infirm of both sexes were indiscriminately slaughtered ; 
 when the head of the Pope's Legate, severed from its 
 legitimate body and tied to the tail of a dog, went bumping 
 and thudding along the public streets to the accompaniment 
 of hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Now (in the year 
 1204) it was the turn of the Latins to revenge themselves 
 on the stronghold and headquarters of the rival religion ; 
 the French and Venetian Crusaders, turning aside from the 
 pious object of their expedition, the rescue of the " Holy
 
 74 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Land" from the infidels, had carried Constantinople by 
 assault, replaced the fugitive Greek Emperor by a Latin 
 prince, and sacked the Tzargrad with systematic thorough- 
 ness. The furniture and adornments of S. Sophia and 
 other sacred buildings became spoil for the western soldiery, 
 and the Lion of S. Mark waved triumphantly over the 
 scene of pillage and desecration. Then did the head of 
 the Roman Church, the splendid Lotario Conti (Innocent 
 III.), beneath whose despotic sway chafed and trembled 
 most of the princes of Christendom, follow up the triumph 
 of the Latin arms by an attempt to draw the heretic Church 
 of Russia into the Catholic fold. In a pastoral letter to 
 the prelates and clergy of the Orthodox faith he pointed 
 out the temporal ruin which had overtaken the heads of 
 the schismatic religion, and invited the Russian Christians 
 to attach themselves to the glories and benefits of Rome. 
 The appeal fell on hostile ears, and the next Metropolitan 
 was consecrated at Nicasa, where the dispossessed Emperor 
 had established his court. 
 
 In other quarters the zeal and activity of the Roman 
 Church brought her into contact with Russian " spheres of 
 influence," to use a modern term. Albrecht, Bishop of the 
 new Livlandish see of Riga, had instituted in that district 
 I20I the Order of the Warriors of Christ, or Sword Brethren, 
 whose mission was to convert the pagan Livlanders by fire, 
 and steel, and thong to the worship of Jesus, and teach 
 them the lesson of peace on earth and goodwill towards 
 men with which His name was associated. As the scope of 
 their endeavours included a temporal as w^ell as a spiritual 
 ascendancy over the lands they were able to conquer, their 
 arms soon clashed with those of Vladimir, Prince of Polotzk, 
 who claimed the over-lordship of Livland. Reinforced by 
 Danish warmen, sent to their assistance by King Waldemar 
 at the instance of the Pope, the knights of the Order were 
 able to hold their own against the Russian kniaz, and the 
 Catholic Church scored another triumph in Europe to make 
 up for her disappointments in Asia Minor. 
 
 Vsevolod left to his successors the heritage of a ready-
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 75 
 
 made feud, in which the members of his family took different 
 sides, some supporting Urii, who held Souzdal and Vladimir, 
 others ranging themselves with Konstantin, who kept his 
 grasp on Rostov. After a campaign in which neither side 
 could obtain a decided advantage, the brothers agreed to 
 divide the principality between them, Urii retaining the 
 largest share, which included Vladimir, Souzdal, and 
 Moskva. Another brother, Yaroslav, became in an un- 
 lucky hour the choice of the people of Novgorod. In 
 course of time they quarrelled with him, as was their wont. 
 Yaroslav shook the dust of the ungovernable city off his 
 feet, and settled himself down at Torjhok to starve it into 
 submission. Its imports of grain were systematically cut 
 off, supplies of every kind were intercepted, and famine 
 stalked through the streets of Novgorod. Want, in its most 
 fearful form, the starvation of an entire populace, tamed 
 the spirit of the proud citizens. Pine-bark and moss were 
 chewed in place of the bread that could not be bought for 
 money ; the bodies of those who died of hunger lined the 
 streets — the dogs at least were fed. What manner of man 
 was this who sat gloating, vampire-like, over the misery of a 
 province which he would neither govern nor renounce ? 
 Vainly embassies and petitions were sent by the stricken 
 citizens, who tendered their submission and besought him to 
 take up his rule over them ; the spokesmen were cast into 
 prison and the dearth continued. Then like a god from the 
 blue appeared to the famishing and despairing Novgorodskie 
 their erstwhile prince, Mstislav of Toropetz. The bitter 
 cry of their extremity had reached him in Southern Russia 
 and drawn him to their succour. After vainly attempting 
 to bring Yaroslav to reason, Mstislav took up arms against 
 him. The first-named prince could count on the support of 
 Urii, but on the other hand Mstislav had engaged Kon- 
 stantin on his side, so that the province of Souzdal was 
 drawn, town against town, into this local quarrel. The 
 armies of the two leagues, burning with resentment against 
 each other, met on the plain of Lipetsk. After a desperate 1216 
 battle the troops of Rostov, Smolensk, and Novgorod scored
 
 76 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 a decisive victory and hewed down their scattering foes dur- 
 ing an April afternoon with the fierce joy that a triumph 
 in civil warfare inspires. Over 9000 of the vanquished are 
 stated to have fallen in the fight and subsequent slaughter. 
 Four days later the inhabitants of Vladimir, consisting for 
 the most part of women, children, monks, and priests, and 
 men too old to have marched to the war, saw in the gray 
 distance a single horseman making with weary speed for the 
 city — a courier, they fondly imagined, sent to announce 
 their Prince's victory. The Prince (Urii) himself rode in 
 through the startled crowd, the forlorn herald of the disaster 
 which had overwhelmed his army. The depleted province 
 was in no plight to withstand the victors, and the Grand 
 Principality was practically at the disposal of the upstart 
 Kniaz of Toropetz. Konstantfn, by his decree, became 
 Prince of Vladimir- Souzdal, naming Urii, however, to 
 succeed him at his death. Mstislav returned in triumph to 
 Novgorod, where he was hailed with acclamations by the 
 citizens, to whom he had been a friend in need. It was a 
 bitter irony of circumstance that almost the only prince 
 for whom they had had a lasting affection could not find it 
 well to stay with them. Perhaps he was fearful of outstay- 
 ing his welcome, or wished to secure for himself a more 
 assured possession than the government of the fickle re- 
 public, and the foreign encroachments which disturbed 
 Russia on her western marches attracted his adventure-lov- 
 ing spirit to play the rescuer in that direction. In Livland, 
 Volquin von Winterstadt, Grand Master of the Sword Order, 
 was ever seeking to push forward his military outposts ; the 
 Lit'uanians, harassed by Catholics on one side and Orthodox- 
 neighbours on the other, were drawing closer together in 
 self-defence, and becoming more formidable to Polotzk and 
 Pskov, while Red Russia was a prey to Hungarian domina- 
 tion and Polish interference. It was by invitation of the 
 latter power, in the person of Duke Lesko, that Mstislav 
 undertook to drive the Hungarians out of Galicia, and in 
 consequence bade an affectionate farewell to the people of 
 Novgorod, the tomb of his father, and the Cathedral of S. Sofia.
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 77 
 
 While foreign war flamed lurid in the west, a peaceable 
 restoration had been witnessed in the north-east, where 
 Urii, on the death of his brother Konstantin (12 19), had 
 come into possession of the Grand Principality. In the 
 north-west, again, important happenings were forcing them- 
 selves disagreeably on the notice of the border princes. 
 Many causes contributed to complicate the struggle for 
 mastery which was beginning to be waged in the pagan- 
 inhabited lands at the mouth of the western Dvina and 
 along the " Baltic gull-sought strand." The institution of 
 the Crusades and the erection of the Latin kingdom of 
 Jerusalem had aroused a spirit of religious and temporal 
 colonisation and conquest, of which the seizure of Con- 
 stantinople was a symptom, while on the other hand the 
 comparative failure of the Asiatic expeditions and the re- 
 capture of Jerusalem by the Moslems had modified the 
 crusading fervour and disinclined the champions of the Cross 
 to seek adventures so far afield. Hence many Catholic 
 princes and knights were glad to avail themselves of the 
 Papal permission to divert their pious raids from the valley 
 of the Jordan to the shores of the Baltic, a more convenient 
 locality, where they might gain, in addition to their eternal 
 salvation, welcome pieces of earthly territory. Danes, 
 Swedes, the Sword Brothers, and later (in 1230) the 
 Teutonic Order, fought indiscriminately with the native 
 pagans, with the Russians, and with themselves for the 
 advancement of the Catholic religion and of their own 
 interests, Estland, Kourland, Livland, Lit'uania, and 
 Prussia became happy hunting-grounds for these various 
 adventurers and military companies, and the unfortunate 
 inhabitants, confronted with an embarras du richesse in the 
 way of spiritual guides, knew not which way to turn for 
 safety, A Tchoud notable was hanged by the Danes for 
 having received baptism from the Sword Order, and the 
 Latin and Orthodox Christians systematically destroyed 
 each other's churches and settlements whenever they had 
 the opportunity. Of the knights of the two Orders, how- 
 ever, it may be said that the cruelties and oppressions with
 
 78 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 which they sought to harry the heathen into their particular 
 fold were in some measure condoned by the splendid 
 bravery and devotion which they displayed in carrying out 
 their self-imposed task. Moreover, it was to these northern 
 crusaders that the Baltic provinces owed many of their most 
 important towns : Riga was the creation of the Knights of 
 Jesus ; Thorn, Kulm, and Elbing marked the rise of the 
 Teutonic Order ; Revel sprang into existence under Danish 
 auspices. It was during a combat in the neighbourhood 
 of the latter town that the Danes received " from the clouds " 
 the red flag blazoned with a white cross which has since 
 remained their national standard — a mark of Divine favour 
 which did not, however, cause the immediate withdrawal of 
 their Christian competitors. The cruelties and dissensions 
 of the invaders moved the inhabitants of Northern Livland 
 to throw off the Catholic yoke and call the citizens of 
 Novgorod to their assistance, propitiating them with a 
 portion of the spoil they had wrested from the Germans and 
 Skandinavians, Novgorod, by a curious revulsion of feeling, 
 had, after a succession of princes of the house of Souzdal, 
 elected the same Yaroslav who had treated her people with 
 such heartless cruelty. Possibly, in the turn affairs were 
 taking on their west, the Novgorodskie saw an opportunity 
 for employing his malignant genius against their obnoxious 
 enemies. But the warlike efforts of the men of Lake Ilmen 
 and their Souzdalian prince were neutralised by the fact 
 that the Germans, fighting behind the walls of their towns, 
 were more skilled in the handling of the slings and stone- 
 hurling engines, the rude artillery of the day ; the old 
 Russian proverb, " Who can resist God and Velikie Nov- 
 gorod ? " had to be modified in the face of such weapons of 
 precision, and the Westerners remained masters of the 
 greater part of the disputed territories. 
 
 Two hundred years of unending domestic strife, carving 
 and shredding off into a crowd of incoherent provinces — 
 Kiev, Tchernigov, Riazan, Souzdal, Smolensk, Polotzk, Nov- 
 gorod, Pskov, Volhynia, Galitz, and others of less importance 
 — had not fitted Russia to contend with the expanding
 
 Ill THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 79 
 
 powers of Catholic Christendom, or to show a solid front 
 against the incursion of teeming Asiatic hordes on her east. 
 
 The Chronicles of Russian history at this period were 
 wholly in the hands of the monks who wrote them around 
 the deeds of the princes or of the luminaries of the Church ; 
 hence little can be gleaned from them of the social life and 
 condition of the people, who existed therein solely for the 
 purposes of supplying raw material for a massacre or a 
 pestilence. The history of Novgorod is valuable as yielding 
 occasional glimpses of the life-pulse that beat beneath the 
 over -crust of court or cathedral annals, but this city was 
 too impregnated with outside influences to furnish a faithful 
 picture of the inward state of old-time Russia. Of the 
 towns it may be broadly stated that they were yet little 
 more in scope than walled villages ; universities or seats of 
 learning other than the monkish cloister there were none, 
 and much of the trade was in the hands of foreign merchants. 
 The wealthy boyarins had their houses and palaces clustered 
 within the walls, and often possessed in addition other houses 
 in the sloboda, or detached village, without, where there was 
 more space available for gardens, etc. Freemen as well as 
 slaves (the latter captured in war or bought) were in their 
 service, but the abject poverty of the lower classes of freemen 
 bound them in almost servile dependence on their masters. 
 Even more grinding was the normal state of poverty in 
 which the peasants eked out their livelihood, and the name 
 smerd applied to them was one of contempt, something akin 
 to our " rascallion." For the most part the peasants tilled 
 the soil for the landowners under a system which allowed 
 them a half, or other fixed share, of the harvest produced, 
 the freeman having this distinction from the kholop or bond- 
 man that he was able to move from one estate to another 
 at will. Under these conditions of hand-to-mouth existence 
 farm-craft remained at a very low ebb ; with axe, scythe, 
 and plough the peasant won precarious roothold for his 
 crops, which might be blighted by an untimely frost-coming 
 or damaged by a too-late thaw, leaving him to propitiate 
 his appeal -court of saints by an involuntary emptiness of
 
 8o THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, hi 
 
 Stomach. With cattle-stock, horses, and horned beasts, the 
 Russian lands, of the north especially, were ill-provided, and 
 possibly this was partly the outcome of the unsettled state 
 of the country, which discouraged the multiplication of 
 movable property, even the heaviest church bells being now 
 and again swept off in the wake of some pilfering kniaz-raid.^ 
 
 1 Karamzin ; S. Solov'ev ; Schiemann ; Kostomarov, Sieverno Rousskiya 
 Narodopravstva, Chronique de Nestor. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 
 
 As an advancing tide, engulfing in its progression the 
 stretches of ooze-land which lie in its onward path, sends 
 scurrying before it flights of waders and other shore-haunting 
 birds, driven from their feeding grounds, so the great 
 Mongol wave which was creeping upon Eastern Europe 
 drove before it disordered troops of the Polovtzi nomads, 
 seeking among their old enemies the safety which their 
 desert fastnesses no longer afforded. Into the principality 
 of Kiev poured the fugitives, bringing with them droves of 
 horses, camels, cattle, and buffaloes — a wonderful and mis- 
 giving sight to the staring Russians, who saw their fierce, 
 untamable foes, the incarnation to them of all that was 
 barbarous, outlandish, and terrible, cowering and fleeing from 
 some unseen horror behind. That the wolf of the steppes 
 should come to lie down, panting and trembling, with the 
 lamb, boded the advent of anything but a millennium. The 
 accounts given by the Polovtzi khans of the Mongol hordes 
 which had swept the tribes of Western Asia before their 
 advancing host, roused the Russian princes to a sense of the 
 danger they courted by their disunion, and gathered them 
 together in the old capital to deliberate on a common action 
 in opposition to the threatened invasion. Mstislav of Galitz, 
 erstwhile of Toropetz, Mstislav Romanovitch (of the house 
 of Smolensk), Prince of Kiev, Daniel of Volhynia, Mstislav 
 of Tchernigov, and other princes of less importance, held 
 high counsel between them, and debated the means of avert- 
 ing the Mongol advance ; and as they paused in their de- 
 liberations to mark the unwonted caravans and uncouth 
 
 G
 
 82 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 brutes of the desert that thronged the streets and approaches 
 of Kiev, it must have been borne in upon them that already 
 Asia had overflowed her Hmits and swept the Russian lands 
 into her embrace. And while, taking heart of grace from 
 the assemblage of so many important princes and the 
 leadership of the redoubtable Mstislav of Galitz, they con- 
 sider how best to oppose these fearsome enemies, it will be 
 of interest to learn something of the history of this Mongol 
 horde, this mushroom growth that had over-spread the 
 northern empire of China, made a desolate waste of Persia, 
 carried its arms into Hindostan, and risen to be the greatest 
 power in Asia, and which was now threatening to attack the 
 outskirts of Christendom. 
 
 In the dreary steppc-Iand of the Gobi desert, south of 
 the Baikal Sea, where flows the Onon, a tributary of the 
 Amur, history first locates the Mongols, in the sixth ccnturj', 
 under the name Mongu, possibly derived from the word 
 " mong," signifying bold, daring. At that period they are 
 indicated as a sub-tribe of the Shi-wei, who dwelt to the 
 north-west of Manchuria, and did not enjoy any considerable 
 importance. This insignificance continued till the accession, 
 in I 1 75, to the Mongol Khanate, of Temudjin, known 
 later under the world-famous nameof Jingis Khan, when the 
 number of his subjects did not exceed 40,000 families. A 
 series of successful wars with the tribes in his immediate 
 neighbourhood paved the way for more ambitious under- 
 takings, and he soon carried his victorious standard, the Tuk 
 with nine yak tails, into the northern empire of China, 
 which was ruled over by the Kin, or Tartar dynasty 
 (South China being separately governed by the Sung 
 dynasty). From this point Jingis carried on campaign after 
 campaign with almost uniform success, till the greater 
 part of Asia grovelled beneath his yoke. Pitilessly cruel, 
 this " cormorant of conquest " marked each fresh advance, 
 whether resisted or unopposed, with wholesale massacres, 
 which, after allowing for Oriental exaggeration, swell to a 
 ghastly total. "From 121 i to 1223, 18,470,000 human 
 beings perished in China and Tangut alone at the hands of
 
 IV 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 83 
 
 Jingis and his followers,"^ a record which would have turned 
 the early kings of Israel green with envy. The Mongolian 
 policy was to scatter, ruin, and, if possible, exterminate ex- 
 isting civilisations and communities wherever their victorious 
 armies passed.- The terror which the Mongol cruelties 
 inspired unnerved their opponents and disinclined nations 
 with whom they were at peace from combining against them, 
 while their hardy desert horses, light equipment, and powers 
 of endurance enabled them to travel enormous distances in 
 all conditions of weather. Powerful empires like those of 
 China and Persia writhed beneath their yoke ; lesser states, 
 such as Great Bulgaria and Georgia, were almost wiped out 
 of existence. The conquest of this latter country by a 
 division of the Horde, under the leadership of Chepe and 
 Subatai, two of the Mongol chiefs, was followed by an 
 incursion into the land occupied by the Kumans, or Polovtzi, 
 which brought the destroying hosts on to the verge of the 
 Russian dominion. Southward the flying Kumans were 
 pursued as far as the Krim peninsula, at which point the 
 Mongols first came into contact with Western civilisation, 
 burning Sudak, where the Genoese had a flourishing com- 
 mercial station. Now were ten ambassadors sent to the 
 alarmed Russian princes, assuring them that they had nothing 
 to fear from the Horde, but warning them against showing 
 any support to the Polovtzi. Fear and resentment made the 
 princes forget the customs of civilisation, and the messengers 
 were put to death, an inauspicious opening for the coming 
 struggle. Having thus defied the gathering storm, the 
 Russians crossed the Dniepr and marched to the banks of 
 the Kalka, where they prepared to meet these new foes from 
 
 1 Sir H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols. 
 
 2 Howorth sees in the recurring devastations of such men as Jingis, Attila, 
 Timur, Bonaparte, and their ilk, the hand of "Providence" operating to purge 
 the world of " the diseased and the decaying, the weak and the false, the worn 
 out and the biased, the fool and the knave." The Mongol massacres were so 
 thorough and indiscriminate that it is hard to say what classes of human beings 
 came safest out of the ordeal, but in the wars of Napoleon it would certainly not 
 be a survival of the fittest ; the weak, the cowardly, the frivolous would be least 
 likely to perish ; the strong, the brave, the patriotic would be those who " fore- 
 most fighting fell."
 
 84 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the east, as they had aforetime met the Polovtzi and the 
 Petchenigs before them. But even at this critical moment 
 the princes were not in complete accord ; each was jealous 
 of the other, each fought for his own hand. Mstislav of 
 Galitz thought he could win the fight with his own forces 
 and the assistance of the Polovtzi, but the latter were unable 
 to withstand the Mongol onset and broke in wild confusion. 
 The Russians fought well, but they fought apart and without 
 cohesion, and were only united in one overwhelming ruin. 
 The battle of the Kalka, on the 31st May 1224, was a 
 terrible catastrophe in Russian history, and fitly heralded a 
 disastrous epoch in her annals. An army of over 80,000 
 men was scattered like chaff before the exulting Mongols, 
 and to add to the horror of the flight the treacherous Pol- 
 ovtzi, on behalf of whom the Russians had entered into the 
 quarrel, slew and plundered as they fled. From the fatal 
 banks of the Kalka to those of the Dniepr raced the broken 
 bands of Russians, the laggards falling beneath the lances 
 and sabres of their grim pursuers. Six princes, many 
 boyarins, and thousands of soldiers were numbered among 
 the slain. The young Daniel Romanovitch of Volhynia 
 escaped wounded from the woeful field, while Mstislav of 
 Kiev with two other princes defended themselves for three 
 days in a fortified camp on the bank of the Kalka. Deluded 
 by a false promise of security, they at length fell into the 
 power of the Mongols, who slaughtered the men and 
 smothered the princes under planks, holding wild carousal 
 over their swollen bodies — a scene which recalls the " night 
 of Cannae's raging field." Southern Russia lay helpless at 
 the pleasure of these merciless enemies, who ravaged un- 
 checked in the villages and homesteads near the scene of 
 their victory. Then they did a most unexpected thing ; they 
 went. Retiring through Great Bulgaria, they vanished as 
 suddenly as they had come ; of their arrival and departure 
 might almost be said what was said of their attack on 
 Bokhara : " They came, dug, burnt, killed, robbed, went." 
 The Russian lands awoke as from a nightmare to find their 
 unwelcome guests had departed.
 
 IV THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 85 
 
 In the midst of their conquests the separate Mongol 
 bands turned as if by common instinct back to their native 
 haunts in the remote valley of the Onon, where they hunted 
 and hawked after swans and cranes, antelopes and wild asses, 
 in the odd moments when they were not engaged in hunting 
 men. Then occurred that picturesque gathering which 
 Hovvorth has so eloquently described, when the old Khan 
 held his simple court surrounded by his family and chieftains, 
 a little knot of desert nomads who between them had con- 
 quered half the known world. 
 
 The Russians meanwhile, delivered from the desolating 
 presence of the Mongol hosts, resumed the uneven tenor of 
 their ways ; the citizens of Novgorod continued to displace 
 and re-elect their princes, archbishops, and posadniks ; the 
 boyarins of Galicia to plot and intrigue with Hungary, 
 Poland, and the house of Romanovitch ; the princes to 
 quarrel over the eternal readjustment of their appanages. 
 And here is a fit moment to review the unfolding spectacle 
 of national development among the Russian Slavs since 
 their focussing under the early princes, and examine the 
 drift and purpose underlying the chronicle of their doings. 
 Frankly the result is not edifying. It is an unpleasant 
 accusation to hurl against a people, but in these early 
 centuries of their history they may be aptly likened to the 
 " gray apes " portrayed by Kipling's magic pen, — always 
 setting out to do some great thing, never quite remembering 
 what it was they had meant to do, holding fast to a thing one 
 moment, letting it go the next, restless and ambitious, with- 
 out any clear idea of what they desired, such is the charac- 
 ter that must reluctantly be given them. These blind 
 devotions to the Princes of the Blood, these aimless re- 
 bellions against their authority, these fervid worshippings of 
 Mother-of-God and saints, these impious plunderings of 
 cathedrals and monasteries, these kissings and swearings on 
 the cross, these shameless breaking of oaths, these holy wars 
 against the Polovtzi, these frequent military and matrimonial 
 alliances with them, these sacrifices to keep in touch with the 
 Greek Empire and the south, this abandoning of the south
 
 86 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 lands to Turko nomads and Italian merchants, these internal 
 complications, revolutions, banishments, recalls, leagues, and 
 counter-leagues, shifting as the sands of a river-bed, what do 
 they bring to mind but a family of children squabbling and 
 loving and squabbling again in ever-varying combinations, or, 
 nearer still, the former simile, the gray apes. Other countries 
 and peoples were, it is true, going through the same period 
 of anarchy and disorder, but there was at least some method 
 in their madness. In Italy, amid the wild chaos of republics, 
 principalities, and imperial cities, there can plainly be dis- 
 cerned in the as yet scarcely named factions of Guelph and 
 Ghibelline the Papal power seeking to extend itself on the 
 one hand, and the Imperial interest striving to establish 
 itself on the other, and a third party playing off one against 
 the other for the attainment of its own independence. In 
 Germany, Emperor, electors, prince-bishops, free cities, and 
 the other constituents of the commonweal are balanced one 
 against the other in an intricate but perfectly understandable 
 whole, each working to a definite and rational end. In 
 France and England king and barons fight out the old 
 battle of monarchy against aristocracy, which is to be merged 
 one day in a conflict with a newer force — if anything is new 
 under the sun. But where is the aim or interest in these 
 minutely-recorded Russian struggles ? Hidden away in the 
 forests of Souzdal, perhaps, lies the embryo or germ of a state 
 policy, if it ever be hatched into life. Meanwhile Russia is 
 losing ground, literally and metaphorically, in many direc- 
 tions. Southward, as has been noticed, a broad zone of 
 steppe, inhabited by Turko tribes, shuts her off from the coast 
 cities of the Black Sea, where the pushing Genoese have 
 ensconced their factories. Galicia, with its population of 
 White Kroats, is becoming less Russian every day. Lit'uania, 
 no longer held under by the neighbouring provinces, threatens 
 to expand at their expense. The Baltic lands are drifting 
 into Teutonic and Catholic hands. Velikie Novgorod her- 
 self, absorbed in the details of parochial administration, has 
 let her magnificent foreign trade slip into the grip of strangers. 
 For Novgorod was not, as Howorth imagines, " a famous
 
 IV 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 87 
 
 member of the Hanseatic League " ; the League, now begin- 
 ning to play an important part in the annals of Northern 
 Europe, merely had a factory and station there, as it had at 
 London and Lisbon, and this factory speedily monopolised 
 the oversea trade of the great Russian emporium ; " during 
 three centuries the Hanseatic League concentrated in her 
 own hands all the external commerce of Northern Russia." ^ 
 Finally, on the eastern marches hovered the shadow of the 
 late incursion, an incursion which might at any moment be 
 repeated. 
 
 While the war-clouds were lowering dark and ill-boding 
 over the land, sank in the west that day-star of Russian 
 chivalry, Mstislav Mstislavitch, more or less Prince of Galitz, 
 Brave as a boar in battle, in council he was about as intelli- 
 gent ; " nothing is sadder than victory, except defeat," and 1228 
 with him certainly a success was almost as expensive as a 
 reverse could have been. His brilliant achievements gained 
 no advantage for his family or for Russia, and on his death 
 Andrew, son of the Hungarian king of that name, stepped 
 into the vacant sovereignty. This border province, with its 
 involved political conditions, had a magnetic attraction for 
 the more adventurous spirits among the Russian princes, 
 and a candidate was ready to hand to dispute its possession 
 in the person of Daniel Romanovitch of Volhynia. Just 
 such another knight -errant as Mstislav, Daniel possessed 
 more of the ability to seize the contested throne than the 
 address to establish himself firmly on it. The son of an 
 imperious and overbearing father, he had many enemies. 
 Vladimir Rurikovitch of Kiev, for instance, had not forgotten 
 that Roman had made his father assume the tonsure against 
 his inclinations, and in pursuance of this bequeathed quarrel 
 formed a league against Daniel, which included the Princes 
 of Tchernigov and Pinsk, and of course the Polovtzi. By 
 detaching Kotian, the celebrated Polovtzi Khan, from this 
 confederation, Daniel was able to gain a complete victory 
 over his enemies. Scarcely was this accomplished than he 
 whirled away, as his father had done, into the troubled 
 
 ^ Riesenkampff, Der Deutsche Hof zu Nowgorod.
 
 88 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 affairs of Poland, where he supported Duke Konrad of 
 Mazovia against the party opposed to his regency, his 
 murdered brother, Duke Lesko V., having left his son and 
 heir, Boleslas V., in his charge. Elate with the success 
 which attended his arms in this direction, on his return he 
 flung himself, with the hereditary eagle-swoop, on to the city 
 1229 of Galitz, which fell into his hands, together with the person 
 of Prince Andrew. This advantage he threw away by per- 
 mitting his valuable prisoner to retire to Hungary, whither 
 had already fled Soudislav, one of the most active of the 
 boyarins who favoured the Magj'ar dynasty. The reward 
 of this clemency was a new attack on Galicia by the Hun- 
 garians, led by Prince Bela (afterwards Bela IV.) The 
 elements were unpropitious ; torrents and floods damaged 
 and hindered the invading army, and contributed to its 
 defeat, and the Hungarians recrossed the Karpathians in 
 evil plight. The position of Daniel was, however, too pre- 
 carious to withstand for long the resources of Hungary, the 
 disaffection of his subjects, and the enmity of some of his 
 brother princes. Foremost among the latter was his cousin 
 and inveterate enemy, Aleksandr of Helz, who, having been 
 implicated in a plot which miscarried, fled to Hungary and 
 roused the king to a new attempt on this fair and coveted 
 province. The boyarins, who saw themselves, doubtless, of 
 more authority and importance as the courtiers of a foreign 
 prince than under the personal rule of a vigorous Russian 
 kniaz, deserted to the Hungarian standard, and the young 
 Andrew became once more " King of Galicia." His death 
 in 1234 paved the way for the restoration of the Romano- 
 vitch, and the boyarins of the Magyar party had to seek 
 safety beyond the mountains. Less concerned, however, in 
 strengthening his hold upon this slipper>' fief than in carrying 
 his arms into quarrels which did not concern him, Daniel 
 rushed to the assistance of his late enemy, Vladimir of Kiev, 
 who was embroiled in a war with Mikhail of Tchernigov. 
 Daniel ravaged the latter province, but disaster overtook 
 him and Vladimir in the shape of a defeat by a Polovtzi 
 army, led by Isiaslav, grandson of the immortalised Igor of
 
 IV THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 89 
 
 Severski — a strange combination. Kiev and Galitz both 
 fell into the hands of the victors, Mikhail establishing himself 
 in the latter principality, while Isiaslav held Kiev. On the 
 departure of the Polovtzi he was obliged to restore the city 
 to Vladimir, who in turn ceded it to Yaroslav Vsevolodovitch, 1236 
 prince and sometime persecutor of the Novgorodskie ; he, 
 on leaving Novgorod, placed in his stead his son Aleksandr, 
 afterwards celebrated as " Nevski." Daniel flitted about the 
 neighbouring lands like a restless ghost, seeking aid against 
 the intruding Olgovitch, even in Hungary, where Bela had 
 succeeded his father Andrew (1235), and where the exile 
 could obtain nothing more than promises, which were scarcely 
 likely to be fulfilled. Nor did he receive warmer support 
 from Duke Konrad. 
 
 In the north-west things were in a somewhat chaotic 
 condition ; the year 1236 was marked by a disaster to the 
 Sword Brethren, in which Volquin von Winterstadt and a 
 large proportion of his knights lost their lives, having ventured 
 rashly into the Lit'uanian country, where they were sur- 
 rounded by the enemy and cut to pieces. The following 
 year the Order was amalgamated with that of the Teutonic 
 Knights, who had established themselves in Prussia under 
 the Grand-Mastership of Herman von Salza. This province 
 had been formally presented to them by the Emperor 
 Frederick H., by the Duke of Mazovia, and by Pope Gregory 
 IX., finally by Pope Innocent IV., notwithstanding which, 
 the inhabitants of this much-bestowed country offered a 
 vigorous resistance to their new masters. 
 
 Out of their fools' paradise of fancied security on their 
 eastern border the Russians were rudely aroused by the 
 news that the Volga lands were being devastated by the 
 Mongols, that Bolgar was in ashes, that the heads of the 
 Tartar horses had been turned west, and that their hoofs 
 were now scoring broad tracks through the forests towards 1237 
 Riazan. On before them journeyed an eerie harbinger of 
 ill, a woman (described in the Chronicles as a sorceress), 
 with two attendants, and bearing a demand from Batu, the 
 Mongol Khan, for a tenth part of the princes' treasures.
 
 90 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Batu, nephew of Ogotai Khan, who had ruled the Horde 
 since the death of his father Jingis (1227), may well have 
 been astonished at his own moderation, since he was followed 
 by an army estimated at 300,000 men. But the Princes of 
 Riazan and Mourom refused his demand with a defiance of 
 the true heroic ring : " When we are dead you can have it 
 all." " Just as it afterwards happened," as the old Saxon 
 Chronicles used to say. No aid was forthcoming from the 
 Grand Prince Urii in response to the urgent appeals from 
 Riazan, and the devoted principality received the full shock 
 of the Mongol attack. The town was taken by assault 
 after six days' incessant fighting round the walls, and a 
 " blood bath," to use an appropriate German expression, 
 ensued in the streets, houses, and churches. The Prince of 
 Riazan and many of his family perished in the general 
 slaughter. This was in the month of December, but, un- 
 deterred by the snow which choked the forest roads and 
 filled the valleys, Batu turned north towards Souzdal, leaving 
 behind him a banquet of frozen corpses for the wolves and 
 foxes, ravens and vultures. Moskva, Tver, Souzdal, and 
 Vladimir fell one by one into the power of the Mongols 
 and experienced their cruel fury. In the latter city perished 
 Feb. 1238 Vsevolod and Mstislav, sons of Urii, who had retreated to 
 the banks of the Sit, where he turned to bay against the 
 ravagers of his province. Here, on the 3rd March, was 
 fought a battle big with importance for Russia, the West 
 fighting against the East, the forest-lands against the steppe, 
 Christianity against Shamanism. Urii had deferred the 
 decisive moment too long, and paid with his life the penalty 
 of his mistake ; his disheartened soldiers broke before the 
 overwhelming numbers of the Mongols, and left them un- 
 disputed masters of the Grand Principality. The East had 
 won. Not for many a long century, if ever, would Russia 
 shake off the Oriental influences which the Mongol victory 
 imposed upon her. From her history the shadow of the 
 Horde, one is tempted to forebode, in the words of Poe, 
 " shall be lifted nevermore," 
 
 The Bishop of Rostov, haunting the scene of desolation,
 
 IV 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 91 
 
 found the headless body of the Grand Prince, and conveyed 
 it to the church of the Virgin at that town, where it was 
 afterwards joined by its recovered head and interred, 
 together with the corpse of Vassilko Konstantinovitch, who 
 also fell on that fatal field. The triumphant Mongol host 
 marched towards Novgorod, but turned aside on seeing the 
 fastnesses of swamp and lakelet with which that town was 
 girdled, and to which it owed its safety. Less fortunate 
 were Volok-Lamskie, Torjhok, and Kozelsk, which drooped 
 one by one before the blight of conquest and devastation. 
 To the latter town, which resisted the enemy for two months 
 and slew of them four thousand, the Mongols gave the 
 name of " the evil city." Vasili, its defending kniaz, fight- 
 ing to the last, was said to have been drowned in blood 
 — an end worthy of the war-lusting vikings of the twilight 
 past. 
 
 Careful not to leave a foe behind him, Batu withdrew 
 his forces to the basin of the Don, to hunt out the Kumans 
 once more from their hiding-places, and to rest his warriors 
 and their horses in the steppe- lands to which they were 
 accustomed, Yaroslav seized this opportunity to hasten 
 from Kiev to the evacuated Souzdalian province, of which 
 desolated region he was now sovereign. To him fell the 
 task of restoring order to a distracted country and courage 
 to an affrighted people. Despite the terror which loomed in 
 the deserts near the Don, he was able to give his attention 
 to the succour of Smolensk, over-run by the Lit'uanians, 
 whom he brilliantly defeated. In the south, far from making 
 common cause against the national enemy, or seeking to 
 revenge the cruelties which had been meted out to so many 
 of the Russian cities and towns, the Romanovitch and 
 Olgovitch princes renewed their private feuds and fief- 
 grabbings. Mikhail of Tchernigov and Galitz left the latter 
 province in the keeping of his son Rostislav, while he seized 
 on Kiev, vacated by the new Prince of Souzdal-Vladimir. 
 While Rostislav and his boyarins were absent on an expedi- 
 tion against the Lit'uanians, the ever-imminent Daniel made 
 the inevitable eagle- pounce on Galitz, and despite the
 
 92 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 opposition of its bishop, was received with acclamation by 
 the people, who buzzed around him, in the words of the 
 Chronicle, " as bees swarm about their queen." 
 
 Meanwhile, in the deserts of Astrakhan, Kotian, the 
 old Polovtzi Khan, had been defeated by the Mongols, and 
 fled, he and his, along the wild steppe country till he came 
 to the Karpathian range and sought refuge in the Hungarian 
 kingdom. Russia no longer offered a safe retreat. Swiftly 
 and remorselessly the death-dealing Horde bore down on 
 the middle provinces, and throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land bishops and priests and people knelt in agonised 
 supplication to their all-powerful God to deliver them from 
 their savage enemies. From cathedral, church, and road- 
 side shrine wails the pitiful litany, " Save us from the 
 infidels ! " Candles burn and incense swings, and anguish- 
 stricken hearts yearn out their prayer, " Save us from the 
 infidels ! " Call Him louder. Perchance He sleepeth. 
 
 Tchernigov and Pcreyaslavl experienced the common 
 fate, the general ruin ; town and country alike suffered the 
 affliction of fire and sword and rapine. Shuddering villagers, 
 lying awake around their flickering hearths at night, would 
 hear the uneasy barking of their watch-dogs, scenting or 
 seeing something not yet palpable to human senses ; and 
 later the house-pigeons would fly far and wildly over a 
 landscape lit up by a glow that was not the dawn. 
 
 After a short respite, while the destroyers had turned 
 aside again to the deserts of the Don, Central Russia once 
 more became the scene of their ravaging. It was now the 
 turn of Kiev to become the miserable victim of their 
 attentions. Around the mother of Russian cities (a very 
 Niobe under present circumstances), the sacred site of the 
 tombs and relics of the grand old princes, the resting-place 
 of " all the glories," gathered a host that blackened the face 
 of the country for miles round. Batu himself, Mengu and 
 Kujuk, sons of Ogatai (the Grand Khan), and five other 
 princes of the family of Jingis, came to help the city on the 
 Dniepr to its doom. Mikhail of Tchernigov fled to Hungary 
 on the approach of the enemy, and even the daring Daniel
 
 IV THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 93 
 
 Romanovitch preferred not to shut himself up like a trapped 
 rat in Kiev or Galitz, and sought refuge with King Bela, 
 leaving, however, in the former town his voevoda Dimitri to 
 direct the defence. Happy had it been for the inhabitants 
 had they all fled from the death-trap. Within the walls 
 men could scarce hear themselves speak for the floating din 
 of creaking carts, bellowing oxen, groaning camels, neighing 
 and stamping horses, and yelling Mongols which resounded 
 on all sides. Against the Polish gate day and night the 
 battering-rams crashed and splintered, till a breach was 1240 
 effected by which the besiegers entered. S. Sofia had 
 become the last refuge of the defenders, but the roof, crowded 
 with fugitives, gave way beneath the pressure, and forestalled 
 the vengeance of the Mongols. Men, women, and infants, 
 houses, churches, tombs, and shrines became a prey to the 
 children of the desert, a vast hecatomb to grace the funeral 
 pyre of the old Russia. The famous monastery of 
 Petcherski, where the monk Nestor wrote his Chronicle, 
 shared the general destruction, and from amid its crashing 
 ruins the pagans seized the massive gold cross which had 
 adorned its cupola. 
 
 From this victory the Horde pressed on through Volhynia 
 and Galicia ; Vladimir, Galitz, and other Red Russian towns 
 fell beneath their attack, and then the conquering host 
 branched off into two divisions ; one, under the command of 
 Batu, invaded Hungary ; the other, led by Baidar and Kaidu 
 (sons of Jagatai), carried desolation into the Polish provinces. 
 The storm, sack, and burning of Lublin, Zawikhost, Sendomir, 
 and Krakow, and the ravaging of the province of Breslau 
 led up to the pitched battle of Liegnitz, where the might of 
 Poland measured itself in desperate struggle with the Mongol 
 wave. On the Christian side stood Duke Henry H. of 
 Silesia; Boleslav, son of the Markgraf of Moravia; Miecislav, 
 Duke of Ratibor ; and Poppon d'Osterna, Provincial Master 
 (in Prussia) of the Teutonic Order. Outnumbered by the 
 Mongols, the Poles fought valiantly and with effect, till at 
 last their spirit failed them ; the great Tuk banner, lurid 
 with flaring naphtha, and decorated with two gleaming sheep
 
 94 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 bones, transversely crossed, seemed to reproduce, amid 
 unholy goblin flames, their own mystic symbol. The 
 powers of darkness and the seething masses of human foes 
 were too formidable a combination to fight against, and the 
 chivalry of Poland broke and fled. Duke Henry on that 
 awful night fought savagely as he fled, but was torn down 
 at length by his untiring pursuers. Many a count and 
 palatine shared his fate ; from every corpse the savage 
 victors cut an ear, and nine sacks full were sent to the 
 Grand Khan, together with the head of Duke Henry, as a 
 record of the slain.^ In tracing the Mongol march of 
 devastation through Silesia, Moravia, and Transylvania into 
 Hungary, it is only necessary to observe that wholesale 
 slaughter, destruction, and sweeping victory continued to 
 characterise the advance of the Horde.^ In Hungary men 
 had awaited with cold and anxious hearts the onfall of the 
 Mongols. Had they not heard with sorrow and foreboding 
 at Christmas-tide last year the doleful intelligence of the 
 fall of Kiev ? And the wild stories of each fresh batch of 
 fugitives — Kumans, Russians, Poles, Silesians — increased 
 the terror of the Mongol name and brought their armies 
 nearer. The King rallied his nobles round him (none too 
 well-affected though they were) in a determined effort to 
 stem this swarthy torrent that threatened to submerge the 
 country. The prelates of the realm, good old fighting 
 churchmen as they were, led their vassals in person to the 
 fight. On the field of Mohi (name strangely like that of 
 the other fatal battle in their history), on the banks of the 
 Saj6, the cross of S. Stefan went down before the yak- 
 tailed Tuk, and the nomad warriors triumphed over the 
 Magyar chivalry. Hemmed in on all sides, the Hungarians 
 
 ^ Both Von Hammer-Purgstall {Geschichte der Goldenen Horde) and Howorth 
 allude to Poppon as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a post held at that 
 date by Konrad of Thuringen ; also both include him among the slain, though 
 the former has a note to the effect that this could not have been Poppon "of 
 Osterino," who died much later. Poppon of Osterna was at this date Provincial 
 or Land-master in Prussia, and lived to be elected Grand Master in 1 253. 
 
 - Howorth, following Wolff, discredits the widely - accepted story of a 
 Bohemian victory over the Mongols at Olmutz, and refers the event to a success 
 over the Hungarians and Kumans twelve years later.
 
 IV THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS 95 
 
 were powerless ; " it was not a battle, but a butchery." ^ Bela 
 fled to the Karpathians, thence to Austria ; his brother 
 Kalman reached Kroatia, where he died of his wounds. 
 Among the slain were the Archbishops Mathias of Gran 
 and Ugolin of Kalocza, the Bishops of Raab, Neutra, and 
 Siebenbiirgen, and counts and nobles galore, the flower of 
 Hungarian aristocracy. Surely not to be reckoned as " the 
 weak and the false," " the fool and the knave." Bela, 
 betrayed by the Duke of Austria and hunted from one 
 refuge to another by the remorseless enemy, took ship from 
 the Dalmatian coast and left his kingdom in the hands of 
 Batu. Southern Hungary, Servia, Dalmatia, and parts of 
 Bulgaria were ravaged by detachments of the Horde, but 
 south of Albania and west of Austria they do not appear 
 to have penetrated. The news of the death of the Grand 
 Khan Ogatai, and possibly the increasing difficulty of 
 supporting so large a body of men in a devastated country, 
 determined Batu to withdraw his hosts from the scene of 
 their conquests, and the Mongol swarms melted away from 
 the erstwhile fertile lands which they had turned into a 
 howling wilderness. Bela returned to take possession of his 
 stricken kingdom, confronted on all sides by evidences of 
 the great calamity ; "the highways were grown with grass, 
 the fields were white with bones, and here and there for 
 more than a day's journey round, no living soul." " In 
 distant corners of Europe men shuddered at the tales that 
 were told of these fearsome sons of the desert ; in marvel- 
 loving Constantinople it was gravely averred that they had 
 the heads of dogs and fed upon human flesh, and the 
 dread of their coming kept the fishermen of Sweden and 
 Friesland from attending the herring-market on the English 
 coast, thereby demoralising prices.^ 
 
 ^ Von Hammer- Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde. 
 
 ^ Laszlo Szalay, Geschichte Ungarns. 
 
 ^ Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 "THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 
 
 )) 
 
 While the Golden Horde was dealing out death and 
 destruction in the neighbouring western kingdoms, Russia 
 was exerting her powers of recuperation to regain some of 
 the life that had been crushed out of her. Like unscathed 
 pheasants stealing back one by one to the coverts from which 
 the beaters had sent them whirring forth, the fugitive princes 
 returned to the wrecks of their provinces. Daniel re-estab- 
 lished himself at Galitz, Mikhail at Kiev ; Tchernigov was 
 still infested by roving bodies of Mongols. Meanwhile the 
 Novgorodskic, in their own little world in the North, pursued 
 as usual a political existence isolated from that of Central 
 and Eastern Russia. On the top of their quarrels with the 
 German knights they became involved in a question of 
 frontier lands with the crown of Sweden, Under the com- 
 mand of the Skandinavian Prince Birger, an army of Swedes, 
 Norwegians, and Finns disembarked at the mouth of the 
 Ijhora, an affluent of the Neva, and threatened an attack 
 upon Ladoga. Aleksandr Yaroslavitch, the young Prince of 
 Novgorod, gathering together the few men at his disposal, 
 1240 flung himself on the Swedish camp and gained a brilliant 
 victory, wounding Birger himself in the face with his lance. 
 In honour of which battle he ever after bore the added name 
 of Nevski (" of the Neva "). 
 
 While the young Yaroslavitch waged brilliant, if not 
 particularly fruitful, campaigns against German and Lit'uanian 
 enemies, matters were settling down in gloomy mould in 
 the other Russian provinces. The great Mongol inundation,
 
 CH. V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 97 
 
 which had submerged the Palearctic region (no less compre- 
 hensive definition is adequate), from the basin of the Amur 
 to the Dalmatian sea-board, had receded so far as to leave 
 the Polish, Hungarian, and Bulgarian lands high and dry, 
 though strewn with the wreckage of its violence. But here 
 the shrinkage stopped. The conqueror Batu halted his 
 retiring hordes in the steppe-land of the lower Volga, on the 
 left bank of which river he established his camp-city, Sarai. 
 From here he was able to maintain the ascendancy which 
 his arms had won him over the Russian princes, and to 
 guard the supremacy of the great Mongol Empire in the 
 western portions of its extensive territory. And now comes 
 perhaps the saddest period of Russian history — certainly the 
 meanest. The locust-plague that had swept through the 
 land had blighted the fair promise of its growth ; Russia 
 was no longer free, and her princes ruled, not by the grace 
 of God, but by favour of the Grand Khan, Kuyuk, last heard 
 of before the crumbling walls of Kiev. To the peasantry, 
 perhaps, it mattered little in whose name they were taxed or 
 pillaged, whether they beat the forehead to Russian kniaz 
 or Mongol khan ; but to the Princes of the Blood, proud of 
 their heirship of the throne of Rurik, treasuring their religion 
 as a personal glory-reflecting possession, jealous of their 
 standing with the royal houses of Europe, it was a terrible 
 and bitter humiliation to have to own allegiance to this 
 desert chief, this Asiatic barbarian, as he must have been in 
 their eyes, this pagan sun -worshipper, who derived his 
 authority neither from the keys of S. Peter nor from the 
 sceptre of the Caesars. Yet, so adaptable to altered circum- 
 stances is nature, that even this galling yoke ceased after a 
 while to deaden the political energies of its wearers, which 
 found vent, unhappily, not in struggles towards emancipation, 
 but in a renewal of the old miserable squabbles between 
 prince and prince. In this internal strife the power of the 
 Khan was even invoked to overwhelm an opponent, a state 
 of things which, however degrading it may appear, is not 
 unique in the history of peoples, and proud peoples moreover. 
 The Jewish factions in the days of Josephus, groaning under 
 
 H
 
 98 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the abhorred dominion of Rome, expended their energies in 
 fighting each other with any weapon that came to hand, 
 including the Gentile-wielded authority, and in this same 
 thirteenth century the Scottish nobles did not scruple to turn 
 the English suzerainty to account in their party schemes and 
 feuds. 
 1244 The first to tender his submission at the Court of the 
 Mongol chief was Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Souzdal, whom 
 Batu confirmed in his principality and added thereto that of 
 Kiev. Two years later, however, Yaroslav was required to 
 present himself at the headquarters of the Grand Khan, in 
 the Amur valley, where he bowed the knee before his Mongol 
 master and obtained permission to return to his province, 
 dying, however, before the weary homeward journey was 
 accomplished. Mikhail of Tchernigov, forced to undertake 
 the same humiliating pilgrimage, died at the hands of the 
 Mongol priests, a martyr to his religion. His son Rostislav, 
 a voluntary exile in Hungary, became Ban of Sclavonia and 
 of Makhov in Bosnia.^ Daniel of Galitz, farthest removed 
 from the power of the Khan, was one of the last to surrender 
 his independence and journey across Russia to the tent of 
 Batu, who received him with more consideration than had 
 been shown to the other princes. Little indeed might such 
 humouring avail to gild the bitter pill, that the proud 
 Romanovitch, whose favour had been sought by princes and 
 Pope, should go forth from the Mongol presence wearing the 
 title, " Servant of the Grand Khan." The enormous fighting- 
 strength at the disposal of the conquerors, the rapidity with 
 which it could be put in motion, and the terror inspired b\' 
 a long succession of victories and attendant cruelties, helped 
 to uphold their authority as it had contributed to the ease of 
 their conquests. " In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a 
 dog might bark without Mongol leave, from the borders of 
 Poland and the coast of Cilicia to the Amur and the Yellow 
 Sea." - Even the hero of the battle of the Neva found it 
 expedient to toil through some thousand miles of desert to 
 
 ^ A. M. H. J. Stockvis, Manuel dliistoire, de genealogie, etc. 
 2 Colonel Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo.
 
 I( 
 
 THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN" 99 
 
 the habitation of the Grand Khan, and pay the same dis- 
 tasteful homage to the great barbarian. In his absence 
 important events were happening at Souzdal. His uncle, 
 Sviatoslav, who had succeeded to the Grand Principality on 
 the death of Yaroslav, was chased out of this dignity by 1248 
 Mikhail, Aleksandr's younger brother. The same winter 
 Mikhail lost his life in battle with the Lit'uanians. His 
 place was filled by Andrei, another brother, who had just 
 returned with Aleksandr from the eastern pilgrimage. While 
 the greater part of Russia was passing into the hands of the 
 Souzdal family, Daniel was leaning more and more towards 
 Western Europe and dallying openly with the Pope. No 
 stone was left unturned by the strenuous Pontiff (Innocent 
 IV.) to tempt the Galician Prince into the Roman com- 
 munion, and Daniel certainly nibbled at the bait. Russia 
 had become a province of Tartary ; Constantinople no longer 
 harboured the Orthodox faith ; only in Catholic Europe did 
 the worship of Jesus and the glory of princes go hand in 
 hand. Hence it is not to be wondered at that a Russian 
 prince should lose heart in the faith of his fathers, and seek 
 for support against the Mongols in an alliance with the Holy 
 See and neighbouring Catholic powers. In 1254 matters 
 had so far progressed in this direction that, after much beating 
 about the bush on both sides, the Abbot of Messina, in the 
 capacity of Papal Legate, placed on Daniel's head a royal 
 crown and hailed him King of Galicia. Innocent followed 
 this up by an appeal to the sovereign Princes of Bohemia, 
 Poland, etc., to unite with Daniel in a crusade against the 
 Mongols ; but Catholic Christendom was at that moment 
 too divided against itself, in the strife of the Papacy with the 
 Hohenstaufen emperors, to show a united front to any enemy. 
 The Russian Prince, who had not definitely committed him- 
 self to a change of creed, saw that he was not likely to obtain 
 any substantial support from the western princes, and broke 
 off relations with Rome.-^ In the north Aleksandr was 
 seeking to conserve his power and that of his family by a 
 different policy — by cultivating a good understanding, namely, 
 
 1 Karamzin.
 
 lOO THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 with the rulers of the Horde. Had he chosen the more heroic 
 line of resistance, and sacrificed his religious scruples to the 
 Latin Pope rather than to the Mongol Khan, he might, with 
 the alliance of the Swedes and Teutons, have defied the 
 armies of the desert from behind the swampy forests which 
 girdled Novgorod. This would have meant, however, aban- 
 doning Kiev and Souzdal as well as the Orthodox faith, 
 possessions which he was able to retain by acquiescing in 
 the Mongol supremacy. His less subservient, or less tactful 
 (1252) brother, Andrei, had found it necessary to depart hurriedly 
 from the Grand Principality, before the advent of the Horde's 
 agents, sent to punish him for insubordination to the Grand 
 Khan ; Aleksandr, by a friendly visit to Sardak (son of Batu), 
 obtained the reversion of the escheated fiefs, and thereby 
 sealed his obligation to his Tartar masters.^ Five years 
 later he had to acquiesce in another humiliation, the num- 
 bering and taxing of his provinces by the agents of the new 
 Khan Berke. This was followed in due course by a command 
 that Novgorod should submit to the same operation, and 
 Aleksandr, who had defended that city against all comers, 
 had now to undertake the unpleasant task of reconciling the 
 citizens to this indignity. Velikie Novgorod hummed like 
 a hive at the shameful proposal. Alone of all the Russian 
 lands she had kept her liberty ; she had checked the en- 
 croachments of Sweden and the missionary efiforts of the 
 German military Orders ; had kept the House of Souzdal on 
 its good behaviour, and dismissed princes, posadniks, and 
 archbishops with a prodigality of independence ; and now, at 
 the hands of her well-beloved Nevski, this hateful thing was 
 thrust upon her. No wonder the " proud city of the waters " 
 throbbed with indignation, and the great bell of Yaroslav 
 echoed the popular tumult. But the insistence of the Khan, 
 coupled with the Grand Prince's influence, wore down the 
 noisy opposition, and the Novgorodskie, spent with fury, 
 admitted the Mongol assessors into their houses, and became 
 1259 the tributaries of the Golden Horde. 
 
 While Aleksandr had been employed in linking the 
 1 S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie. Karamzin.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN loi 
 
 northern province on to the Mongol chain, Daniel had been 
 making tentative experiments in the direction of freedom, 
 which broucrht a considerable detachment of the Horde 
 galloping into his territory. The Galician Prince averted 
 the storm by a hasty submission, and had the satisfaction of 
 seeing the monster he had called up vent its fury on his 
 doubtful allies, the Lit'uanians. But the conquest of a (1258) 
 people who had no towns worth speaking of, and who were 
 adepts in the art of eluding pursuit, did not exhaust the 
 Mongol craving for loot and slaughter, and the following 
 year found them still on the war-path, this time in Polish 
 territory. " From Lublin they circled round to Zavikhvost, 
 passed across the Vistula, captured Sendomir and the town 
 of Listz." ^ Then, having given Daniel an object-lesson in 
 obedience, the Horde melted away into the steppe — and the 
 Lit'uanians issued anew from their fastnesses and renewed 
 their border warfare in the surrounding lands. The attack 
 of the Mongols adds another item to the long list of enemies 
 against whom these irrepressible people had to battle for 
 their liberty and their existence. Livlandish knights, the 
 citizens of Pskov and Novgorod, the Princes of Polotzk, 
 Souzdal, and Galitz, the palatines of Mazovia, and now the 
 nomads of the desert, battered and smote perseveringly upon 
 this pre-eminently " buffer State," whose security lay partly 
 in the nature of its physical conformation, partly in the dis- 
 union of its enemies. In the fierce struggle for life and 
 growth which was going on in this corner of Europe the 
 result would necessarily be a survival of the fittest, and 
 which that fittest was (under the conditions then obtaining) 
 a glance at a graduated political map of the region will 
 demonstrate.^ The very stress of external attack which 
 bore upon them from all sides, drove the Lit'uanians into 
 closer fusion and welded them together under the leadership 
 of a single chief In the person of Mindovg appears the 
 first historically reliable Duke of Lit'uania, and under his 
 auspices spring up the towns, or strongholds, of Kernov and 
 
 "^ N. P. Dashkevitch, Knazeiiie Daniela Galitznago. 
 - E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe.
 
 I02 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap- 
 
 Grodno. A few years later his nephew Tovtivl is installed, 
 whether by conquest or election is not clear, in the neighbour- 
 ing Russian kniazdom of Polotzk. In 1262 occurs the first 
 recorded ags-ressive alliance between the Russians and 
 Lit'uanians ; during one of Aleksandr Nevski's frequent 
 pilgrimages to the Mongol headquarters, his son Dimitri and 
 his brother Yaroslav (Prince of Tver), in conjunction with 
 Mindovg and Tovtivl, banded their forces together in an 
 attack on Uriev, called by the Germans Dorpat. This town, 
 which had long been a bone of contention between the 
 Knights of Jesus and the north Russian princes, and had 
 experienced more than once the fate of a border burg, 
 suffered considerably on this occasion, and its blazing out- 
 works lit home the booty -laden raiders — roused also to 
 vengeance, according to some accounts, the Landmaster 
 Werner von Breithausen, who led his knights, burning and 
 plundering, into Russian land till failing strength constrained 
 him to return homewards.^ 
 
 The return of Aleksandr from Sarai, where he had for 
 several months been the guest — or prisoner — of the Khan, 
 was soon followed by his death, in November 1263 — an 
 event which, according to some of the older Russian historians, 
 was universally wept and deplored by his bereaved subjects. 
 The people of Novgorod, with whom he should have been 
 especially popular, seem to have successfully dissembled their 
 grief, and marked their attachment to his memory by expel- 
 ling his son Dimitri, killing Mikhail Stcfanovitch, the 
 posadnik of his choosing, and electing to that office Mikhail 
 Thedorovitch, a boyarin opposed to the late Prince's interests. 
 Having thus thoroughly broken " off with the old love," they 
 dispatched their new posadnik and a deputation of citizens 
 to offer their allegiance to Yaroslav, who had succeeded, 
 with the consent of the Khan, to the grand princedom ; 
 Andrei, who lay under the displeasure of the Horde, having 
 1264 further disqualified himself by dying a few months after his 
 brother. The terms of the deed by which Yaroslav was 
 invited to assume the sovereignty of Novgorod are interesting 
 
 * S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie. 
 
 1
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 103 
 
 as throwing valuable light on the position occupied by the 
 city at that period. The Prince was to swear by the cross 
 to govern Novgorod " conformably to her ancient laws " ; 
 to content himself with presents from the country districts 
 and dependencies, in place of levying tribute ; to govern 
 them only by Novgorodian magistrates, chosen with the 
 assent of the posadnik ; he was only permitted to visit the 
 vassal town of Staraia Rousa in the autumn, while Ladoga 
 was out of bounds for himself or any member of his house- 
 hold, except his fisherman and brewer ; his judicial and 
 domestic officials were to pay " with money " for the use of 
 horses on their travels, but the military couriers were per- 
 mitted to impress what they wanted in this respect for their 
 service ; on the other hand, it was engaged that Novgorodian 
 merchants journeying in the Grand Principality were to pay 
 " two squirrel-skins for boat, cart, and measure of flax or 
 hops." " In consequence, and for guarantee that you execute 
 these conditions, kiss you the holy cross in presence of the 
 ambassadors of Novgorod : on that. Prince, we salute you." 
 This document, which was made out in the name of the 
 Archbishop, posadnik, boyarins, and people of Novgorod, 
 " from the oldest to the youngest " (a Russian equivalent for 
 high and low, or great and small), was subscribed to by 1265 
 Yaroslav, who thereon became Prince of Novgorod. Among 
 other things to be gleaned from this covenant is the fact 
 that the Prince was supposed to be supported " by voluntary 
 contributions " ; that minute fiscal and domestic regulations 
 (similar in nature to those existing in some of the Swiss 
 cantons in the Middle Ages) were enforced in the lands of 
 the republic and in relation with other Russian provinces ; 
 and that fur-pelts had not yet been wholly displaced, as a 
 medium of payment, by the circulation of money. The 
 petty and irritating nature of some of these restrictions may 
 have been the effect, rather than the cause, of the long series 
 of quarrels between princes and citizens, but they could 
 hardly fail to produce friction under the most favourable 
 circumstances. Yaroslav soon had proof of the independent 
 dispositions of his northern subjects, who peremptorily thwarted
 
 104 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 his design for a campaign against the sister republic of 
 Pskov, which had elected a Lit'uanian chief as its ruler 
 without consulting the Grand Prince. The latter soon after 
 returned to the more congenial atmosphere of Vladimir, 
 leaving as his representative his nephew, Urii Andreievitch. 
 Relieved of the presence of the Velikie-kniaz, the Novgorod- 
 skie, allied with Dovmont, the aforesaid Prince of Pskov, 
 marched with an army 30,000 strong, furnished with 
 battering-rams and other siege engines, into the charmed 
 region of the Baltic provinces, where German knights, the 
 Archbishops of Riga, Danes, Swedes, Lit'uanians, and Russians 
 disputed over and over again, with never-flagging zest, every 
 corner of that most debatable land. The objective of the 
 Russ- Lit'uanian army (with which marched Dimitri, the 
 whilom Prince of Novgorod), was the Dane-held town of 
 Rakovor (Wesenberg), in Estland ; as they approached the 
 town, however, the Russians found themselves confronted by 
 a strong force of " the gentlemen of God " (as they magnani- 
 mously, or satirically, styled the Teutonic knights), under 
 the command of their Landmaster, von Rodenstein — the last 
 people they were anxious to meet. The dark winter day 
 (i8th February 1268) was all too short to decide the furious 
 combat which ensued, and many a noted leader, many a 
 thousand men-at-arms, fell on either side without the issue 
 being settled one way or the other. The Novgorodskie lost 
 their posadnik and the tisyaszhnik ^ Kodrat, while on the 
 other side Alexander, Bishop of Dorpat, was among the slain. 
 Better armed and better disciplined, it is probable that the 
 knights of the Order inflicted the heavier loss on their 
 opponents, and the Russians had to abandon their projected 
 attack on Rakovor. The spring of the next year brought 
 von Rodenstein and his pied -mantled warriors into the 
 territory of Pskov, where they burnt Izborsk, the old pre- 
 Rurikian town on the Lake Peipus, and stormed Pskov itself. 
 Its Lit'uanian Prince was a match for the Teutons, and for 
 ten days steel and iron and stone clashed and hurtled round 
 the tottering ramparts. Dovmont himself wounded the 
 
 1 Commander of a thousand men.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 105 
 
 Landmaster, and held the enemy at bay till the bear-blazoned 
 standard of Velikie Novgorod waved in the distance and 
 warned the knights to retire beyond the border. The 
 Order, however, by a treaty with the powerful Hanse city of 
 Lubeck, was able to strike Novgorod in a more vulnerable 
 spot than the shores of Lake Peipus, and a combination 
 directed against her shipping caused her to conclude a peace 
 with her German neighbours.^ 
 
 This war, in which both sides had lost heavily in men, 
 while neither had gained any distinct advantage, had been 
 sustained by Novgorod without the assistance and without 
 the sanction of the Grand Prince, and now that it had come 
 to a lame conclusion mutual recriminations were indulged in 
 by the citizens and by Yaroslav. The sins of the father 
 were visited on the child, so to speak, and Urii, like so many 
 of his forerunners, was " shown the way " out of the city, 1270 
 and the old quarrel between the Princes of Souzdal and the 
 great republic broke out anew. In all the misery and 
 humiliation of their subject position the Russians clung to 
 the luxury of their private feuds, as a fate-cursed man takes 
 to a soothing narcotic. Yaroslav even rose to the brilliantly 
 despicable idea of turning the national misfortune to account 
 by employing the Mongol hordes to bear upon the defensive 
 array of the turbulent city. A boyarin sent by him to 
 Sarai depicted the attitude of the citizens as one of revolt 
 against the Grand Prince and the authority of the Horde, 
 and invoked the aid of the Khan to quench this dangerous 
 disaffection. Fortunately for the men of Novgorod they 
 had a friend at court in the person of Vasili, the Grand 
 Prince's youngest brother, who stated their side of the case 
 and obtained the recall of the punitive force which had been 
 dispatched against them." The credit of restoring good 
 relations between the proud republic and the irritated Prince 
 rests with the Metropolitan Kirill, who was ever ready to 
 exert the influence of his office in the interests of peace. 
 
 While these events had been passing in the north, Daniel 
 
 1 Ceschichte der Ostseeprovinzen. Karamzin. S. Solov'ev. 
 
 2 Karamzin.
 
 io6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Romanovitch had quietly slipped out of existence, the date 
 of his death being vaguely fixed "between 1264-1266."^ 
 Taking into consideration the very open question which the 
 possession of his province had been when he first enforced 
 his claims upon it, the scant notice which his death attracted 
 was rather a compliment to his statecraft. " King of Galitz," 
 where his forerunners had been simply princes, he was prob- 
 ably the only sovereign in Europe who had outwitted 
 Innocent IV., and swallowed unconcernedly the bait which 
 was to have lured him into the Catholic fold. Of his four 
 sons, Roman (who had been successively dazzled, utilised, 
 and disillusioned by Bela IV. in the expectation of the 
 reversion of the contested Austrian lands) had died before 
 him, and the remaining three — Lev, Mstislav, and Shvarn 
 — were established at Peremysl, Loutzk, and Galitz respec- 
 tively, while their uncle Vassilko reigned at Vladimir. The 
 influence of the latter, who had loyally supported his brother 
 in all his vicissitudes, prevented the province from falling to 
 pieces, and an unlooked-for event gave Galicia new impor- 
 tance. Voeshelk, son of Mindovg, who had succeeded to a 
 reduced share of his father's dominions and authority, had 
 adopted the Christian religion, and displayed from time to 
 time the uncomfortable zeal of a convert ; already he had 
 tasted the sweets of monastic retirement, and after the short 
 interval of a rule which was not remarkable for over much 
 mercy towards his subjects, he wished again for the solitude 
 of the cloister. It was necessary to appoint a successor, 
 and as a Christian prince was preferred in that capacity, his 
 choice fell upon Shvarn Danielovitch, who possessed the 
 further recommendation of having married the Lit'uanian 
 chief's daughter. Thus Galitz and the greater part of 
 Lit'uania became united vmder one ruler, and it seemed 
 possible that in this direction was to be looked for the build- 
 ing up of a Russian monarchy — a development from the 
 West rather than from the East. The union of the States, 
 however, was followed by a dark and ill-omened deed, when 
 the Prince of Peremysl, incensed by the preference shown to 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 107 
 
 his youngest brother, murdered the monk-prince Voeshelk 
 after a banquet in the city of Vladimir. The sudden death 
 of Shvarn (1270) ended the union so inauspiciously in- 
 augurated ; Lev succeeded to the fief of Galitz, and Lit'uania 
 was wrested from Russia and Christianity by the heathen 
 Prince Troiden. 
 
 Two years after this event died Yaroslav-Yaroslavitch, 1272 
 Grand Prince of Souzdal-Vladimir and Prince of Novgorod. 
 In the former province he was succeeded peaceably by his 
 brother Vasili ; at Novgorod, naturally, affairs did not pass 
 off so smoothly. Dimitri Aleksandrovitch was chosen by 
 the posadnik and many of the citizens in opposition to 
 Vasili, and another contest between Novgorod and Souzdal 
 seemed imminent. The peace party in the former province 
 averted the threatened rupture by out-voting the adherents 
 of Dimitri, and Novgorod was once more united with the 
 Grand Principality. It is interesting to note that the rulers 
 of the republic were being chosen more and more exclusively 
 from the reigning family of Souzdal-Vladimir, and here may 
 be seen for the first time since the death of Vladimir the 
 Holy a reliable hint of the germ-growth of " all the Russias." 
 With Pskov and Polotzk in Lit'uanian hands, Kiev and the 
 steppes little more than Mongol outposts, and Tchernigov 
 enjoying but a shadow of its former importance, Novgorod, 
 Souzdal, and Galitz between them make up very nearly the 
 total of the Russian-ruled lands ; and of these three pro- 
 vinces the two largest have settled down under one family. 
 Like the acorn-seed, Russia had to decay and shrivel to 
 a certain extent before she could begin to grow ; but the 
 process of decomposition and denudation was not yet arrested. 
 
 Again did the Russian Princes of Galicia, Volhynia, and 
 Smolensk call in the aid of the Mongols — this time against 
 the Lit'uanians, who were becoming more and more uncom- 
 fortable neighbours. In two campaigns the latter held their 
 own against the combined Tartar-Russian attack, and the 
 idolaters of Grodno and Novgorodek successfully resisted the 
 forces of Christianity and Islam — to which latter creed the 
 Mongols had a few years previously been converted.
 
 io8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 In 1276 Vasili Yaroslavitch was gathered to his fathers, 
 and Dimitri came in, as peacefully as the proverbial lamb, 
 to the possession of the Grand Principality and of Velikie 
 Novgorod. Not long had he been on the throne ere the 
 wildest anarchy broke out in his dominions ; scarcely had 
 the inevitable quarrel with Novgorod been smoothed over 
 than civil war desolated the grand province. Andrei Aleks- 
 androvitch, kniaz of the appanage of Gorodetz on the Volga, 
 was brother to Dimitri — by the accident of birth a younger 
 brother ; an accident which he proposed to correct with the 
 assistance of the Horde. In league with these formidable 
 warriors and with his uncles Thedor and Mikhail, Andrei let 
 slip the dogs of war on the unhappy province, and drove 
 Dimitri from the field. After the Mongols had worked their 
 will on the wretched inhabitants, and established Andrei as 
 Grand Prince of a ravaged and depopulated territory, they 
 retired with their booty and captives and left the two princes 
 to fight out their own quarrels. Andrei soon had to call 
 them in again, and Dimitri, not to be outdone, played Mongol 
 1283 against Mongol, and secured the support of Nogai, the almost 
 independent Khan of the Oukrain steppes. The people, as 
 usual, suffered heavily at the hands of the nomad squadrons : 
 the " Scourge of God " has a way of falling on the most 
 innocent shoulders. The condition of the Russian peasant 
 and tiller of the soil was at this time deplorable. Debarred 
 from exercising his labour on the fertile, but robber-haunted 
 lands of the .south, he was obliged to struggle patiently with 
 the mighty forces of the northern forests, like the Indian 
 ryot fighting against the encroachments of the jungle ; only 
 in place of elephant, boar, and sambur, which ruin from time 
 to time the fruits of the latter's toil, the former had periodi- 
 cally to bewail the devastations of Kuman, Mongol, and, not 
 seldom, Russian raiders. 
 
 With intervals of exhaustion, the war of the broi-hers 
 dragged on for many years, kept alive, now by intrigues at 
 the Mongol Courts, now by raid and rapine in the lands of 
 Souzdal and Pereyaslavl. Out of this seething incoherent 
 dust-storm rises one tangible fact, the independence of the
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 109 
 
 province of Tver ; born of anarchy, this little principality 
 shall contribute its quota to the red page of Russian history 
 ere it sinks back into obscurity. Under its young Prince, 
 Mikhail Yaroslavitch, it has taken advantage of the weakness 
 and embarrassments of Dimitri to secure for itself a separate 
 existence, and to impair the solidity of the grand province. 
 The Novgorodians, but languidly attached to the interests 
 of the rival princes, started a domestic war of their own, 
 one of those vigorous, exuberant burgh-strifes peculiar to 
 the free cities of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages — a 
 strife in which the whole population took part, from the 
 Archbishop, posadnik, and boyarins, down to the " youngest 
 people " ; a strife which has been handed down blurred and 
 sketchy, devoid of meaning and purpose, if it ever had any, 
 but still instinct with life and movement. Wild crowds 
 skirling through narrow streets, hunting the posadnik into 
 the protection of the Archbishop, hammering on the closed 
 door of the sanctuary, the Cathedral of S. Sofia ; tumultuous 
 gatherings in the great square, angry dooming of citizens, 
 hurlings of struggling victims from the bridge into the 
 Volkhov ; and above all these scenes of disorder, the great 
 bell of Yaroslav clanging and dinning, like some evil spirit 
 of unrest prisoned in its owl-tower. The picture lives. 
 
 Western Russia also had its own troubles, or rather it 
 had become involved in those of Poland, where, the scruples 
 of Boleslas " the Chaste " having prevented him from re- 
 producing his species, his death in 1279 was followed by a 
 scramble for his throne. Where there is no heir there are 
 many, may not be a proverb, but it has all the qualifications 
 for one. The Dukes of Mazovia, Krakow, Silesia, and 
 Kujavia put forward their interests, and the cousins Lev of 
 Galitz and Vladimir of Volhynia entered into the fray 
 without any more substantial claim than a backing of 
 Mongol horsemen, borrowed from the Horde. Even this 
 powerful argument broke down when the supporters of the 
 new Duke, Lesko the Black, defeated the Russ-Mongol 
 army near Sendomir with great slaughter (1280). The 
 following year Galicia and Volhynia received return visits
 
 no THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 from the Poles, but the dissensions which soon after broke 
 out in the palatinate of Mazovia again gave the Red Russian 
 princes the opportunity of interesting themselves in Polish 
 affairs. 
 
 In Eastern Russia Andrei had practically established his 
 authority in the Grand Principality ; the Tartar-hunted, fate- 
 cursed Dimitri, driven even from his beloved domain of 
 Pereyaslavl, was compelled at last to seek refuge with his 
 cousin and erstwhile enemy, Mikhail of Tver, and renounce 
 his claim to the grand province, stipulating only for the 
 possession of his hereditary fief This was conceded him, 
 and the wanderer turned his weary steps towards his burnt 
 and plundered Pereyaslavl, which he was not to see. 
 
 The dead man rode through the autumn day 
 To visit his love again. 
 
 1^94 On the road to Volok died Dimitri Aleksandrovitch, and 
 Ivan his son reigned at Per<Iyaslavl in his stead. 
 
 Andrei's position as Grand Prince was more than ever 
 assured, but the long struggle had sapped the authority 
 formerly attaching to that dignity in the lands of Souzdal ; 
 not only Tver, but Moskva and Pereyaslavl had taken unto 
 themselves a greater measure of independence — apart, that 
 is to say, from their subjection to the Horde. Unable to 
 overawe this dangerous coalition by superior force, Andrei 
 laid his griefs at the feet of the Khan, hoping to establish 
 his ascendancy by the same means with which he had over- 
 thrown his brother's. The result of this move was a renewal 
 of the old " council on the carpet " ; most of the princes 
 interested, with the Bishops of Vladimir and Sarai, gathered 
 
 1296 at the former city in obedience to the summons of the 
 Khan's deputy, who presided with Oriental gravity over 
 their somewhat heated deliberations. Even this significant 
 reminder of their servitude could not depress the princes 
 into the decencies of debate ; angry words flashed out, and 
 swords leapt from their scabbards, and had not the Vladuika ^ 
 Simeon, Bishop of Vladimir, parted the combatants, the 
 
 1 Vladuika — a title of respect given to the highest clergy.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN" in 
 
 blood of Rurik might have been squandered on the carpet. 
 In the end Andrei had to accommodate himself with the 
 vassal princes, who were too strong for him to subdue, and 
 a peace was effected in 1304 between the two parties. Two 
 years previously Ivan Dmitrovitch, dying without issue, had 
 bequeathed his province of Pereyaslavl to his uncle, Daniel 
 of Moskva — a circumstance which added considerably to the 
 importance of the latter principality. 
 
 Thus drew to a close a century which had witnessed a 
 vital dislocation in the course of Russian history, which had 
 been fraught with important changes in Europe generally. 
 The House of Hohenstaufen, which had played so bold a 
 part in the affairs of Germany, Italy, and Palestine, had 
 gone down in the death-struggle with the Papacy, and out 
 of the ashes of its ruin had risen, phoenix-like, the House of 
 Habsburg, which one day was to prove the surest bulwark 
 against the enemies of the Holy See ; in Rudolf, petty 
 Count of Habsburg and Kyburg, the Empire had found the 
 strongest master it had known since the death of its founder. 
 In that other Empire, whose luxurious capital seemed to 
 enervate and paralyse the manhood of its rulers, the Catholic 
 dynasty had drooped and shrivelled, and when the trade 
 jealousies of Genoa led her to strike with the Greeks against 
 the Latin allies of her hated rival, Venice, the end was at 
 hand ; the House of Courtenay gave way to that of 
 Paleologus, and the formula " proceeding from the Father 
 by the Son " re-echoed once more in the high places of S. 
 Sofia. In Hungary died out with the century the male line 
 of the princely House of Arpad, which had given sovereigns 
 to that country since the first erection of the Magyar State ; 
 from this point the crown of S. Stefan became the ambition 
 and prize of the surrounding princes, a fate similar to that 
 which overtook the neighbouring kingdom of Bohemia a 
 year or two later. The Livlandish debatable lands still 
 seethed and bubbled with the wars of the rival immigrants. 
 The gentlemen of God maintained a vigorous contest with 
 the See of Dorpat, with the city and Archbishop of Riga, 
 and with the Lit'uanians. In Riga the burghers burnt the
 
 112 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 church and chapel of the Order and killed sixty of the 
 convent brothers (1297). On the other hand their Arch- 
 bishop, Johann of Schvverin, was beseiged in his castle of 
 Treiden and taken prisoner by the Order, to the scandal of 
 Pope Boniface VIII. The heathen Lit'uanians, headed by 
 their Prince, Viten, and allied with the Church troops of 
 Riga and Dorpat, fought against the knights "in eighteen 
 months nine bloody battles." In 1298 they won a decisive 
 victory over the Landmaster Bruno, in which the latter and 
 many of his knights lost their lives. The Komthur Berthold, 
 with reinforcements from Prussia, wiped out this reverse by 
 a victory at Neuermlihlen, and later the new Landmaster 
 ravaged the archiepiscopal territory. Ultimately the release 
 and withdrawal of the militant Archbishop and the appoint- 
 ment of Isarnus Tacconi, the Pope's chaplain, to the See of 
 Riga, relieved the situation and gave some measure of peace 
 to this over-apostleised land.^ 
 
 In 1 300 the Novgorodians witnessed a descent of the 
 Swedes upon the banks of the Neva, where they built the 
 fortress of Landskron, which position was promptly attacked 
 and destroyed by the troops of the republic, supported by 
 those of the Grand Prince. Four years later the death of 
 1304 Andrei involved Northern Russia in a contest between 
 Mikhail of Tver and Urii Danielovitch of Moskva for the 
 vacant sovereignty. Novgorod and the greater number of 
 the Souzdalskie boyarins declared for the former, but both 
 candidates hastened to put their respective cases before the 
 tribunal of the Khan, leaving their followers meanwhile to 
 fight the matter out between themselves. A march of the 
 Tverskie boyarins against Pereyaslavl was intercepted by 
 Ivan, brother of the Prince of Moskva, and their voevoda 
 Akinf (Hyacinth) perished in the battle which ensued. The 
 decision of the Khan in favour of Mikhail did not end the 
 contest. The town of Moskva twice repelled the attack of 
 the Prince of Tver, who was, however, successful in establish- 
 ing his authority in the remaining portions of the grand 
 province and at Novgorod. The accession of a new Khan, 
 
 1 Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzeu.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 113 
 
 by name Usbek, necessitated the departure of Mikhail to 
 Sarai, where he remained long enough to lose the affections 
 of the Novgorodskie, who transferred their allegiance to the 
 Prince of Moskva, grandson of their champion Nevski. 
 This readjustment of the political balance enabled Urii to 
 reopen the contest with the Grand Prince ; long time the 
 struggle dragged on, indefinitely protracted by the shifting 
 policy of the Khan. For the practice of appealing to Sarai 
 to reverse the decisions of Souzdal had become with the 
 Russian princes a habit, confirmed, like opium smoking, by 
 constant indulgence. Both candidates for the Grand Princi- 
 pality were constantly to be found at the Court of the Khan, 
 or devastating their opponent's provinces with Tartar troops; 
 Urii even contracted a matrimonial alliance with the sister 
 of Usbek, Nor were the princes the only competitors for 
 the Mongol favour; the Metropolitan Petr, in 13 13, sought 
 and obtained from the Khan an exemption from taxes for 
 the priests and monks, and a confirmation of the clerical 
 privileges, — concessions which would seem to indicate that 
 the Mongols united with their Mohametanism the toleration 
 which distinguished their early Shamanism — or did the wily 
 Khan gauge the measure of Holy Church, and conciliate 
 her on her most susceptible side ? Whatever the clergy 
 might gain by the Mongol patronage, to the princes it 
 brought nothing but disaster. Mikhail himself was destroyed 
 by the agency he had invoked, and Urii had the miserable 
 triumph of seeing his rival stabbed to death by the officers 1319 
 of the Khan. Six years later Dimitri Mikhailovitch avenged 
 his father's death by spitting Urii on his sword in the Tartar 
 camp, an affront which was punished by the strangulation 
 of the offender. Aleksandr, another son of the ill-fated 
 Mikhail, succeeded to the principality of Tver and to the 
 dignity of Grand Prince, but a mad act of fear- impelled 
 violence drew down on himself, his family, and province the 
 consuming fury of the Khan. A harmless, or at any rate 
 customary, visit from a Mongol envoy to the city of Tver, 
 roused the apprehensions of Prince and people, who feared 
 that an attempt was to be made to convert them forcibly 
 
 I
 
 114 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 to Islam. Taking courage from the fact that the stranger 
 had but a feeble escort — a circumstance which should have 
 confuted his suspicions — Aleksandr roused his subjects, 
 (gathered in great numbers at Tver for the Feast of the 
 Assumption), to fall upon and annihilate the Mongol band. 
 
 1327 The Russians can scarcely be condemned for an act of 
 treachery towards an enemy who had never shown a scrupu- 
 lous regard for honour and good faith, but the deed was 
 one of criminal folly, and even its heroic aspect is blighted 
 by the fact that Aleksandr had remained subservient to the 
 Khan despite the murder of his father and brother, and was 
 only roused to rebellion by an alarm of personal danger. 
 The vengeance of Usbek took a cynical turn ; instead of 
 sending his hordes killing and harrying into the devoted 
 province, he entrusted the vindication of his outraged majesty 
 to a Russian prince and Russian troops. Ivan Danielovitch 
 of Moskva, with his own forces and those of Souzdal, re- 
 inforced by a strong detachment of Mongols, marched, 
 nothing loth, into the domains of his rival, and scattered 
 desolation around him with a thoroughness which left the 
 Khan nothing to complain of The Prince of Tver did not 
 wait to share with his people the chastisement he had drawn 
 down upon them, and Ivan obtained permission to assume 
 
 1328 the well-earned title of Grand Prince. 
 
 So completely had the centre of Russian interests shifted 
 eastwards towards the valley of the upper Volga, that the 
 lands of the Dniepr basin, Kiev, Volhynia, Galitz, etc., once 
 the heart of the confederation, were now scarcely to be 
 ranked as outlying members of it. The influences which 
 were responsible for this gradual alienation from the main 
 body, and for the apathy with which the Grand Princes 
 regarded this rounding-off of their dominions, may probably 
 have arisen from the same cause, namely, the Mongol over- 
 mastery. On the one hand, so bound up had the East 
 Russian princes become with the neighbouring khanates, 
 that intercourse with Souzdal meant intercourse with Sarai, 
 and all its attendant humiliations ; on the other, the rivalries 
 which existed in the Grand Principality and the necessity its
 
 " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 115 
 
 rulers found for frequent and prolonged visits to the Mongol 
 Court, precluded them from giving much attention to the 
 affairs of the western provinces. Thus it fell out that, failing 
 the arising of an exceptionally vigorous local prince, a 
 Roman or a Mstislav, these fertile Russian lands were at the 
 mercy of the boldest bidder. The exceptional personality 
 was at hand, but he was not a Russian. Gedimin, Prince 
 of Lit'uania, whom the early historians depicted as having 
 risen from the position of a court official to that of prince 
 by the murder of his sovereign and master, attained that 
 dignity by the more prosaic and respectable method of 
 hereditary succession, being son of Lutouvier (1282-93) 
 and brother of Viten (1293-1316).^ Under the latter the 
 Lit'uanians had been united in large and well -disciplined 
 armies, as the Poles and the Order knights knew well, and 
 in the direction of both these neighbours their frontier had 
 remained intact. This in itself was no small achievement, 
 considering how the kindred lands of Prussia, Kourland, 
 Livland, Estland, etc., had fallen beneath the persistent 
 proselytising and colonising attacks of the western invaders. 
 By Gedimin was carried into operation a policy of expansion 
 in the detached Russian lands to the south and east, — a 
 policy effected, like that of the Angevin kings of England 
 in France, and of the Habsburgs in Austria, Bohemia, 
 Karinthia, and the Tyrol, by a combination of conquest and 
 matrimonial alliances. But it was not only by the absorption 
 of neighbouring territory that Gedimin signalised his reign ; 
 he lifted the land which he had inherited from the position 
 of an obscure chieftaincy to that of a formidable State. At 
 war nearly the whole of his reign with the German knights, 
 he nevertheless did not permit himself to be influenced by 
 the cruelty and treachery which accompanied their religious 
 zeal, but displayed on his part a toleration for different 
 creeds and nationalities which might have been imitated 
 with advantage by other European princes. From his 
 stronghold at Vilna, where the ruins of his castle still mantle 
 
 ^ V. B. Antonovitch, Otcherk istorie Velikago Kniajhestva Litovskago . Th. 
 Schiemann, Russland, Foleit, u. Livlajid. A. Stokvis, Manuel cfhistoire, etc.
 
 Il6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the heights above the town, he sent letters to Lubeck, 
 Stettin, Rostok, and other cities of the Hansa league, offering 
 the rights and privileges of that organisation and of the 
 town of Riga, to all artisans, mechanics, and traders who 
 should care to settle in his principality — an invitation which 
 was eagerly responded to. In the wars waged by him 
 against the Order, both in Prussia and Livland, one figure 
 is very conspicuous — that of David, starosta of Grodno, who 
 appears in the Teutonic Chronicles under the picturesque 
 title of Castellan von Garthen. It was this boyarin who 
 held the troubled border against the incessant attacks of the 
 Knights of Mary, and led many a foray into their territory,^ 
 One of the most notable of these was in the winter of 
 1322-23, when the cold was so severe that even the forest 
 trees were nearly killed, and men erected inns on the ice of 
 the Baltic Sea for the travellers to and from Germany and 
 the nearest Skandinavian lands — this self-same winter came 
 the Lit'uanians following hard on a raid-march of the Cross 
 Brethren, burning and wasting from Dorpat to Memel, and 
 returning through the bleak and frozen march -lands with 
 great spoil of cattle and 5000 prisoners. Truly a winter to 
 be remembered." Victory did not blind Gedimin to the 
 advantages of a durable peace with the Order, to secure 
 which he was even ready to adopt the faith of the foes he 
 had so often conquered. Accordingly, at his initiative, a 
 peace was compacted between the various units which 
 1223 existed side by side in the East sea provinces ; the Arch- 
 bishop of Riga, the Bishop of Oesel, the towns of Riga, 
 Revel, and Dorpat, the Teutonic Order, and the principality 
 of Lit'uania, entered into a religious, territorial, and com- 
 mercial treaty one with another, and Gedimin wrote to the 
 Pope (John XXII.), to inform him that he was ready to 
 become a Christian and to recognise the supremacy of the 
 Holy See. Gladly did the French Pontiff prepare to receive 
 this important lamb into the Catholic fold, and at the same 
 time put a limit to the Teutonic conquests in the Baltic 
 lands, and two legates (the Bishop of Alais and the Abbot 
 
 ^ V. K. Antonovitch. - Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 117 
 
 of Puy) were dispatched forthwith to Vilna. But in the 
 meanwhile Gedimin had had a lesson as to the value of 
 " the true faith of a Christian," and informed the disconcerted 
 churchmen that he intended to die in the beliefs of his 
 fathers, and would have none of their religion or their Pope. 
 " Where," he demanded, " will you find more crime, more 
 injustice, violence, corruption and usury, than with the 
 Christians, particularly with the priesthood and the Knights 
 of the Cross ? " Travel is said to enlarge and educate the 
 mind, but it was scarcely necessary to come all the way 
 from Avignon to learn that. The Order had not considered 
 itself bound by a compact with a pagan, and, in alliance 
 with the unwilling Bishops of Oesel and Dorpat, had burst 
 into the Lit'uanian lands and plundered the capital, Vilna ; 1324 
 in return for which treachery, or elasticity of honour, 
 Gedimin sacked the town of Rositter and renounced the 
 creed of the Christmen.^ Catholic Europe was angry at this 
 backsliding, if one may judge by the epithets showered on 
 the half-saved soul ; a depth of sorrowing wrath is revealed 
 in the expressions "double-headed monster, abominable 
 mockery of nature, precursor of Antichrist." Much mud 
 might they throw, bitterly might they anathematise in those 
 far-off days, yet not thus does history remember the grand 
 old pagan whose castle ruins crown the heights above the 
 Vilia. 
 
 In the year of Gedimin's accession (13 16) died Urii 
 Lvovitch, of Galitz and Volhynia, who was succeeded in those 
 fiefs by his sons Andrei and Lev respectively. Colourless 
 princes, these latter representatives of the Roman-Mstislavitch 
 family, known only to history by the alliance which the 
 instinct of preservation led them to make with the Teutonic 
 Order. That they both died in the year 1324 appears 
 from a letter of the Polish King Ladislas to Pope John, 
 in which that fact is mentioned ; the two provinces devolved 
 upon Urii Andreievitch, the last Russian Prince of Galicia, 
 the last for many a hundred years who ruled Volhynia. 
 His death (about 1336) ended the male line of his family, 
 
 ^ Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 ii8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 and left as heiress of Galitz his sister Mariya, who married 
 the Polish prince, Troiden of Tchersk. By the marriage 
 of another heiress, the daughter of Lev of Volhynia, with 
 Loubart, a son of Gedimin, that province was brought into 
 the Lit'uanian dominion, which was further extended by the 
 succession of Olgerd (Gedimin's eldest son) to the fief of 
 his wife's father — the Prince of Vitebsk.^ The annexation 
 of Kiev, attributed by many historians to Gedimin, was 
 undoubtably of a later date, as the Chronicles make mention 
 of a Russian Prince Thedor, ruling in that city under 
 Mongol supervision, as late as 1361.- Even so, the Russian 
 lands owning the sovereignty of Gedimin — Polotzk, Pinsk, 
 Tourov, Volhynia, Loutzk, and Vitebsk — sufficiently justify 
 his title, 7-ex Letwinorinn et multornni Ruthenoruni, and the 
 Grand-duchy of Lit'uania might claim to be more Russian 
 than the Grand Principality of Souzdal, with its Slav-Finn- 
 Turko population. 
 
 But here, under the fostering care of Ivan Danielovitch, 
 the new Russia, the Russia of the East, was germinating 
 amid the decay of shedded provinces and lost liberties. 
 Pocketing his pride and leaving outlying lands to take care 
 of themselves, the Grand Prince sought to secure for his 
 family and for his capital a preponderance over the other 
 Souzdalian fiefs. His first step was to secure the Church, 
 in the person of the Metropolitan, to grace with its presence 
 the city of Moskva ; lured thither from the now unfashion- 
 able Vladimir by the erection of a magnificent new church 
 of the Assumption (fit dedication, for had not Tver wrought 
 her ruin on the date of that festival ?) the sainted Petr not 
 only lived, but died and was buried in the budding capital ; 
 where also the succeeding Metropolitan, Theognost, took 
 up his residence. In cultivating the good graces of the Khan 
 Ivan was equally successful, but he had to work hard for 
 the attainment of his object. Konstantin Mikhailovitch had 
 been recognised by all parties as Prince of Tver, but 
 Usbek was anxious to possess himself of the person of 
 Andrei, and the Grand Prince had to go seek at the Khan's 
 
 1 V. B. Antonovitch. Th. Schiemann. - V. B. Antonovitch.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN'' 119 
 
 behest, and bring the wanderer home. Andrei preferred 
 to remain at Pskov rather than visit Sarai, to which place 
 the princes of Tver, Hke the animals who ventured into 
 the lion's den of the fable, went oftener than they returned. 
 The burghers of Pskov refused to give up the fugitive, and 
 Russia beheld the spectacle of the Grand Prince, the Arch- 
 bishop Moses of Novgorod, and the Metropolitan Theognost, 
 hurling threats, reproaches, and excommunication at the 
 defiant republic on behalf of the Mongol Khan, — the latter 
 weapon all the more terrifying in that it was here used 
 for the first time. Yet the result of all this chiding and 
 banning was not commensurate with the energy expended ; 
 Andrei sheltered himself in Lit'uania, and again at Pskov, 
 and not till ten years later did the homing instinct lead 
 him to submit to the pleasure of the Khan, and receive at 
 his hands pardon and restoration (i 338). In the absence 
 of his rival, Ivan had steadily and placidly pursued his 
 fixed policy of Moskovite aggrandisement, and gradually 
 established his authority over the neighbouring Princes of 
 Souzdal, Rostov, and Riazan. With Novgorod he had the 
 usual differences, unavoidable between a prince with high 
 ideas of authority and a people with wide views of inde- 
 pendence, but the restless citizens grew tired of quarrelling 
 with a man who was always dangerous yet never struck ; 
 also they had an absorbing feud on hand with the.Pskovitchi, 
 who presumed to have a bishop of their own, instead of 
 depending for spiritual guidance upon Novgorod. On this 
 account the Archbishop of the latter city, the strenuous 
 Vasili, was able to effect a reconciliation between prince 
 and people. Thus things worked smoothly with the 
 smoothly-working kniaz, Ivan Kalita, as they called him, 
 from the kalita (bag or pouch) which he carried at his 
 girdle, and from which he was wont to distribute alms to 
 the needy. Some have unkindly suggested that the bag 
 was intended for receipts rather than disbursements, in 
 which case, if parsimony is to be added to his piety, super- 
 stition, and unscrupulous politics, he may well pass for a 
 Russian edition of Louis XI.
 
 120 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 The return of the exile Andrei, restored to his princi- 
 pality and to the favour of the Khan, was a disagreeable 
 interlude in the harmony of Kalita's reign. Following an 
 instinctive habit, he went to Sarai. Shortly after his 
 return to Moskva, his cousin of Tver was summoned to 
 present himself at the Horde. It did not need the pale 
 faces of his courtiers and family, nor the ill-boding presages 
 which their fancy conjured up, to warn the doomed prince 
 of his impending fate ; down the broad current of the 
 Volga he drifted, to " Sarra, in the Londe of Tartarie," 
 where " dwelt a king that worried Russie." ^ The judgment 
 
 1339 of Usbek removed the source of disquietude from Ivan's 
 path, and the headless corpses of Andrei and his son Thedor, 
 arrived at Tver one winter's day, grim flotsam of a perished 
 freedom. To complete the object-lesson of their subjection, 
 the citizens beheld the great bell of Tver removed from 
 their cathedral and transferred to Moskva. Not long, 
 however, did its iron -throated music soothe the pride of 
 
 1341 Ivan-with-the-money-bag, whose death-knell it tolled some 
 twelve months later. And while they conduct the dead 
 prince to his rest, with aid of chant and litany, wailing 
 dirge and gleaming taper, and invocations to saints, arch- 
 angels, and all the glorious host of Heaven, in different wise 
 are they helping that other master-builder of kingdoms 
 into the Unknown ; with pagan rite, with blazing pyre, 
 favourite horse and faithful henchman, goes great Gedimin 
 to his fathers, to his dreamt hereafter, where " on the 
 distant plain the warrior grasps his steed again." Each 
 to his own ; at any rate both are dead, and whether they 
 ride over a boundless plain or stand by a tideless sea, in 
 " blue obscurity " or in a " great white light," their place 
 knows them not, and Lit'uania and Moskva must have 
 new masters. 
 
 In both countries the drift towards cohesion and 
 centralisation is strong, but custom is stronger ; Gedimin's 
 realm is for the present parcelled out among his seven 
 sons and his brother Voin ; the lands of Moskva are 
 
 ^ Chaucer.
 
 V " THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 121 
 
 divided between the three surviving sons of Kalita, Simeon, 
 the eldest, having the capital city and the title of Grand 
 Prince — subject, of course, to the consent of the Khan. It 
 was a critical moment in the fortunes of the House of 
 Moskva, when the young prince presented himself for 
 approval at Sarai, with a respectful appeal for a renewal 
 of past favours. The news of the death of Ivan had sent 
 more than one kniaz in eager haste across Russia to the 
 picturesque city on the Volga's shore ; the two Konstantins 
 (of Tver and Souzdal) hoped to undermine the Mongol 
 support which propped up the ascendancy of Simeon, and 
 ruin their rival by the same means with which his father 
 had kept them under. But the Prince of Moskva, with 
 the treasures of the Grand Principality and the tribute of 
 Velikie Novgorod at his disposal, was able to put his case 
 in the most favourable light before the Khan and his 
 officers, and the inherited instinct of almsgiving helped him 
 no doubt to retain the hereditary dignities.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 
 
 Never since the overthrow on the Sit had a Russian ruler 
 been as emphatically and unquestionably Grand Prince as 
 was Simeon Ivanovitch, yclept " the Proud." Some of the 
 most valuable provinces had indeed fallen away from the 
 realm, but if the title Prince " of all the Russias," which 
 Simeon was the first to adopt, was little justified by the 
 facts, at least he was, among his compeers, master of what 
 remained. The very qualification of his powers which the 
 over-lordship of the Khan implied, was in fact an added 
 source of authority, for the Russian mind had come to 
 accept the Mongol dominion with the same submissiveness, 
 if with less enthusiasm, that it displayed towards the paternal 
 tyranny of the Church. Supported by the double certificate 
 of Heaven and Sarai, with the iarlikh ^ of Usbek in his 
 hands and his compliant Metropolitan at his side, the Grand 
 Prince stood head and shoulders above his brother princes 
 and would-be competitors. And here may be noted an 
 advantage which the builders of the Russian Empire 
 possessed over the continuators of the Germanic one, and 
 indeed over most of the princes of Catholic Europe. The 
 Church " went with " the secular authority. In western 
 Christendom the popes, after having entreated the services 
 of emperors and kings as their surest agency for the de- 
 struction of the heathen religions, kicked down the ladder 
 by which they had climbed to their high position, and con- 
 vulsed Europe for many centuries by a bitter strife with the 
 
 ' The firman issued by the Ivhans to the prince of their selection.
 
 CHAP. VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 123 
 
 temporal sovereignties ; till the up-springing of a new enemy, 
 questioning the Divine authority of tiara and crown alike, 
 drew Pontiff, Kaiser, and absolute monarchs together, like 
 cattle herding in a storm. In Russia no such schism en- 
 dangered the sanctity of the ruling forces, possibly because 
 no such prosperity had been attained by either. " The 
 palace rubbed shoulders with the Church and the monastery, 
 and was scarcely distinguishable from them." ^ The Grand 
 Prince was holy and Orthodox, the Church was national and 
 official. Ban and interdict, those bogies of mediaeval west 
 Europe, were here familiar sprites which worked at the 
 bidding of the Grand Prince against his enemies. As the 
 worship of the old Slavonic gods — Peroun and Volos, Daszh- 
 bog, Stribog, etc. — gave way by degrees to that of the One- 
 in-Three and the dependent galaxy of saints, so did the old 
 veneration for a crowd of Rurik-descended princes merge 
 gradually into awe of one Heaven-born sovereign and a 
 satellite-band of his officials, amongst whom were the hier- 
 archy of the national Church. And in another respect the 
 Russian rulers had their task simplified for them, namely, in 
 the long-suffering docility of the bulk of their subjects. 
 Here were no defiant goat-herds such as chased the might 
 of the Habsburgs from the Graubunden Alps, no Bauer?i- 
 kriegern kindling the fires of civil war throughout an empire, 
 no Jaquerie distracting an already distraught kingdom. The 
 Slav peasant took all the added ills of life, droughts, famines, 
 Polovtzi, Mongols, grasshoppers, and pestilences, tithes and 
 taxes, with a fatalism he had brought with him from the 
 East, a stoicism learnt possibly from the camel in his nomad 
 days. A man who, in addition to the privations incidental 
 to his poverty, will at the bidding of his Church fast " during 
 the seven weeks of Lent, during two or three weeks in June, 
 from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all 
 Wednesdays and Fridays during the year," - can have little 
 of the bread-rioter or throne-shaker in his constitution. The 
 very placidity, however, with which he received the dispensa- 
 
 1 K. Waliszewski : Peter the Great. 
 - M'Kenzie Wallace : Russia.
 
 124 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 tions of Providence in whatever shape they chose to assume, 
 rendered his allegiance a matter of circumstance rather than 
 principle. He would accept the mastery of the Lit'uanians, 
 for instance, as he had accepted the Mongols, as he had 
 accepted the Varangians ; like a dog of too accommodating 
 disposition, he wagged his tail to whichever master shouted 
 loudest, and just now the Lit'uanian princes were shouting 
 loud indeed. Chiefly as yet among themselves. The death 
 of Gedimin had left his country in a position which required 
 skilful handling, while at the same time the division of the 
 State into eight portions precluded any one prince from 
 having a controlling voice in the direction of affairs — an 
 arrangement which could only lead to disaster. Fortunately 
 for Lit'uania the political foresight and energy of her defunct 
 Grand Duke had descended in full measure upon one at 
 least of his sons, Olgerd of Vitebsk. He, while engaged in 
 ravaging the Order territories in Livland, watching for an 
 attack from across the Polish border, or casting his eyes 
 over the tempting Russian provinces ready to fall into his 
 clutches, saw clearly that to live and expand, to prey and 
 not be preyed upon, Lit'uania must have a guiding hand, 
 one head instead of many. In order to attain his eagle- 
 soaring ambition he borrowed the habits of the cuckoo, and 
 ousted his brothers unceremoniously from the hereditary 
 nest. An exception was wisely made in favour of Kestout, 
 who equalled him in energy and military achievement, and 
 without whose help the coup d'etat could scarcely have been 
 effected. Acting in concert, the brothers seized on the 
 capital, Vilna, and re-established the grand-dukedom ; by a 
 happy division of labour Kestout became warden of the 
 Polish and Order-land marches, leaving Olgerd to pursue 
 his conquests and acquisitions in the south-east — an arrange- 
 ment which enabled the Grand Duke to add Briansk, Seversk, 
 Kiev, and the surrounding district to his possessions, and to 
 retain Volhynia against the King of Poland.^ With the 
 Prince of Moskva pursuing a policy of cautious inaction, the 
 only safe course open to him under the circumstances, Olgerd 
 
 1 V. B. Antonovitch.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 125 
 
 was able not only to stretch his dominion from a foothold 
 on the Baltic coast to the shores of the Black Sea, but to 
 obtain a solid influence over the governments of Smolensk, 
 Pskov, and Velikie Novgorod. As early as i 346 he appears 
 to have had a hold on the councils of the latter city ; the 
 posadnik Evstaf (Eustace) had spoken unwisely and not 
 well of the great Lit'uanian, — had in fact called him a dog. 
 The indiscreet expression reached the ears of Olgerd, who 
 demanded the death of the offending dignitary. The Vetche 
 armed the city in defence of the posadnik, reconsidered the 
 matter, and ended by sacrificing Evstaf to the resentment of 
 the Grand Duke.^ An action so opposed to the traditional 
 temper of the proud republic that it is only to be explained 
 by a strong motive of political expediency. And in fact an 
 alliance with Lit'uania was valuable to Pskov and Novgorod, 
 both as a bulwark against German aggression and as a 
 counterpoise to the encroaching power of Moskva. In the 
 former relation, the resisting power of the leagued princi- 
 palities of the North was severely tested by the warrior 
 monks of the Order ; able to draw unfailing supplies of men 
 and marks from the States of the Empire, the knights had 
 bought Estland from the King of Denmark (1347), had in- 
 flicted a severe defeat on the Lit'uanian army (1348), and 
 later carried war and desolation into the lands of Polotzk, 
 Pskov, and Novgorod (1367). With the help of Olgerd 
 the Russians were able to make a diversion upon Dorpat, 
 and peace was at length effected with the Order in 1371.^ 
 From this it will be seen that the Grand Duke of Lit'uania 
 was a far more prominent figure in the land than the Grand 
 Prince " of all the Russias." But of the policy of these two 
 contrasted state-workers it may be said that while Olgerd 
 built, the son of Kalita dug. Intrenching himself around 
 the unit of Moskva, the last-named silently and persistently 
 undermined the power of the neighbouring princes, and 
 established his own authority on a sure foundation. Novgorod 
 might wait ; Lit'uania might wait ; the Horde might wait. 
 
 1 N. Kostomarov, Sieverno Rousskiya Narodopravstva. S. Solov'ev. 
 - Geschichte der Ostseeproz'inzen.
 
 126 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Thus delving and waiting ruled Simeon, so quaintly named 
 "the Proud," till death swept him into his cherished cathedral 
 — a victim, possibly, to the terrible Black Pestilence which 
 was then desolating Russia. 
 1353-1359 The succeeding Grand Prince, Ivan Ivanovitch, who 
 found favour in the sight of the new Khan Tchanibek, 
 displayed all his brother's patience without any of his 
 policy. His weakly pacific reign marked a partial thaw 
 in the iron frost of Moskovite supremacy, which had bound 
 North-east Russia in its grip under the rule of his three 
 immediate predecessors. Souzdal, Riazan, and Tver 
 blossomed anew into independence, and enjoyed a S. 
 Luke's summer of importance and anarchy. The Novgo- 
 rodians, who had exerted themselves to obtain the election 
 of Konstantin of Souzdal to the grand princedom, only 
 recognised Ivan on the death of the former (1354), and 
 were little troubled by the interference of their sovereign.^ 
 Their own domestic affairs were sufficiently exciting to 
 absorb their attention ; the election of a posadnik in 
 the spring of 1359 gave rise to a fierce quarrel between 
 the inhabitants of the Slavonic quarter and those of the 
 Sofia ward, and for three days the hostile factions fought 
 around the famous bridge, and were only separated by 
 the intervention of their Archbishop and ex-Archbishop, 
 whose combined exhortations at length restored peace to 
 the agitated city.- 
 
 If Novgorod owed much to the well-directed influence 
 of her prelates, the House of Moskva was even more 
 indebted to the exertions and services of the Metropolitan 
 Aleksis, who loyally supported its interests under the most 
 discouraging circumstances. When the weary Ivan had 
 closed his inglorious reign, when " having failed in many 
 things," he had " achieved to die," the foundations painfully 
 hewn out by his forerunners were almost swept away ; a 
 new Khan had arisen who knew not Moskva, and Dimitri 
 Konstantinovitch of Souzdal entered Vladimir in triumph, 
 with the iarlikh in his hand. Souzdal, Riazan, Tver, and 
 ' S. Solov'ev. N. Kostomarov. - S. Solov'ev.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 127 
 
 Velikie Novgorod exulted in the downfall of their ambitious 
 neighbour, and the work of generations seemed undone. 
 Then was it that Vladuika Aleksis, seeing in Dimitri 
 Ivanovitch more promising material than had existed in 
 his father, took advantage of the chaos existing at the 
 Horde — where Khan succeeded Khan in a whirlwind of 
 revolutions — to obtain a counter-iarlikh for the young 
 Prince of Moskva. Thus Dimitri was opposed by Dimitri, 
 each boasting the favour of Sarai, but the Moskovite 
 enjoying the support of Holy Church. New intrigues 
 gave the Souzdal kniaz once more the countenance of the 
 Horde, but Dimitri Ivanovitch dared to disregard the 
 displeasure of a Khan who was here to-day and might 
 be gone to-morrow ; riding forth at the head of his 
 boyarins and followers, long accustomed to be upper- 
 most in the land, he drove his rival from Vladimir and 
 carried the war into the province of Souzdal, besieging the 
 capital. The Konstantinovitch submitted, and the grand 
 princely dignity returned to the House of Moskova. Well 1362 
 had Aleksis earned his subsequent canonisation. 
 
 A few years later the Black Death, brought into the 
 district of Nijhnie-Novgorod by travelling merchants, re- 
 commenced its ravages throughout Central Russia. Its 
 victims were counted by thousands, and though the account 
 of its sweeping effect at Smolensk, in which city there 
 were said to remain but five survivors,^ is probably an 
 exaeeeration, an idea can be formed of its destructive 
 nature by the number of princes who were stricken down 
 in a single year. The Grand Prince's brother Ivan, 136S 
 Konstantin of Rostov, Andrei, brother of the Prince of 
 Souzdal, and four of the Tverskie family, were victims of 
 the dread pestilence, more wholesale even in its work than 
 the ^Mongols in the first fury of their invasion." In its 
 wake sprang up a crop of quarrels, the result of such a 
 legacy of vacant fiefs. Boris of Souzdal having seized on 
 his deceased brother's appanage (Nijhnie-Novgorod}, to the 
 despite of his elder, Dimitri, the latter was driven to throw 
 1 Karamzin. - S. Solov'ev.
 
 128 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 himself into the hands of his namesake and rival, the 
 Grand Prince of Moskva, who forced the supplanter to 
 disgorge his prey. In Tver, likewise, the death of Simeon 
 had brought his brother leremiya, his uncle Vasili, and 
 his cousin Mikhail, into competition for his territorial 
 possessions. The last-named was pursuing in Tver the 
 same policy of aggrandisement and centralisation that had 
 obtained such successful results for Moskva ; naturally his 
 proceedings were watched with jealous eyes by Dimitri, 
 the Metropolitan, and the Moskovite boyarins, who took 
 up the cause of Mikhail's opponents and drove him more 
 than once from his province. Mikhail invoked the aid of 
 his wife's father, Olgerd. The great Lit'uanian, whose arms 
 had checked the tide of Teutonic conquest and driven the 
 Tartars from the Western steppes, who had wasted the 
 outskirts of Revel and laid classic Kherson in ashes, 
 
 1369 marched now against the might of Moskva, his rival in the 
 Russian lands. With him came his loyal brother Kestout, 
 and, because he must, the Kniaz of Smolensk. The might 
 of Moskva contracted within the high stone battlements of 
 its Kreml, which, in the depth of winter, was too strong a 
 hold for the Lit'uanians to attack. Olgerd contented 
 himself with sacking the surrounding country, and carried 
 back a spoil of cattle and church furniture as witness of 
 his triumph. The following year, however, Mikhail, again 
 driven from his hereditary dominions, again appealed to 
 Olgerd for assistance, and with the first November snows 
 
 1370 came the Lit'uanian -Smolenskie host against Moskva. 
 History repeated itself; a second time the Kreml, rising 
 fair and glittering in its sheen of white stone and silvery 
 frost, above the blackened ruins that lay around it, defied 
 the force that gathered against its walls. Olgerd hovered 
 in vain around the impregnable obstacle to his crowning 
 triumph. Russian troops, under Vladimir Andrevitch, the 
 Grand Prince's cousin, were gathering on his flank, those 
 pied crows, the Knights of Mary, were croaking ominously 
 on his northern frontier, while an early thaw threatened to 
 impede his line of retreat through the snow-banked forests.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 129 
 
 Under these circumstances the old warrior slacked the 
 rigour of his onslaught and made an honourable peace 
 with the enemy whom he could not crush. The indomit- 1371 
 able Mikhail continued, nevertheless, to wage a fitful war 
 with his hereditary foe, now invoking the support of 
 Mamai Khan, the new master of the Golden Horde, now 
 calling in the Lit'uanians, till" at length, hotly besieged in 
 his city of Tver, he was obliged to submit to the victorious 
 Dimitri and recognise the supremacy of the House of 1375 
 Moskva. Secure in his own dominions, the Grand Prince 
 was able to turn his attention to the hostile forces which 
 weighed on him on either side. In the West the crushing 
 pressure of the Lettish power was for a time relaxed. 
 The Grand Duke Olgerd, " one of the greatest statesmen of 
 the Middle Ages," ^ the clangour of whose arms had 
 vibrated round Polish castle and Order keep, had roused 
 the echoes of the Moskva Kreml, and startled the pirates of 
 the Black Sea coast, was now among " the quiet people " ; '" 1377 
 of his many sons, Yagiello succeeded him in the Grand 
 Ducal dignity. Hampered by a large circle of brothers, 
 half-brothers, cousins, and other inconvenient relatives, he 
 set to work vigorously to weed out his superfluous kins- 
 folk ; the aged Kestout, the companion-in-arms and faithful 
 supporter of Olgerd, was one of the first victims of the 
 son's purging operations. Lured into his power, he was 
 immured within the castle of Kreva, where he was found 
 one day strangled ; his son Vitovt escaped the same fate 
 by a flight into the Order territory, while Andrei Olgerdo- 
 vitch. Prince of Polotzk, sought at Moskva shelter from 
 his half-brother's hostility. Dimitri had the satisfaction of 
 lending his support to this malcontent, as Olgerd had aided 
 the Prince of Tver. But while Moskovite troops ravaged 
 the Russian territories of Yagiello, Dimitri from his capital 
 was watching the storm-clouds that had been slowly piling 
 in the East. Nursed into their position of authority by the 
 favour and support of the Horde, the Princes of Moskva 
 had become too important and too exalted to continue 
 
 1 Th. Schiemann. ^ A Russian expression for the dead. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 their former humble attitude towards the Khans ; like a 
 wasp entangled in a spider-web, the Velikie Kniaz was 
 over-big a captive to be held comfortably in the meshes 
 of a degrading thraldom. Hence the altered relations 
 between Moskva and Sarai, which had resulted in a series 
 of desultory engagements, not openly avowed at the head- 
 quarters of either side, but tending steadily towards a more 
 pronounced rupture. Nijhnie-Novgorod had twice suffered 
 the fate of a border town in troublous times, and been laid 
 in ashes by the Mongols ; Riazan had experienced the like 
 misfortune. On the other hand a more important collision 
 had taken place on the banks of the Vodjha, where Dimitri 
 had repulsed an army of raiders sent against Riazan by 
 the Khan himself (1377). For three years the vengeance 
 of Mamai had loomed, black and menacing, on the eastern 
 horizon, like a slowly gathering storm that gains added 
 horror from the unmeasurable approach of its outburst ; 
 at Moskva men watched for the horsemen who should 
 one day ride out from the forest and clatter into the city 
 with the news that the Hordes were coming. In the 
 summer of 1380 the storm burst; Dimitri learned that the 
 Khan was moving against them with a large army, that 
 Yagiello, " who had small cause to love the Moskva Prince," 
 was in league with the Mongol, and that Oleg of Riazan 
 was secretly preparing to throw in his lot with the invaders.^ 
 Was this to be the end of all the delving and striving ? 
 Was Moskva to lie in ruins, like another Kiev, a victim to 
 her own renown ? At least she should fall fighting. The 
 Velikie Kniaz gathered under his standard the princes and 
 soldiery of such Russian lands as he could command. 
 From Bielozero, Rostov, Mourom, Souzdal, Vladimir, and 
 other quarters, came pouring in the fractions of the first 
 national army that had assembled in Russia since the old 
 wars with the Polovtzi. Beneath the towers of the stately 
 Kreml they mustered, 150,000 strong, to hail the birth of 
 the new Empire, or, who knew, to share its ruin. Deep- 
 mouthed clanged the bells of Moskva over the humming city, 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev.
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 131 
 
 palely burned a thousand tapers before the shrines of good 
 S. George and Mikhail the archangel ; even the holy Sergie, 
 founder of the famed Troitza lavra/ left his beaver-haunted 
 solitudes to give his blessing on the high enterprise. Forth 
 to the banks of the Don rode Dimitri Ivanovitch with his 
 mighty army ; before him went a sable banner, from whose 
 folds gleamed the wan white Christ of Calvary ; behind him 
 came serried ranks of princes, the descendants of Rurik, 
 save two who were the sons of dead Olgerd. On the 
 wide plain of Koulikovo, the field " of the woodcocks," by 
 the blue waters of the Don, the might of Moskovite Russia 
 crashed headlong against the strength of the Golden Horde, 
 and fought through the red September day till wounds and 
 weariness numbed their failing arms. Then through their 
 ranks flashed the unpent reserves, led by young Vladimir 
 Andreievitch, whirled the wild charge into the Mongol 
 hosts, swept into rout the swarthy horsemen of Asia, swelled 
 the hoarse shouts for S. George, for S. Glieb, and S. Boris, 
 drowning the pealing war-yells for Allah ; they break, they 
 are killed, they are conquered, the God of the Christians has 
 wakened, the Prince of the Russias has won a new title for 
 ever, Dimitri Ivanovitch Donskoi ! Dimitri of the Don. 
 
 Possibly the result of the battle was not so one-sided as 
 the glowing accounts of the Russian historians painted it, 
 but the immediate effect gave fair hope for the future. 
 Yagiello withdrew his forces into Lit'uania, and thither fled 
 the traitorous Oleg of Riazan ; the Mongols vanished across 
 the Oka, and the enemies of Dimitri seemed melted like 
 snow before the summer of his victory. The Russians 
 dreamed that they were free. Not so lightly were they to 
 be rid of these dusky wolf-eyed warriors, who teemed in the 
 wide, arid plain-land of Asia like rats on an old threshing- 
 floor. In the East had arisen a new star of battle to lead 
 them in the footsteps of the mighty Jingis, Timur the Lame, 
 " conqueror of the two Bokharas, of Hindostan, of Iran, and 
 of Asia Minor." - At the Golden Horde appeared one of 
 
 ^ Monastery of the Trinity near Moskva. 
 ' A. Rambaud, History of Russia.
 
 132 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 his captains, Tokhtamitch, who routed and hunted to death 
 the ill-starred Mamai, and seized upon his khanate. Follow- 
 ing on this revolution came a message from the new Khan to 
 the Russian princes, couched in friendly terms, but requiring 
 their presence at his Court. This was too much for the 
 Grand Prince and his proud Moskovites to stomach, and 
 Dimitri returned an answer befitting the victor of Koulikovo. 
 But the defiance of the capital found no echo in the other 
 Russian lands ; not a second time did they care to face in 
 doubtful conflict foes who were so terrible in victory, so 
 easily recruited after defeat. Too many brave boyarins and 
 bold spearmen had perished on the field of the woodcocks, 
 too many gaps had been made in their ranks which could 
 not be filled at such scant notice. Dimitri of Souzdal sent 
 his two sons to the Horde ; Oleg, pardoned and restored to 
 his province, intrigued once more with the enemies of 
 1382 Moskva. Against that city marched the Khan with his 
 Tartar army, guided thither by the traitorous Kniaz of Riazan, 
 and bearing in his train the }-oung princes of Souzdal. 
 Dimitri took the prudent, if unhcroic part of leaving his 
 capital to defend itself, and seeking meanwhile to gather an 
 army capable of threatening the Mongol flank. The flight 
 of the Metropolitan, Syprien (successor of S. Aleksis), 
 was not open to so favourable an interpretation. The 
 Kreml, ably defended by its garrison, under the command 
 of Ostey, called in the Chronicles a grandson of Olgerd, held 
 the enemy at bay for three days ; on the fourth the 
 defenders weakly opened the gates to a ruse of the wily 
 Khan, and the capital of the new Russia received a baptism 
 of blood. When the invaders withdrew, bearing with them 
 all that was worth removing, it was a silent city that they 
 left behind them — a city peopled by 24,000 corpses, meet 
 gathering ground for wehr-wolf, ghoul, and vampire, a wild 
 Walpurgis Nacht for the Yaga-Babas of Slavonic lore. 
 Nor was Moskva alone in her desolation ; Vladimir, 
 Zvenigorod, and other towns were sacked and burnt by 
 detachments of the Mongol army. The defeat of one of 
 these bands by a Russian force under Vladimir of Moskva
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 133 
 
 checked the ravages of the invaders, and Tokhtamitch led 
 his hordes back across the Oka, leaving Dimitri to repair as 
 best he might the woes of his province, and to revenge him- 
 self on those who had betrayed or deserted him in the hour 
 of his need. If his kingdom was in ruins, at least he was 
 master of what remained ; the Metropolitan was deposed, 
 Oleg was forced to fly, and his fief, already ravaged by the 
 Mongols, was harried anew by the Grand Prince's followers. 
 Burning with indignation against the enemy whom he had 
 thought crushed for ever on the banks of the Don, Dimitri 
 had yet to realise that he must return to the policy of his 
 fathers, and wear again the yoke he had thrown so proudly 
 off. Mikhail of Tver, who bore him an undying hatred, had 
 shared neither in Moskva's triumph nor in her distress, and 
 now was plotting openly to obtain for himself the Grand 
 Principality. With all his losses Dimitri was still the 
 wealthiest of the Russian princes, and a timely submission 
 enabled him to find grace in the eyes of the Khan. A new 1384 
 impost was exacted throughout the land, and the young 
 princes — Vasili of Moskva, Aleksandr of Tver, Vasili and 
 Simeon of Souzdal — were held as hostages at Sarai. 
 Russia awoke from her dream of liberty to find that her 
 God still slept. 
 
 While mourning their relapse into a state of dependence, 
 and involved in a quarrel with the troublesome republic of 
 the north, the Moskovites learned a disquieting piece of 
 intelligence ; Yagiello, their formidable neighbour on the 
 west, who held more Russian lands almost than did Dimitri, 
 had added the kingdom of Poland to his possessions. The 1386 
 long succession of princes of the House of Piast had come 
 to an end, in its direct line, with Kazimir the Great, who 
 since 1370 had lain in a side chapel of the Cathedral at 
 Krakow, where his effigy in red brown marble yet reclines 
 under its fretted canopy. Louis, the Angevin King of 
 Hungary, who succeeded him on the Polish throne, had died 
 in the year 1382, leaving a daughter, Yadviga, to uphold 
 her right as best she could in a country already marked 
 by the intractability of the crown vassals. Yadviga only
 
 134 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 obtained the support of the Diet (composed of the nobles 
 and higher clergy of the realm) by leaving in its hands the 
 selection of her husband and consort. The choice of the 
 assembly fell upon the Grand Duke of Lit'uania, whose 
 election would at the same time remove a possible enemy 
 from their eastern border, and furnish them with a protector 
 against the hated Teutonic Order on their north. For 
 this monster of their own creation (a Polish duke had been 
 the first to give the knights a foothold in Prussia) was 
 gradually squeezing them out from touch with the Baltic 
 and displacing their authority in Eastern Pomerania. One 
 of the indispensable conditions attached to the betrothal 
 and election of Yagiello was that he should adopt 
 Christianity of the Roman Catholic pattern ; " no cross, no 
 crown." The prospect of a peaceable accession to the 
 Polish throne effected what all the endeavours, spiritual, 
 diplomatic, and militant, of priests, popes, and grand 
 masters had been unable to accomplish ; Yagiello became 
 the apostle prince of Lit'uania, and Catholic sovereign of 
 Poland.^ In his new character of a zealous son of the 
 Church, the Grand Duke set to work to bring Lit'uania 
 within the pale of the official religion ; the pagan groves 
 were cut down, the sacred fires that burned in the castle of 
 Vilna extinguished, the mystic serpents killed, and the 
 people baptized by battalions. According to a Russian 
 historian, those who already professed the Greek faith were 
 forcibly converted, and two boyarins who clung obstinately 
 to Orthodoxy were put to death by tortures." 
 
 If Rome swept this valuable State into her fold, the 
 Russian Church, despite the rather depressing circumstance 
 of a confused succession to the Metropolitan office, was not 
 without the triumph of extending her rites over heathen 
 lands. A monk of Moskva carried the light of the Gospel 
 into the lorn and benighted lands of the Permians, a Finn 
 tribe which dwelt in the northern valley of the Kama, 
 beneath the shadow of the Ourals. Supported by the 
 authority of the Grand Prince, he overthrew the worship of 
 1 Schiemann. - Karamzin.
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 13S 
 
 the Old Golden Woman, a stone figure with two infants in 
 her arms, before whose shrine reindeer were annually 
 sacrificed ; had she been more restricted in her family 
 arrangements she might have been quietly incorporated in 
 the new religion. - 
 
 In 1389 Moskva mourned her prince, Dimitri Donskoi, 
 who died while yet in his prime. A variant from the type 
 of cold, stern princes who had built up the power of his 
 house, Dimitri was a throw-back to the old light-hearted 
 Slavonic kniaz, before the Norse blood had died out of his 
 veins, or ever that of Turko or Mongol had crept in. And 
 if he gained no fresh ground for Moskva, and left Tver and 
 Souzdal and Riazan still under independent masters, at 
 least he gave Russia a spasm of liberty and renown in an 
 age of gloom and bondage, and obtained for his eldest son 
 the undisputed succession to the Grand Principality. 
 
 Vasili Dmitrievitch Moskovskie, to give him his distin- 
 guishing title (since 1383 there had reigned a Vasili 
 Dmitrievitch at Souzdal), ascended the throne under more 
 favourable circumstances than had a few years earlier seemed 
 probable. On the west, Vitovt, son of the murdered 
 Kestout, had placed himself at the head of the Lit'uanian 
 malcontents in opposition to the King of Poland, who in 
 cultivating the goodwill of his new subjects had lost that of 
 his old ones. Thus in that direction the threateners of 
 Moskva's existence were at strife among themselves. In 
 the east Tokhtamitch was contemplating a rebellion against 
 the authority of his lord and protector, Timur, a circumstance 
 which lifted the position of the young Prince of Moskva at 
 the Horde from that of a humble vassal to that of a desired 
 ally. His father would probably have taken advantage of 
 this fact to sever once more his dependence on the Khan ; 
 Vasili turned it to a more practical use. With costly pre- 
 sents, and probably promises of future support, the Grand 
 Prince bought an iarlikh which gave him possession of 
 Nijhnie-Novgorod, a fief long since granted to Boris of the 1391 
 House of Souzdal.^ Vasili was received with acclaim by 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev.
 
 136 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the inhabitants, and Boris, deserted on all sides, had to bow 
 to the decree of fate, represented in this instance by the 
 iarlikh from Sarai. On the death of the ousted prince his 
 nephews, Vasili and Simeon of Souzdal, attempted to re- 
 1394 unite Nijhnie-Novgorod with their hereditary appanage, with 
 the result that Vasili of Moskva seized on both provinces 
 and drove his cousins into exile. Many and fruitless were 
 the efforts made by the brothers to recover their lost princi- 
 palities ; Vasili had developed a Habsburgian tenacity in 
 holding to whatsoever he acquired, and the ex-princes of 
 Souzdal had in the end to acquiesce in their spoliation. 
 Events in the West meanwhile had taken an unforeseen and 
 not altogether favourable turn. The Teutonic Order had 
 been placed in an awkward position by the wholesale 
 entrance of the Lit'uanians into the bosom of the Church, 
 which event left the crusaders no more heathen to convert ; 
 hence the joy which they shared with the angels over the 
 salvation of their long recalcitrant brothers was tinged with 
 resentment towards the Poles, and especially towards 
 Yagiello. The Grand Master sulkily refused to stand 
 sponsor to the latter at his baptism,^ and the Order prepared, 
 from motives of self-defence, to give active support to the 
 pretender Vitovt, who was enabled with its assistance to 
 continually harry the domains of his royal kinsman, till at 
 length Yagiello, set upon by Catholics, Orthodox, and 
 pagans alike, ceded to him the grand duchy, under the 
 direct suzerainty of the Polish Crown (1392),'" an arrange- 
 ment which did not bring repose either to the Order or to 
 Moskovy. The Grand Duke Vitovt was another edition of 
 his uncle and grandfather ; his arms swept far beyond the 
 ample limits of his principality, and under his vigorous rule 
 Lit'uania attained her greatest extent, and perhaps her 
 greatest power. Father-in-law to Vasili, he did not hesitate 
 to continue the slow absorption of Russian territory com- 
 menced by his predecessors ; Smolensk dropped from the 
 feeble hands of its hereditary princes into the actual posses- 
 
 ' Histoire de POrdre Teutonique. 
 2 S. Solov'ev ; Th. Schiemann ; Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 137 
 
 sion of the Grand Duke, who thus brought his dominions into 
 contact with the principality of Tver, long the hatching- 
 ground of disaffection to the supremacy of Moskva. Vitovt 
 would probably have accomplished even more in the way 
 of conquest and annexation if his ambition had not given 
 too wide a scope to his efforts. While Vasili watched 
 anxiously for the next move of this exciting father-in-law 
 new troubles sprang up in the East ; it seemed, indeed, as if 
 Moskva was to reap no advantage from the dissensions of 
 her neighbours. The vengeance of Timur the Lame had at 
 length overtaken his o'erweening vassal, and Tokhtamitch 
 had fled before the storm which his imprudence had raised. 
 The conqueror did not seem disposed to confine his destroy- 
 ing wrath to the actual territories of the Golden Horde, but 
 crossed the Volga and commenced to devastate the eastern- 
 most Russian lands. Moskovy quaked before the coming 
 of another Batu ; the churches were filled with wailing 
 crowds, and the celebrated Mother-of-God of Vladimir was 
 removed from thence to the capital. By a train of reason- 
 ing not easy to follow, to this change of quarters was attri- 
 buted the sudden turning aside of Timur Khan, who diverted 1395 
 his destructive abilities to the razing of Sarai, Astrakhan, 
 and Azov, and left the Russian lands without further hurt. 
 By modern historians this retreat has been set down to 
 other causes than the translation of the Bogoroditza ; 
 " accustomed to the rich booty of Bokhara and Hindostan, 
 and dreaming of Constantinople and Egypt, they found, no 
 doubt, that the desert steppes and deep forests only offered 
 a very meagre prey." ^ However, the credit of the affair 
 remained with the Bogoroditza, and what was more to the 
 point, this respectable and extremely valuable ikon remained 
 at Moskva — no mean asset, for that time and place, in the 
 political importance of a city. 
 
 The enfeeblement of the Golden Horde seemed to the 
 Lit'uanian Grand Duke a favourable opportunity to extend 
 his influence in the Tartar steppes and constitute himself 
 the heir of the dying sovereignty. Concluding for the 
 
 1 Rambaud.
 
 138 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 moment a perpetual peace with the Order, against whom he 
 had scarcely ceased to fight since his accession to the Grand 
 Duchy, he mustered a formidable army to support him in 
 this mighty enterprise. Poles, Lit'uanians, and Russians 
 marched under his banner against the Tartars, and Konrad 
 von Jungingen, as a guarantee of good faith, sent five 
 hundred of his knights to do battle against the infidels. On 
 the banks of the Vorskla (a tributary of the Dniepr), Vitovt 
 came in contact with the lieutenant of Timur and suffered a 
 
 1399 disastrous overthrow, losing two-thirds of his army and 
 seriously damaging his military reputation. Notwithstand- 
 ing this victory the new master of the Horde, Koutluk 
 Khan, had his power disputed by more than one competitor, 
 and Vasili took advantage of this fact to discontinue payment 
 of the annual tribute. The temerity of his action, overlooked 
 for many years, brought on him at last the chastisement of 
 the Mongols, who, under the leadership of Ediger, the victor 
 
 1408 of the Vorksla, made a sudden inroad upon Russian terri- 
 tory. Vasili imitated the tactics of his father on a similar 
 occasion ; leaving Moskva with a strong garrison to defend 
 the Kreml, he betook himself to the northern districts of his 
 realm to raise what forces he might against the invaders. 
 The assault on Moskva was weakened by the want of siege 
 engines (cannon were just beginning to be used by the 
 Russians and Lit'uanians), and Ivan Mikhailovitch, Prince 
 of Tver, was summoned to support the Khan with his 
 artillery. For once hereditary hatred gave way to patriotic 
 instincts, and Ivan withheld the demanded assistance. The 
 troops of Ediger ravaged and burnt far and wide over the 
 Russian plain, and sacked many a town and village in the 
 Grand Principality, but they could neither force Vasili into a 
 combat nor make an impression on the walls and towers of 
 the Kreml. A threatened revolution at the Horde made 
 the Khan anxious to retreat, and his offer of withdrawal on 
 receipt of a war levy was gladly accepted by the Moskovites, 
 who were dreading a famine ; 3000 roubles purchased the 
 departure of the Mongol army, and the Velikie Kniaz was 
 able to return to his rejoicing capital.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 139 
 
 Hemmed in on east and west by two powerful and 
 aggressive neighbours, with the slumbering volcanoes of Tver 
 and Riazan ready to burst into activity at any moment within 
 his own dominions, the politic Vasili could do little more 
 than assert from time to time his authority over Novgorod. 
 The republic, indeed, was at the height of its independence, 
 and played its own game in the shifting balance of Order and 
 Hansa, Grand Duchy, Grand Principality, and Golden Horde, 
 which made up the round of its political compass. In 1392 
 it had closed a period of commercial strife by a treaty ^ with 
 the towns of Lubeck, Wisby, Revel, Dorpat, and Riga, com- 
 pacted in the border burgh of Izborsk, where "jj gekomen 
 her Johan Neibiir van Lubeke, her Hynrik van Vlanderen 
 unde her Godeke Cur von Godlande, van overze^- van Rige her 
 Tydenian van der Nienbrugge, van Darpte her Hervien Keg- 
 heller unde her Wynold Clychrode, van Revale her Gerd Wittel' 
 and " hebben gesproken myt dem borchgreven van Nougarden^' — 
 the posadnik of Novgorod — and so on in quaint old low- 
 German wording that brings to the mind a glimpse of red 
 gabled roofs, narrow streets and quays, a whiff of salted 
 herrings, pine timbers, and pungent stoppered drams. This 
 treaty, concluded without reference to the Grand Prince, had 
 been a source of friction between him and the Novgorodskie, 
 and a further grievance was that the Archbishop and clergy 
 of the northern city chose to be a law unto themselves rather 
 than show a proper dependence upon the Metropolitan of 
 Moskva. Yet another matter for complaint was the depre- 
 dations of bands of free-lances from Novgorod and her off- 
 shoot settlement Viatka (an independent territory lying to 
 the north of Great Bulgaria), who, under the name of 
 " Good Companions," carried on a series of freebooting and 
 piratical campaigns in the Volga valley. More than once 
 these points of dispute led to open rupture between Vasili 
 and his intractable subjects, but Great Novgorod was able to 
 hold her own against the hampered efforts of the Velikie 
 Kniaz. 
 
 ^ Reproduced by Schiemann from copy in Rath archives of Revel. 
 - "From over the sea."
 
 140 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Eighteen months after Ediger's winter campaign against 
 Moskva the eyes of all Russia were turned towards the im- 
 pending struggle between the rival powers of the Baltic lands, 
 the Order and the dual Polish-Lit'uanian State. Vitovt, 
 recovered from his reverse at the hands of the Tartars, was 
 moving again, and had set his lance against the black cross 
 shield of the German knights. A dispute anent the Order 
 province of Samogitia furnished a pretext for a recourse to 
 arms, and both sides gathered their hosts to fight out the 
 deadly quarrel. No hole and corner combat was to decide 
 the mastery of the Baltic basin; 163,000 men marched in 
 the train of Vitovt and Yagiello, 83,000 rallied round Ulrich 
 von Jungingen. At the famous battle of Tannenberg (15th 
 July 1 4 10) the iron-mailed knights of Mary went down in 
 splendid ruin before the unstayable onset of the Slavic 
 warriors ; the White Eagle of Poland and the Charging 
 Horseman of Lit'uania gleamed on their blood-red standards 
 over the stark and gory corpses of the Grand Master and the 
 flower of his chivalry, 600 knights and 40,000 men-at-arms ; 
 the sun went down on the hard-fought field, where Ulrich 
 von Jungingen and his staunch comrades held their last pale 
 Chapter, and the might of the Black Cross Order faded into 
 1411 the shadows of the past. The Peace of Thorn, by yielding 
 to the conquerors all they demanded, gave a temporary 
 respite to the Teutons, but their power was broken for ever- 
 more.^ 
 
 The latter years of the reign of Vasili Dmitrievitch arc 
 distinguished by a dexterous peace with the several items 
 which threatened at every moment to combine against and 
 crush his struggling principality. The ambition of his 
 father-in-law, the frowardness of Novgorod, the dissatisfaction 
 of Tver, the exacting arrogance of the Horde, were success- 
 fully ignored or adroitly played one against the other. In 
 like manner the Grand Prince's brothers were studiously kept 
 in the background, and the boyarins of Moskva and the 
 allied fiefs were taught to look upon Vasili's surviving son, 
 
 ^ Schiemann ; S. Solov'ev ; Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen ; Histoire de 
 rOrdre Teut07iique ; L. Ranke, Preiissiscke Geschichte.
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 141 
 
 who bore his father's name, as future head of the State. 
 Thus scheming and contriving went the Prince of Moskva 
 on his way, till one winter's day the bells knelled for 
 his passing soul, and Vasili Vasilievitch reigned in his 1425 
 stead. 
 
 The late prince had guided the flood of monarchical 
 principles and hereditary right in the desired direction ; his 
 successor had to struggle for the greater part of his reign 
 with the back-wash of reaction. Moskva had been placed 
 by persistent effort high above the position of her neighbours, 
 but the elements of discord and disunion lay among her own 
 princes, and it was inevitable that the surviving sons of 
 Dimitri should seek to annul an order of succession which 
 passed them over in favour of a mere boy. Nor had the 
 young Vasili the support of a strong Metropolitan to sustain 
 him in the stormy days that were coming. The Greek 
 Photius who held that office did not exercise in the State the 
 same influence as his forerunners Theognost and Aleksis had 
 done, and even in his own department his authority was not 
 undisputed. For Grand Duke Vitovt, an amateur dabbler in 
 religions, had established at Kiev a Metropolitan of his own, 
 and the faithful in the Russ-Lit'uanian lands paid their 
 homage, and what was worse, their tithes, to this unauthorised 
 rival. Hence Vasili had to depend on the protection of the 
 Horde and the affections of his Moskovite subjects to defend 
 him against the ambition of his uncle Urii. The death of 1430 
 his powerful relative, the Lit'uanian Grand Duke, removed 
 another possible supporter, and two years later the young 
 prince had to appeal to the decision of the Khan Makhmet 
 against the pretensions of his rival. By a grovelling affecta- 
 tion of submissiveness Vasili was able to emerge triumphant 
 from the contest, and on his return was solemnly crowned at 
 Moskva — the first coronation of a grand prince that had 
 taken place in that city.^ 
 
 The iarlikh of the Khan possessed, however, none of its 
 old finality, and Vasili had to sustain a civil war against his 
 uncle, and after his death (1434) with his sons, Vasili the 
 
 1 Rambaud, S. Solov'ev.
 
 142 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Squinting, Dimitri Shemiaka, and Dimitri the Red. Although, 
 apparently, not wanting in courage or energy (both of which 
 deficiencies have been freely attributed to him), he possessed 
 little skill in utilising his resources, and again and again 
 suffered defeat, deposition, and imprisonment. The loyalty 
 of Moskva brought him through many vicissitudes, and the 
 tables were turned more than once upon his hostile relatives. 
 Repulsing an attack made upon the capital by Vasili the 
 Squinting, the Grand Prince secured the person of that rebel, 
 and supplemented the defect bestowed by nature by blinding 
 
 1436 the eyes of his hapless prisoner. The leadership of the dis- 
 affected party devolved henceforth upon Shemiaka, who 
 became the implacable enemy of the Grand Prince, and 
 roused for many a long year the fires of discord in the land. 
 Meanwhile the bosom of the Church was heaving with 
 agitation as profound as that which disturbed the State. 
 The new Metropolitan, Isidor of Salonika, had scarcely 
 entered into his new duties when he was obliged to set off, 
 
 1437 by way of Novgorod, Riga, Lubeck, Braunschweig, Nurn- 
 berg, and the Tyrol, to attend the great Council which was 
 to be held at Ferrara — subsequently at Florence — to unite 
 the two Christian Churches in one communion. The imme- 
 diate cause of this drawing together of the Latin and Greek 
 rivals was the danger which was threatening the headquarters 
 of the latter sect at the hands of the Infidel Turk. The 
 Ottoman dynasty, rising upon the ruins of the Seljuk 
 Empire, had slowly but steadily engorged the provinces 
 which made up the dominion of the eastern Caesars. Asia 
 Minor, Bulgaria, Thessaly, Thrace, had been assimilated one 
 by one, and now there remained but Constantinople, " a head 
 without a body," to resist the hitherto irresistible invader. 
 Without substantial and speedy aid from Catholic Europe 
 there was little probability that the city could long maintain 
 its defence against the Ottoman armies, and Catholic Europe 
 could not be expected to interest itself in the fate of a com- 
 munity which differed from itself in so many vital points of 
 doctrine. The sole hope for Constantinople lay in the possi- 
 bility of a reunion with the dominant factor of Christendom.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GROWING OF THE GERM 143 
 
 This was the motive power which had drawn to the Italian 1438 
 town men from Moskva, Trebizond, and the isles of the 
 Adriatic, to discuss the vexed question of the genesis of the 
 Holy Ghost, the exact degree of bliss and torment allotted 
 to the souls of the departed, whether it was permissible to 
 use leavened bread in the sacrament, and whether Pope or 
 Patriarch should occupy the chiefest seat at feasts. These 
 were the main points which separated the Churches, and on 
 each of them the Greek prelates (Mark of Ephesos excepted) 
 gave way — not that the arguments of the Latins had become 
 suddenly convincing, but the looming vision of the Turk 
 inclined the minds of the Orthodox to surrender. " lis ne 
 croyaient pas, mais ils craignaient." 
 
 Foremost among the complaisant Greeks was the Metro- 
 politan Isidor ; already, before leaving Russia, he had shown 
 a " scandalous predilection for the Latin faith " — had he not 
 at Dorpat kissed the Catholic cross before saluting the Greek 
 ikons ? Hence on his return to Moskva prince and prelates 1440 
 assembled in gloomy suspicion to receive him in the Church 
 of the Virgin, and hear the result of the council's deliberations. 
 The Roman cross demurely preceding the Metropolitan, and 
 the Pope's name cropping up in the prayers, prepared them 
 for the surrender set forth in the Act of Council. When 
 Isidor had finished reading the unpalatable document there 
 was an ominous silence, amid which Vasili rose to his feet 
 and commenced to hurl invectives at the disconcerted 
 Vladuika. Heretic, false shepherd, corrupter of souls, the 
 mercenary of Rome, were among the epithets applied to the 
 would-be reformer, who was promptly bundled off to a 
 monastery, from which he was glad to escape back to Rome. 
 John Paleologus might, for pressing reasons of his own, 
 tolerate this accursed change of dogmas, but the Velikie 
 Kniaz of Moskva would have none of it, and hastened, 
 after the example of Vitovt, to consecrate a Metropolitan on 
 his own responsibility, without reference to the tainted source 
 of Constantinople. Jonas, Bishop of Riazan, was chosen 
 for the post, but was not formally consecrated till 1448.-^ 
 
 1 Karamzin.
 
 144 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 The energy and reckless daring of the Prince's character 
 showed itself soon after in a struggle with a new enemy. 
 On the ruins of the Great Bulgarian State had sprung up the 
 Tartar khanate of Kazan, independent of the Golden Horde, 
 and a source of uneasiness for Eastern Russia. In an attempt 
 to repel an invasion of the province of Souzdal by the forces 
 of this upstart power, Vasili, deserted by his cousin Shemiaka, 
 could only muster 1500 men, a shadow of the mighty hosts 
 that had followed the banner of Moskva aforetime. With 
 this handful, however, he joined battle with the Kazanese, and 
 fell, covered with wounds, into their hands. At the news of 
 this disaster the enemies of the Grand Prince raised their 
 heads throughout the land ; Boris of Tver raided the posses- 
 sions of the Moskovite merchants at Torjhok, Shemiaka 
 stretched out his hand for the vacant princedom. The 
 sudden release of Vasili by the Khan Makhmet sorely 
 embarrassed the position of the would-be supplanter, and 
 Shemiaka was driven to make a bold bid for the mastery. 
 A sudden move put the Kreml in his hands, and the hapless 
 Grand Prince, while returning thanks in the Troitza monastery 
 for his deliverance from the hands of the Infidels, experienced 
 the worse fate of falling into the clutches of his Christian 
 
 1446 cousin, who put his eyes out. Thus after ten years came 
 home to roost the wrong inflicted on Vasili the Squinting, and 
 the Grand Prince was thenceforth Vasili the Blind. This bar- 
 barous requital of an " unhappy far-off" deed was perpetrated 
 in the names of Shemiaka, Ivan Aleksandreivitch, and Boris 
 of Tver, and in their hands remained the person of Vasili 
 and the possessions of the Grand Principality. The first- 
 named usurped the Moskovite throne and enjoyed for a space 
 the power of Grand Prince without being able to gain the 
 affections of the people. In the darkness which had de- 
 scended on Vasili Vasilievitch the loyalty of boyarins, town- 
 folk, and clergy still burned bravely for the captive prince ; 
 the popular clamour and the representations of the Metro- 
 politan forced Shemiaka to restore him to liberty and 
 bestow on him the town of Vologda as a residence, and not 
 
 1447 many months had passed ere the exile came marching back
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 145 
 
 in triumph to his beloved and faithful Moskva — whose 
 dazzling walls, indeed, he might never again behold, but 
 whose pealing bells and hoarse-shouting populace spoke music 
 to his darkened soul. Scarred and mutilated in the long 
 struggle, in which he had tasted the bitterness of defeats, 
 imprisonment, banishment, blinding, the Grand Prince had 
 triumphed over all his misfortunes, had wearied down all 
 opponents, had won. A final victory dispelled the power of 
 Shemiaka (1450), and three years later he died at Novgorod, 
 not without suspicion of poisoning. From this turning-point 
 Vasili the Darkened reigned peaceably and prosperously on 
 the throne he had laboured so hard to retain. 
 
 As the Moskovites settled down to their long-estranged 
 placidity, rumours reached them of the terrible thing which 
 had befallen the city of the Caesars ; rumours which soon 
 grew into creditable news and made them doubt but that 
 the bottom of their world had fallen out. 
 
 Little fruit had been born of the vaunted Council of 
 Florence ; the Churches were as far apart as ever. In vain 
 might the Byzantine Emperor and the Greek hierarchy 
 conform with the decisions of the act of union ; the lower 
 clergy and the bulk of the populace would have no dealings 
 with the unholy ordinance. " Better Turkish than Papish," 
 the motto of the Water-Beggars in a later age, would fitly 
 have described the sentiments of the people of Constantinople 
 at this period. Thus they fought and squabbled over their 
 beloved dogmas, while the enemy was slowly gathering his 
 toils around the doomed city. The Pope, mortified at the 
 miscarriage of his plans, sent no legions rolling across Europe 
 to the assistance of the last of the Constantines ; his legate, 
 indeed, was on the scene, arguing and expostulating, with the 
 rhetoric which gained him applause in the council-chamber 
 at Florence, but failed him in the cold, grim Church of the 
 Virgin in the Kreml — for this plausible Roman cardinal is no 
 other than Isidor, sometime Metropolitan of Moskva. But 
 while the Pope hesitates the Sultan acts. On every side the 
 city is beset by an army that blackens the face of the earth. 
 Cannon and ram and scaling-ladder are plied against the 
 
 L
 
 146 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 massive walls and heavy gates. Day after day the assault 
 is urged ; the city is bravely defended, for the most part by 
 foreigners — for the greater proportion of the citizens are in 
 the churches praying for deliverance from the unbelievers. 
 But the wonder-working Virgin, weary of well-doing, or 
 recognising the superior insistency of the attackers, makes no 
 move to save the holy city ; the faltering wail of " kyrie 
 eleison " is drowned by the fierce roar of " II Allah illah 
 Allah," the scarlet banner of the Yeni-Tscheri ^ waves in the 
 1453 breach at the Gate of Romanes, the young Sultan Mahomet 
 II. bursts in upon his prey, and Constantine Paleologus, 
 wounded and trampled on in the rush of the victors, dies 
 amid the ruin of his empire. The purple and gold of old 
 Byzantium are lost in the pall of night, and the rising 
 moon salutes another crescent that gleams forth upon the 
 dome of S. Sophia. The cry of the muezzins peals 
 through the startled city ; the eternal speculations upon 
 the economy of self-begetting Trinities dies away before 
 the new dogma, " There is one God and Mahomet is His 
 prophet." This is the end of the Crusades ; this is the fall of 
 the Tzargrad.^ 
 
 After the first feeling of stupefaction and regret produced 
 by these doleful tidings had passed away, the Moskovites 
 might gather some little satisfaction from the overthrow of 
 their spiritual headquarters, their one link with southern 
 Europe. More than ever isolated, the Russian principality 
 gained in importance by becoming the sole resting-place of 
 the official Greek religion and of Greek ideas. Not at once 
 did Moskva realise, or invent, the pleasing idea that she had 
 succeeded to the heritage of the Caesars ; yet to her, still 
 struggling with the competition of other cities, with Tver, 
 and Vladimir, even with faded Kiev, it was no small gain to 
 have her churches and high places adorned by the art and 
 sanctified by the presence of the Greek monks and artists, 
 
 1 New guard, corrupted into Janissaries. k 
 
 2 Von Hammer- Purgstall, Histoire de V Empire Ottoman. J. W. Zinkeisen, " 
 Gesckicte des osmanischen Reich in Eiiropa. E. A. Freeman, Ottoman Power in 
 Europe.
 
 VI THE GROWING OF THE GERM 147 
 
 sages and artificers, who sought refuge within her gates. 
 And the last years of her Prince, the evening of his stormy 
 day, were ones of great progress for the white city, and for 
 the monarchy which was rising around this corner-stone. 
 The forces of reaction seemed for the moment to have spent 
 their fury on the person of Vasili, and his unbroken spirit 
 might now pursue its way unquestioned. Novgorod, long 
 the resort and refuge of his enemies, had at last to reckon 
 with the armed expression of his resentment ; its messengers 
 were refused hearing, its army of 5000 mail-clad knights was 
 routed near Rousa, its posadnik was a captive in the Grand 1456 
 Prince's hands, his forces occupied Torjhok. Peace had to 
 be bought by the disbursement of 8500 roubles, by sub- 
 mission to a princely levy, and by other sacrifices of pride 
 and pelf. The same year died Ivan Thedorovitch of Riazan, 
 leaving his infant son Vasili to the guardianship of the Grand 
 Prince, who took good care of the orphan — and of his 
 province. Viatka, that turbulent colony, which outdid its 
 parent Novgorod in rebellion and disorder, was forced to pay 
 a tribute to the Prince of Moskva and to respect his arms. 1459 
 Pskov, long time but a Lit'uanian outpost, received his second 
 son Urii as governor. Thus the grand principality, at peace 
 once more within itself, was beginning to quicken its dormant 1460 
 authority in the farthest limits of its extent. In the year 
 1460 Vasili paid a long and gracious visit to Velikie 
 Novgorod, to set the seal of his sovereignty on his northern- 
 most city and dazzle the proud republicans with his imposing 
 retinue. Much might they marvel at this grim groping 
 figure, who had buffeted his way through so many storms, 
 who had wrested victory from defeat, had thwarted the 
 designs of Pope and Council, had taught the bells of S. Sofia 
 Novgorodskie to jangle in his honour, had made Moskva 
 mistress over long -resisting provinces. Scarred and worn 
 with the traces of his life-struggle, Vasili the Darkened was 
 a meet type of the Russia he ruled over, but just beginning 
 to grope its way into the paths of unity and dominion. 
 When in 1462 he went to his well-earned rest, he left his 
 son Ivan in assured possession of the sovereignty in which he
 
 ,48 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. VI 
 
 had been already for some time associated. The old mad 
 folly of dividing the hardly-cemented territories between the 
 dead Prince's sons was still persisted m-Vas,hs eyes had 
 not been opened even by being put out-but Ivan was 
 emphatically Grand Prince of Moskva. 
 
 4 
 
 4
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI AND THE FIRST OF 
 
 THE AUTOCRATS 
 
 With the accession of Ivan III. to the throne of Moskva, 
 Russian history takes new shape and direction. This dark, 
 watchful, brooding kniaz was but the continuator of a 
 dynasty of Hke princes " of gloomy and terrible mien, whose 
 foreheads were marked by the seal of destiny." ^ " Time 
 and circumstance and opportunity paint with heedless hands 
 and garish colours on the canvas of a man's life ; so that 
 the result is less frequently a finished picture than a palette 
 of squeezed tints." - Time and circumstance and opportunity 
 gave Ivan the title of Great, and his principality an import- 
 ance it had never before enjoyed. That he made the most 
 of his possibilities will not be denied, but in the nature of 
 things this might scarcely have been otherwise. The whole 
 character of the man dovetailed into the part he was required 
 to play. 
 
 The growth of Moskovy had been marked by a life- 
 struggle with three hostile factors — internal disruption, the 
 aggression of the Horde, and the aggression of the Lit'uanian 
 Princes ; the first had been nearly stamped down by the 
 forerunners of Ivan, circumstances enabled him to deal 
 successfully with the two latter. The Golden Horde had 
 already, in the reign of Vasili, fallen apart into independent 
 khanates, that of Astrakhan representing the parent branch, 
 while those of Kazan and of the Krim Tartars bordered the 
 grand principality on the east and south respectively. The 
 latter khanate was wedged in between the lands of Astrakhan 
 
 1 Rambaud. - Rosebery, Pitt.
 
 I50 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 and Lit'uania, and Ivan was able to turn its resources to 
 good account against both these neighbours, as a counterpoise 
 to the concerted action which they were ever ready to take 
 against him. With the Kazanese he carried on, in the early 
 years of his reign (1467-69), a scrambling war, in which, if 
 his armies more than held their own, he personally showed 
 little courage or determination. Possibly, however, he was 
 reserving himself for the inevitable struggle with Novgorod, 
 on the result of which indirectly hung the question whether 
 Vilna or Moskva should be the centre of the Russian state. 
 " Under which King ? " was undisguisedly the issue which 
 was before the Novgorodskie at this juncture, and the answer 
 threatened to be unfavourable to Moskva. For once the 
 faction motives that agitated the citizens of the great re- 
 public are plainly understandable : on the one side was 
 hostility to the growing and griping power of the Grand 
 Prince, and a desire to seek the protection of Kazimir and 
 the spiritual guidance of the Metropolitan of Kiev ; on the 
 other, aversion to a foreign suzerainty and a heresy-tainted 
 Church. Since Olga had lighted the torch of Christianity 
 in the land, since Anastasie of Galitz ^ had furnished an 
 illumination of a different nature, women had rarely mingled 
 in the national politics, and " cherchez la femine " would 
 scarcely hold good with regard to Russian troubles. Now, 
 however, at the head of the Lit'uanian-leaning faction appears 
 a woman, one Martha, widow of the posadnik Isak Boretzki, 
 and mother of two of the city notables. The encroachments 
 of Vasili on the liberties and domains of the republic had 
 thoroughly alarmed the citizens, and Martha's party had 
 little difficulty in rousing a spirit of defiance towards the 
 new Prince, who was held to be of weaker fibre than his 
 father. An alliance with Kazimir was openly projected, and 
 the Moskovite agents were treated with studied disrespect. 
 Ivan expostulated, the Novgorodskie persisted. Still ex- 
 postulating, the Grand Prince set in motion a formidable 
 array of troops ; Pskovskie, Moskovite, Viatkian, Tv^erskie, 
 and Tartar contingents converged on the lands of the 
 ^ Mistress of a Kniaz of Galitz, and burned alive by his boyarins.
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 151 
 
 republic, defeated and drove in the forces sent against them, 
 and hemmed the city in on every side. Ivan, breathing 
 peace and goodwill, wound his coils slowly round his prey, 
 and waited. Want, the old enemy of Novgorod, began to 
 fight against the Boretzki faction ; " Ivan is at our gates, 
 and your Kazimir, where is he ? " demanded the " younger 
 folk," the first to feel the pinch of famine. Couriers had 
 been sent to invoke the assistance of the King of Poland, 
 but the Land -Master of Livland had turned them back. 
 And this mild-mannered Grand Prince, still breathing good- 
 will, had taken to cutting off the heads of the most notable 
 of his prisoners ; among others, one of Martha's sons had 
 been so treated. Clearly this was not a man to be trifled 
 with ; the city capitulated. Bitter were the terms to which 1471 
 the Novgorodskie had to submit: a fine of 15,000 roubles, 
 the surrender of several contested dependencies, the payment 
 of a tribute to Moskva, an engagement to hold no intercourse 
 with the King of Poland or the Metropolitan of Kiev or any 
 of the Grand Prince's enemies, the annulment of the acts of 
 the Vetche, and the recognition of Ivan as appeal judge 
 in their civic litigation. Velikie Novgorod had found her 
 master. 
 
 The next and most important event of an important 
 reign was produced by an outside circumstance. The tidal 
 wave of Islam which had swept over the cradle of the 
 Orthodox faith, had also cut short the sphere of Papal 
 influence, and threatened to make still further inroads on 
 the Catholic lands of South -Eastern Europe. As Venice 
 mourned her damaged trade so Rome sighed over her 
 abbreviated authority and diminished Peter's Pence. Pope 
 after Pope cast anxious eyes around the sovereigns of 
 Christendom to discover a possible champion against the 
 Turk ; but the days of the Crusades were over. One card 
 there remained for the Vatican to play. Brought up in 
 dependence on the Papal Court, and in conformity with the 
 Latin faith, were the heritors of the dead empire ; Sophie 
 Paleologus and her two brothers, children of Thomas, brother 
 of the last Emperor, were, body and soul, at the disposal of
 
 152 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the Pope (Paul II.). Of the young Princes obviously nothing 
 could be made, but by proclaiming Sophie as heiress of 
 Constantinople a husband might be found for her who would 
 be willing to break a lance with Mahomet for the possession 
 of his wife's inheritance. Ivan of Moskva, whose remote 
 ancestors had turned their eyes so persistently towards the 
 Tzargrad, seemed a likely candidate for the hand of the 
 orphan exile, and an embassy from Paul sounded the Grand 
 Prince on the subject. Ivan, whose first wife, Mariya of 
 Tver, had died in 1467, lent favourable ear to the suggestion, 
 and matters were satisfactorily arranged between the high 
 contracting parties. The question of religion does not 
 appear to have been raised as an obstacle, either by Paul or 
 Sixtus IV., who succeeded to the Papal throne while the 
 negotiations were proceeding. Whether Ivan's ambassadors 
 threw dust in the eyes of the Pontiffs, whether the latter 
 hoped to win him, by means of his bride, over to the Latin 
 faith, or whether the driving out of the Turk was for the 
 moment more important than the genesis of the Holy Ghost, 
 it is difficult to determine, but the betrothal was accomplished 
 with the full blessing of the Church. Of Sophie the in- 
 formation available is curiously unequal, detailed on some 
 points, vague to blankness on others. That, according to 
 the chronicles, she charmed all beholders with her presence — 
 a habit common with princesses — must be dispassionately 
 compared with a contemporary Italian account, which likened 
 her to a disgusting mountain of fat. That she left the 
 Eternal City under the wing of the Pope's legate ; that she 
 passed through Viterbo and Sienna ; that the council of the 
 latter city voted, by 124 voices to 42, fifty florins to defray 
 the cost of her reception ; that she made her way through 
 Bologna and Niirnberg to Lubeck, and thence by sea to 
 Revel ; that she was well received at Pskov, and also at 
 Novgorod, at which place the old bell of Yaroslav might yet 
 salute the honoured guest ; all this may be gathered from 
 the records of the past.^ Reared amid the warm and stately 
 cities of Italy, with fond remembrance of the lost glories of 
 ' Le pere Pierling, La Ritssie et I Orient.
 
 vn 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGl 153 
 
 Constantinople, there was much that must have seemed 
 strange and wild, perhaps desolate, in the long sledge journey 
 through the unending snoW-choked forests towards Moskva ; 
 Moskva, which, even in its winter mantle, would compare 
 but meagrely with most of the cities the traveller had passed 
 through. For in those days and at that moment, with its 
 cathedral in ruins, its buildings insignificant, and its limits 
 eked out with meadows and copses, the capital of the grand 
 principality did not make a very brave show/ The solemnity 
 of her reception was marred by an awkward incident, which 
 showed that, however the case might be at Rome, inter- 
 Christian bitterness still ruled strong at Moskva. The 
 legate, it was understood, not content with flaunting his 
 scarlet robes in the face of the Orthodox, intended to have 
 the Latin Cross borne before him into the city. Should 
 such things be ? Ivan held high counsel with his clergy and 
 boyarins on the subject ; the majority were in favour of 
 " shutting their eyes " when the objectionable emblem should 
 make its appearance on the scene, but this ostrich -like 
 expedient did not recommend itself to the Metropolitan 
 Filipp, who declared that if it came in at one gate he should 
 go out at another. Happily the Cardinal showed a more 
 accommodating spirit, and, when the situation had been 
 explained to him by the Prince's messengers, consented to 
 have the Cross smuggled through in a sledge. This con- 
 cession smoothed over the difficulty, and the catastrophe of 
 the whole bridal train being kept waiting for days in the 
 snow outside Moskva till one or other of the churchmen 
 gave way, was happily averted." From the moment that 
 Sophie Paleologus became mated with Ivan comparatively 1472 
 little is heard of her ; her personality is swallowed up in 
 that of the Grand Prince. But the influence of the Greek 
 Princess can be traced in many of the important develop- 
 ments of this reign. Born amid the extravagant ceremonial 
 of the Byzantine Court, and treasuring the memory of those 
 splendid myths and vanities, the more perhaps because they 
 were wholly lost, the exile transplanted to the rugged soil of 
 1 Iz Istorie Moskvui. ^ 5. Solov'ev. Karamzin. Pierling.
 
 154 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Moskovy the ideals that had waxed to fantastic growth on 
 the humid shores of the Bosphorus. The Velikie-kniaz of 
 yore, moving freely among his boyarins and subjects, 
 develops gradually into the heaven-born Sovereign, a being 
 removed from contact with the ordinary sons of earth, with- 
 drawn from profane touch into a Holy of Holies of pomp 
 and ceremony. Here again Ivan was manifestly fitted to 
 assist in working out this evolution. His cold-blooded, 
 calculated policy, his pitiless, passionless judgment, his baleful 
 glance, which is said to have caused women to faint, were 
 meet attributes of a majesty that was accounted something 
 more than human. 
 
 Under the influence of the new Byzantine and Italian 
 ideas which the Grand Prince imbibed from the inspiration 
 of his consort and her Court followers, Moskva received new 
 buildings and adornments, a new Cathedral of the Assump- 
 tion (Ouspienskie Sobor), a new Kreml, new ordnance, 
 new coinage. Received also new laws, new punishments ; 
 the old repugnance against taking life, expressed in the 
 testament of Monomachus, gave way to artistically conceived 
 executions and tortures. Heretics were put to death in a 
 manner that the Inquisitors of Western Europe might have 
 been proud to own — roasted gently in a cage, for example, 
 or, if allowed to live, deprived of their unruly tongues. Knout 
 and axe made their appearance in the penal code, flesh and 
 blood cheapened in the market of civil life. Such were the 
 results of the union of the last of the Caesars with the first 
 of the Tzars. The outward expression of this alliance was 
 the adoption on the Prince's seals of the double-headed eagle, 
 the arms of the defunct eastern empire ; a cognisance which 
 had, since the days of Karl the Great, been also the distin- 
 guishing device of the western empire.^ 
 
 ' Unlike their compeers in Western Europe, who attached high importance 
 to matters heraldic, the Russian princes were somewhat "fancy-free" in the 
 employment of armorial bearings, and their devices took more the nature of bar- 
 baric totems than of feudal blazonry. Only in the reign of Vasili the Darkened 
 had the S. George-the-Conqueror and dragon become the fixed stamp on the 
 seals and coins of Moskva ; an earlier form of this was a simple mounted figure, 
 similar to that borne by the Grand Dukes of Lit'uania. The coins of Dimitri 
 
 I
 
 vii THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGl 155 
 
 In his capacity of appeal judge of Novgorodian suits, 
 Ivan found his influence over the affairs of the city daily 
 growing stronger ; an accident furnished him with the pre- 
 text for bringing the republic wholly under his authority. 
 By a clerical error in a petition his style was written Sove- 
 reign (Gosoudar), instead of Lord (Gospodin). A nod is 
 as good as a wink to an Argus-eyed prince. Ivan thanked 
 the citizens for their voluntary submission and assumed the 
 new title. Novgorod rose in angry rebellion against this 
 last blow at her independence ; the faction of Martha lifted 
 its head anew, and the eyes of all men turned towards the 
 King of Poland. But from that quarter came no help. 
 Kazimir was engaged in a struggle with Matthias of Hungary 
 on the one hand and the Teutonic Order on the other, and 
 had, moreover, to maintain his son Vladislas on the throne 
 of Bohemia ; hence he was not in a position to court the 
 hostility of the Prince of Moskva. Novgorod had to front 
 alone the overwhelming forces which Ivan led against her. 
 The Archbishop Theofil flitted backwards and forwards 
 between the city and the Prince's camp, but saw never a 
 sign of yielding on that impassive countenance ; saw only 
 fresh troops arriving to swell the monarch's array. The 
 unequal struggle could have but one end. " Who can resist 
 God and Great Novgorod ? " The proud sphinx-riddle had 
 at last been answered, and the republic perished, strangled 
 in the toils of autocracy. As Gosoudar Ivan entered the i477 
 humbled city the sovereign functions of vetche and posadnik 
 were abolished, and the whole province of Novgorod was 
 added to the domain of Moskva. Loaded with an enormous 
 booty, wrenched by way of fine from the citizens, the Grand 
 Prince returned to his capital, bearing with him as prisoners 
 many of the merchants and boyarins of the disaffected party, 
 and the bereaved Martha, the Helen of this smitten Troy. 
 Bearing also a yet more notable captive, the great bell of 
 
 Donskoi are adorned in some cases with the image of a cock, above which is 
 portrayed a small animal, which might represent a fox, beaver, or marten. Pre- 
 vious to this the tokens were usually stamped with a rude representation of the 
 reigning prince or of a local saint.
 
 156 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Yaroslav, which for many a hundred year had hung like a 
 watchful sprite in its beetling belfry, had clanged, boomed, 
 and sobbed its summonses to council, strife, or revelry, had 
 roused the sleepy monks in many a marsh-girt monastery, 
 and witched with muffled echoes the seals of Lake Ilmen — 
 this voice of Novgorod's liberty was borne away in the con- 
 queror's train, to be hung in the new Ouspienskie Cathedral 
 at Moskva, and eat out its life in droning solemn flatteries 
 on Moskovite high-days. Perchance as they lifted it down 
 from its long -accustomed tower it clashed forth one last 
 discordant knell, a passing-bell for the soul of the great 
 republic. 
 
 Whatever hopes the Roman Pontiffs had built on the 
 marriage they had negotiated, they were doomed to be dis- 
 appointed. Sophie Paleologus, so far from converting her 
 husband to the Latin faith, had adopted the Orthodox religion 
 almost as soon as she entered Russia,^ and the decrees of the 
 Council of Florence were worse than abortive as far as 
 Moskva was concerned. Nor was it likely that Ivan, saddled 
 with his own subjection to the sword of the Prophet, was 
 going crusading against the Ottoman power in South Europe. 
 Popular tradition, indeed, gave his wife credit for turning his 
 energies towards the off-throwing of this same Mongol yoke, 
 which was incompatible with the new ideas of princely 
 dignity. The initiative, however, appears to have come from 
 the other side. Akhmet, Khan of Astrakhan, either sensible 
 of the growing independence of Moskva, or acting at the 
 instance of the King of Poland, seized upon a moment when 
 Ivan was embroiled in a quarrel with his brothers (Boris and 
 1452 Andrei the elder) to march against this too-uplifted vassal. 
 Kazimir having, by the Peace of Olmutz (1479), closed the 
 war with Hungary, was in a position to second Akhmet's 
 attack. The political genius of Ivan was equal to the 
 emergency. By wise concessions he dispelled his brothers' 
 resentment and presented a united front to the invaders, 
 while his friendship with Mengli-Girei, the Khan of the Krim 
 Tartars, enabled him to send the Krimskie horsemen raiding 
 1 Le pere Pierling, La Russie et P Orient.
 
 VII 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 157 
 
 into Lit'uania — -an efifective counter -stroke to Kazimir's 
 intrigues with the eastern khanate. Face to face in equal 
 struggle with the enemy, the Grand Prince showed none of 
 the impatient war-horse-snorting ardour which was expected 
 of him ; showed rather a spirit of misgiving and vacillation, 
 which had to be goaded by women and ecclesiastics before 
 it could be wound up to the necessary pitch. This unwill- 
 ingness to fight need not be set down unhesitatingly to want 
 of courage. Erst wage, dann wage, the motto of a world- 
 wise man of a later day, was the life-motive of this wary yet 
 strenuous kniaz, and he had good reason to pause before 
 staking the existence of his monarchy on a pitched battle 
 with Akhmet. The disaster which befell Vitovt, and the 
 equally unprofitable sequel to the victory of Dimitri Donskoi, 
 warned Ivan of the risk he ran in courting a like experience. 
 With a little patience, a little more feigned submission, Moskva 
 would see the power of the Horde crumble away of its own 
 corrosive action ; on the other hand, the defeat of the Grand 
 Prince's army would place his territories at the mercy of the 
 real enemy, and the aggrandisement of the Polish-Lit'uanian 
 crown would be a death-blow to Moskovy, For months 
 the two armies faced each other on opposite banks of the 
 Ougr, Ivan urged by his soldiers and by the fiery Vassian, 
 Archbishop of Rostov, to strike a blow against the impious 
 enemy of God, and the impious one waiting for Lit'uanian 
 succours before attacking Ivan. At length the approach of 
 winter froze the dividing river and left no further obstacle to 
 defer the contest. But the final snapping of the Mongol 
 yoke was to be effected in a manner which partook of the 
 ridiculous rather than the heroic. Ivan gave orders to his 
 boyarins to withdraw the army to a position more favourable 
 for receiving the attack ; the backward movement engendered 
 a panic among the Russians, and the retreat was changed 
 into a flight. On the other bank of the Ougr the Mongols 
 were alarmed to find that the foe whom they had been 
 watching so closely for months had suddenly vanished ; a 
 flank attack, a rear attack, some unseen horror, was evidently 
 creeping upon them, and the hosts of Akhmet raced away
 
 158 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 from Moskovite soil as though all the saints of the Orthodox 
 calendar had been mobilised against them. Ivan, like many 
 another frozen-blooded strategist, had won by waiting, and 
 might now turn his undivided and untrammelled energies 
 towards the western foe. 
 
 The dynasty of Yagiello had emerged from its lair in 
 the Lit'uanian forests at a moment when the old reigning 
 families of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia were dying out, 
 and it seemed not unlikely that this new and vigorous stock 
 would gather up the fallen threads of Piast, Arpad, and 
 Premyslide, and weave together a powerful Slav -Magyar 
 Empire. Already in outward appearance a considerable 
 step towards this goal had been made. Kazimir Yagiello- 
 vitch had re-united the Polish and Lit'uanian lands under 
 his sceptre, West Russia was entirely in his hands, Pomerellen 
 and West Prussia had been wrested from the Order, and one 
 of his sons filled the Bohemian throne ; in Hungary his 
 pretensions were only held in check by the vigour of Matthias 
 Hunnyades. Against this wide-stretching dominion the 
 Grand-principality of Moskva was pitted in a struggle as 
 deadly as any that was waged between kindred species of 
 life in far primaeval days. And for this struggle Moskva 
 was the more strongly equipped, despite her disparity of 
 forces, by the solidly-wrought cohesion into which centuries 
 of adversity had hammered her. Nor did her ruler rely for 
 success on his own unaided resources ; besides his familiar 
 sprite of the steppes, the Krim Tartar Khan, Ivan drew into 
 a league of suspended hostility Matthias of Hungary — the 
 great stumbling-block to Polish expansion — and Stefan VI., 
 Hospodar of Moldavia. The latter Prince, whose efforts 
 had raised his country, almost for the first time in her 
 chequered history, to a position of independence, and whose 
 exploits against the Turks had gained for him, from Sixtus 
 IV., the title of V Athlete du Christ, was allied with the 
 Moskovite princely family by the marriage of his daughter 
 with the young Ivan, son of the Grand Prince by his first 
 wife, Mariya of Tver. The outcome of these preparations 
 was not open war ; the two powers remained snarling at
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 159 
 
 each other and watching for some favourable opportunity 
 for attack, Ivan looked on complacently while Mengli- 
 Girei made an inroad upon the Podolian lands and plundered 
 Kiev, while on the other side Kazimir was believed to have 
 incited the Order to hostilities against Moskva.^ Ivan's 
 forces, however, overawed the Teutons, and in another 
 direction Kazimir's designs were frustrated ; a counter 
 matrimonial alliance, between Mikhail of Tver and a grand- 
 daughter of the King of Poland, was nipped in the bud by 
 the Grand Prince's vigilance, and soon afterwards the 
 Tverskie kniaz, detected in an intrigue with Kazimir, was 1485 
 forced to fly from Ivan's vengeance. The little principality, 
 which had been for centuries a thorn in the side of Moskva, 
 was swallowed up in the Grand Prince's dominions, and 
 Kazimir had the mortification of seeing his enemy grow 
 stronger instead of weaker as a result of this diplomatic 
 skirmishing. 
 
 If the Polish King counted on wearying Ivan into some 
 rash or negligent act of open hostility or wanton enterprise 
 he knew not his man. The Moskovite never undertook a 
 task greater than his forces were able to accomplish, or 
 attempted to hold more than he could with safety manage. 
 Hence his resources were never exhausted, and the long 
 period of pent hostility was turned on his part to solid 
 advantage. The small appanages of Rostov and Yaroslavl 
 shared the fate of Tver and Novgorod, Viatka was reduced 
 to submission, Perm and the silver-yielding region of the 
 Petchora were added to the sovereignty, and Kazan, long a 1487 
 scourge to the Volga Russians, fell into the power of the 
 Grand Prince. Ivan set a vassal Khan on the throne of this 
 new dependency, reserving for himself the title of Prince of 
 Bulgaria. A new title, indeed, was becoming necessary to 
 describe the august being who was emerging from the 
 cocoon state of a Prince of Moskva, and Ivan henceforth 
 begins to style himself Tzar in his foreign correspondence.- 
 
 ^ Gennad Karpov, Istoriya Bor'bui Moskovskago Goscnidarstva j' PoFsko- 
 Litovskim, 1 462- 1 508. 
 
 - The title Tzar, formerly reproduced in West European spelling as Czar,
 
 i6o THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 The growing power and importance of the Moskovite 
 state, emerged from its Tartar thraldom and hallowed by 
 its connection with the dead Byzantine past, brought it 
 more into contact with the western world from which it had 
 drifted so far apart. Like the hero of the Dutch romance, 
 revisiting the haunts of early life after his protracted slumber, 
 Russia was renewing the relations she had held with 
 Christendom before her opium-sleep in the shadow of the 
 Khans. The wily and patient kniaz had a double purpose 
 to serve in encouraging intercourse with the western princes : 
 in the first place, to seek fresh allies against the arch-enemy, 
 Poland ; in the second, to procure for his beloved capital a 
 share of the progress and civilisation which was then 
 illuminating Europe. Embassies and presents were ex- 
 changed with the Emperor (Frederick III.) and with the 
 young Maximilian, " King of the Romans." The death of 
 Matthias (1490) and the election to the Hungarian crown 
 of Ladislas, King of Bohemia and son of Kazimir, placed 
 Maximilian in direct opposition to the House of Yagiello, 
 and Ivan was ready to join with the Habsburg in an attack 
 on the common enemy. The hostilities in Hungary were, 
 however, cut short by a peace based on one of the " family 
 1491 compacts " so dear to the House of Austria, and Ivan, in his 
 turn, saw the power of his foe wax stronger in spite of his 
 diplomatic efforts. In another and more unexpected direction 
 
 was, on the strength of a surface resemblance, assumed to be derived from Caesar, 
 and given the equivalent value of the German Kaiser. With the Russians Tzar 
 simply meant king or ruler, and was indiscriminately used for the Greek 
 Emperors, the Tartar Khans, and the Syrian and Jewish potentates mentioned 
 in the writings of the Old Testament ; Caesar was rendered Kessar. The 
 word korol, which also signifies king in their language, was perhaps borrowed 
 from the Magyar kiraly, the Kings of Hungary being for a long time the only 
 monarchs so designated with whom they had any dealings. The double-headed 
 eagle, adopted at almost the same time as the title of Tzar, although the recog- 
 nised symbol of "empire," was not originally used with that significance in 
 Russia ; the device was employed (in the same way that the lilies of France 
 were incorporated with the English arms) to show that the Prince of Moskva 
 had married the heiress of the eastern empire, and for a long time the eagle 
 occupied a secondary position to the S. George and dragon cognisance of Moskva 
 on the seals and coins of the Grand Princes. The imperial idea was a plant of 
 foreign conception and growth, and, indeed, at the time when the title Tzar first 
 crept into use, the style of Emperor of all the Russias might have been borne 
 with almost as much reason by the King of Poland as by the Prince of Moskva.
 
 VII 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI i6l 
 
 the Grand Prince established relations of friendship ; the 
 Ottoman power had already stretched its grasp over Kaffa 
 and the fertile lands of the Krim peninsula, and Mengli- 
 Girei was enrolled among the vassals of the Sultan Bayezid 
 II. With this pacific occupant of the Throne of the Faithful 
 Ivan exchanged courtesies — a sorry miscarriage of the hopes 
 of the match-making Pontiffs. Doubtless the Russian Prince 
 saw in the Sultan a possible ally against the new King of 
 Hungary, who might one day unite on his head the crowns 
 of Poland and Lit'uania. Not in this direction, however, 
 were travelling the energies of the house of Yagiello. 
 Kazimir seemed bent on providing his numerous sons with 
 separate kingdoms and principalities ; having failed in his 
 attempt to divide the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, he 
 tried to secure the succession of his second son, John- Albert, to 
 the Polish throne, and recommended another son, Alexander, 
 to the boyarins of the grand duchy. Having thus, in marked 
 contrast to the life-work of his great rival, done all that he 
 could to ensure the disintegration of his sovereignty, the 
 King comfortably sickened of a fatal disease and passed 1492 
 away with the famous vtorietidum ergo on his lips. Subse- 
 quent events fell in with his testamentary wishes. The 
 Lit'uanians elected Alexander as Grand Duke, and the 
 Polish Diet, after many stormy sittings, recognised John- 
 Albert as its sovereign — a recognition possibly influenced 
 by the arrival on the scene of deliberation of 1600 armed 
 men enlisted on that Prince's behalf^ 
 
 The enfeeblement of Lit'uania by reason of its separation 
 from Poland invited the long-nursed hostility of the Grand 
 Prince and his faithful ally, Mengli-Girei. The latter 
 ravaged the Lettish territories in the south, while the forces 
 of the former harried all along the Moskovite border. 
 Many of the boyarins and petty princes subject to Alexander 
 passed over to the service of a monarch who was of their 
 own nationality and religion, and the Grand Duke had to 
 signalise his accession by buying off the hostility of Ivan 
 with the surrender of some frontier lands. On these terms 
 
 1 Schiemann, Russland, Polen, u. Livland. 
 M
 
 1 62 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 1494 an " eternal peace " was accommodated between the two 
 countries, and the following year a matrimonial alliance was 
 effected between Alexander and Ivan's daughter Elena. 
 Whatever chance might have existed of durable concord 
 between a weak state holding conquered territory and a 
 strong state to whom that territory has once belonged was 
 extinguished by the irritating stipulations with which this 
 marriage contract bristled. Uncomfortable as a neighbour, 
 Ivan was incompatible as a father-in-law ; the safeguards 
 which had been insisted on against any tampering with the 
 Princess's Orthodoxy were supplemented by minute regula- 
 tions with regard to her worship, her household, even her 
 dress. She might visit a Catholic church as a curiosity — 
 twice ; she was to eschew Polish costumes, even her cooks 
 were of Russian selection. In fact, her Court was to be an 
 Orthodox Moskovite oasis in the Lit'uanian desert.^ Alex- 
 ander found he had sacrificed his domestic independence 
 without obtaining any compensating security for his 
 dominions ; the restless Hospodar of Moldavia and the 
 Krimskie Khan continued to harry the Podolian and Galician 
 lands, and the Moskovites v/ere openly aggressive towards 
 the Grand Duke's subjects. Ivan, indeed, at this period 
 seems to have rated the power of the Yagiellos cheaply, 
 and to have permitted himself a diversion in the affairs of 
 North-western Europe. Whether he had secretly nursed 
 designs against the merchants of the Hansa League, who 
 continued to maintain a flourishing commerce at Novgorod 
 after the civic glories had departed from her, or whether for 
 once his coldly-measured policy was influenced by an unpent 
 passion, the facts scarcely indicate. The spark that roused, 
 or gave plausible ground for, his sudden resentment against 
 the unsuspecting traders was the torture of two Russian 
 subjects at Revel — who were boiled to death for coining 
 false money and otherwise misconducting themselves — 
 coupled with an insult to the Grand Prince. Ivan revenged 
 
 ^495 himself by swooping down on the famous Hanse factory at 
 Novgorod, confiscating all the merchandise therein stored, 
 
 ^ Karamzin.
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 163 
 
 and seizing the persons of forty-nine merchants of Lubeck, 
 Hamburg, Munster, Dortmund, Revel, Dorpat, etc. By this 
 raid he enriched himself with a sum computed at a million 
 gulden, but the Hansa trade with Novgorod and Pskov was 
 diverted to Revel and the Livlandish towns.^ Skandinavian 
 affairs next engaged the Grand Prince's attention, and the 
 embarrassments of Sweden offered an opportunity for wiping 
 off old scores with that ancient enemy. Under the ad- 
 ministration of the Regent Sture the Swedes had broken 
 away from the Kalmar Union, and refused to acknowledge 
 as their sovereign Johann, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and 
 King of Denmark and Norway ; with this monarch Ivan 
 entered into an active alliance, and the bleak uplands and 
 marsh -choked forests of Finland became the scene of an 
 obstinate war. Ivangorod, the newly-built Russian frontier 
 fortress and the Swedish outpost of Viborg were in turn 
 besieged by the belligerents, and the Finns experienced the 
 calamities to which border peoples are particularly liable. 
 Neither side gained any important advantage, and the war 
 was brought to a sudden termination by the election of 
 Johann to the crown of Sweden. 
 
 The influence of Byzantine ideas which had permeated 
 the Moskovite Court showed itself in a series of sinister 
 developments, which closely reproduced the palace intrigues 
 for which the Greek capital had been infamous. By the 
 death of the young Ivan, son of the Grand Prince by his (1490) 
 first wife, the heirship in the direct line had devolved upon 
 the former's infant son, Dimitri ; a formidable competitor 
 existed, however, in Vasili, eldest son of Ivan by his second 
 marriage, and herein lay the constituents of a pretty suc- 
 cession dispute, in which of course the two mothers, Elena 
 of Moldavia and Sophie Paleologus, urged with inconvenient 
 insistency the claims of their respective sons. The law of 
 hereditary succession was an exotic plant on Russian soil, 
 and men's ideas were not yet sufficiently fixed to remove all 
 question of doubt on the subject. For a comparatively 
 
 1 Geschichte (Ur Ostseeprovinzen ; Sartorius, Geschichte des Hanseatischen 
 Bundes ; S. Solov'ev, htoriya Rossie.
 
 i64 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 newly established Court matters were carried through with 
 remarkable correctness of detail. Plots were discovered 
 — or imagined, tortures extracted confessions, guilty boyarins 
 yielded up their lives on the banks of the river Moskva, 
 Sophie and her son were disgraced, and the child Dimitri 
 solemnly crowned as Ivan's successor. The latter decision 
 may have been influenced by a desire to " keep in " with the 
 Hospodar Stefan, rather than by any scrupulous regard for 
 hereditary rights, but at least it shows how little the heirship- 
 of-the-Caesars idea had taken hold of Moskovite minds. 
 Renewed intrigues brought about a reaction, Sophie and her 
 1499 son were restored to the light of the Grand Prince's counte- 
 nance, and another batch of executions and imprisonments, 
 among the Dimitri party this time, restored peace and happi- 
 ness to the domestic circle. Vasili was decorated with the 
 title of Prince of Novgorod and Pskov, and the succession 
 remained for the present a reopened question. 
 
 Meanwhile the eternal peace was showing signs of the 
 decay to which such institutions are liable. In August 
 1499 appeared at Moskva the ambassador of Lit'uania, 
 one Stanislav GHebovitch, big with grievances against the 
 Grand Prince. Stefan of Moldavia was threatened by the 
 all-devouring Turk ; would Ivan unite with the sovereigns 
 of Lit'uania, Poland, and Hungary on his behalf? Why 
 had Ivan, notwithstanding the peace, incited Mengli-Girei to 
 raid the Grand Duke's territories ? And if Alexander con- 
 ceded to Ivan the title " Sovereign of all Russia," would the 
 latter promise to renounce all claim on Kiev for himself and 
 his heirs ? To the last of these propositions Ivan returned 
 a scornful negative. With regard to the suggested crusade 
 he was ready to give assistance to Stefan when the latter 
 should personally ask for it. The charge concerning MengH, 
 which could not be denied, was met by counter-recrimina- 
 tions respecting Alexander's intrigues with the Golden 
 Horde. The irritation felt at Vilna at the uncompromising 
 attitude of the Grand Prince towards the proposals put 
 forward by this mission was not allowed to calm down, 
 Ivan presented on his part a batch of complaints concerning
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 165 
 
 the non-fulfilment of various items in the Princess Elena's 
 marriage agreement, and the alleged forced conversion of the 
 Grand Duke's Russian subjects to the Latin faith. The 
 amenities of religion gave the finishing touch to an already- 
 overstrained situation. Lit'uania and the Russian provinces 
 included within its political bounds swarmed with an 
 aristocratic population of boyarin-princes, some offshoots of 
 the prolific stock of Rurik, others descendants of Gedimin. 
 The Russian and Orthodox among them naturally inclined 
 towards the rising power of Moskva, while among the Letts 
 were many who bore no affection to the Yagiellos and were 
 disposed rather to cast in their lot with the all-conquering 
 Grand Prince. Even the grandsons of Shemiaka were 
 drawn back to the allegiance which their forbears had 
 deserted ; in short, all along the border there was an 
 uprising of princes and voevodas on behalf of the Prince of 
 Moskva. 
 
 With the melting of the winter snows both sides prepared 
 to take the field. The Tartars of the Krim steppes turned 
 the noses of their wiry little horses towards the west ; those 
 of Kazan pushed along the wooded valley of the Upper 
 Volga to swell the war-bands gathering at Moskva ; the 
 Grand Prince's own horse-carls (with their quaint equip- 
 ment of sabre, bow and arrows, mace, kisten,^ and whip, and 
 their heavy quilted jerkins) clambered on to their sturdy 
 shaggy-heeled steeds and marshalled themselves under their 
 respective boyarins and captains ; the bulbous domes and 
 campaniles of the magnificent -grown city re-echoed the 
 pealing war-notes, and in wood and wold howled S. George's 
 dogs " in chorus, in anticipation of the good times coming. 
 
 Neither prince commanded his army in person ; each 
 in fact was employed in weaving alliances against the other. 
 The main body of the Moskovite troops was under the 
 direction of the voevoda Yakov Zakharievitch ; the Letts 
 were generalled by the hetman Konstantin Ostrojhskie. All 
 
 ^ A spiked iron ball attached by a flexible thong to a short staff. 
 2 The wolves. S. George occupies the delicate position of patron-saint of the 
 wolves as well as of flocks and herds.
 
 i66 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the advantage of preparedness lay with the Moskovites, who 
 in fact had taken possession of several Lit'uanian places 
 while the Grand Duke was still in the negotiating stage. 
 Alexander awoke from his chafing and peeving and yielding 
 to find that his parent terrible was ensconced on the wrong 
 side of the border, and the detestable Mengli-Girei, who 
 hunted in couple with the Grand Prince, was careering 
 unchecked through Podolia and Galicia ; also the interesting 
 champion of Christendom, who loved the Poles no better than 
 he loved the Turks, was preparing to make a hostile incur- 
 sion upon the same provinces. The Grand Duke on his part 
 made overtures to the Order and dispatched couriers to Shikh- 
 Akhmat, Khan of Astrakhan, and mortal enemy of Mengli. 
 
 The superiority in warfare which had distinguished the 
 Letts under their early princes seemed to have been lost at 
 this juncture, and the first collision between the opposing 
 July 1500 forces — on the plain of Mit'kov, by the banks of the Vedrosh 
 — resulted in a complete victory for the Moskovites.^ The 
 hetman and many Lit'uanian pans were taken prisoners, and 
 there was joy in the bulb-topped city. The position of the 
 long-time enemies was exactly reversed ; the Moskovite and 
 Tartar armies swept all before them in the open country, 
 but the fortified citadels of Polotzk, Smolensk, Vitebsk, and 
 other border strongholds resisted the attacks of the invaders, 
 as the Kreml had defied those of Olgerd and Vitovt in 
 bygone days. In the south-west the Krim hordes, led by 
 Mengli-Girei's son, burnt Kremenetz, Lublin, and many other 
 towns and gorodoks. Unable to make a respectable resist- 
 ance to his enemies on either side, Alexander engaged 
 himself in a feverish activity of negotiation. In January 
 I 501 ambassadors from Ladislav of Hungary-Bohemia and 
 Albert of Poland journeyed to Moskva on a fruitless errand 
 of mediation. Urgent remonstrances were dispatched from 
 Vilna to Moldavia, begging the Athlete du Christ to be 
 athletic in any other direction than that of the grand duchy, 
 while anxious endeavours were made to enlist the aid of the 
 German Order against the victorious Moskovite. The office 
 
 ^ Karpov, htoriya Bor'bui, etc.
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 167 
 
 of Land-Master of Livland was filled at this moment by the 
 able warrior Walter von Plettenberg, and though crippled in 
 power and dominion since the disastrous field of Tannenberg, 
 the knights were still a formidable fighting force. Little 
 reason had they to love the Yagiellos, but at this moment 
 Teutonic feeling was more inflamed against the phcenix- 
 growth of the new Russian power that had arisen from the 
 ashes of Mongol devastation. The Order saw the hand that 
 armed Pskov and Izborsk against its territories ; the Hansa 
 merchants thought of the violence done to their trading 
 rights at Novgorod ; and the empire felt jealous of the rival 
 sovereignty, owning neither Pope nor Kaiser, which threatened 
 to make the late Emperor's fatuous monogram more illusory 
 than ever.^ Taking advantage of this latent hostility, 
 Alexander was able to bring about an offensive alliance 
 between himself and the Order, into which also entered the 
 sovereign ecclesiastics of Riga, Revel, Dorpat, Oesel, and 
 Pilten. This new phase of the struggle was heralded by 
 the arrest of 200 Russian merchants at Dorpat, a belated 
 reprisal for the affair of Novgorod. Ivan dispatched towards 
 the Livlandish border an army of Moskovites and Pskovians, 
 computed to have been 40,000 strong. Against this array 
 von Plettenberg could only bring into action, at a locality 
 10 verstas from Izborsk, a force of 4000 knights and some 
 irregulars. The Germans, however, were well supplied with 
 artillery, and the noise, perhaps more than the execution, of 
 their fire-belching implements of war caused a panic among 
 the Russians, who fled in confusion. And here it may be 
 remarked that the Russian warriors of that period were some- 
 what liable to these sudden stampedes ; as a contemporary 
 observer neatly remarks, " They make the first charge on 
 the enemy with great impetuosity, but their valour does not 
 seem to hold out very long, for they seem as if they would 
 give a hint to the enemy, as much as to say, ' if you do not 
 flee, we must' " ^ Without straining a point it may be 
 
 1 A.E.I.O.U. Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich unterthan. 
 
 Austria est imperare orbi universe. 
 ^ Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, Herttm Moscoviticorum commentarii.
 
 I68 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 assumed that this HabiHty to panic was in some measure 
 due to the superstitious coddHng of their religion, which 
 depicted angels and saints and Bogoroditzas as ready, on 
 suitable occasions, to interfere with effect on their behalf; 
 consequently if the enemy stood his ground for any length 
 of time the disheartened warriors experienced an uneasy 
 lama sabactliani feeling that all was not well with them 
 in the desired quarter, and demoralisation ensued. The 
 stubbornly contested field of Koulikovo scarcely furnishes 
 the exception which " proves the rule," as on that occasion 
 the Metropolitan had announced that victory would only be 
 attained after much fighting.^ 
 
 This ignominious collapse left Pskov to receive the full 
 fury of von Plettenberg's attack, and the citizens in despera- 
 tion prepared to make a more creditable stand behind their 
 walls than they had done in the field. But the threatened 
 blow did not fall ; a pestilence of some severity broke out 
 among the " iron men," and the army of the Order was 
 obliged to return to quarters. 
 
 Another change came over the complexion of affairs. 
 John -Albert had terminated an inglorious reign by a fit 
 of apoplexy in the month of June, and on the 23rd October 
 the Polish Diet elected Alexander to the vacant throne. 
 This event did not strengthen his hands as much as might 
 have been expected. The Polish pans and nobles were a 
 turbulent self-seeking class, and were not likely to rush 
 recklessly to the defence of Lit'uania while their new 
 monarch stayed quietly at home and tampered possibly 
 with their precious privileges. Ivan on the other hand, 
 undeterred by the reverse near Izborsk, prosecuted the war 
 with persistent energy. Employing the best possible method 
 for heartening his troops against the Teutons, he sent them 
 ravaging into Livland on the heels of the retreating army. 
 Another victory was obtained over the Lit'uanians, while 
 Shikh-Akhmet, who had made a diversion against Mengli 
 
 ^ It is hardly necessary to state that these remarks do not apply to the 
 Russian soldier of modern history, who has displayed his best qualities under 
 adverse circumstances.
 
 vn 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 169 
 
 on the east, was chased out of his dominions by the alUed 
 Moskovite and Krim forces. Thus darkly for Alexander 
 closed the year 1501. Ivan had maintained his ground in 
 every direction, and had inflicted grievous harm on the 
 allies of Poland. His Russian and Tartar cavalry had 
 raided unchecked round Neuhausen, Marienburg, and the 
 cathedral lands of Dorpat, the autumn floods and consequent 
 state of the roads preventing the heavy-armed knights and 
 their heavier artillery from taking the field. With the 
 first frosts the invaders withdrew across the border, followed 
 by the indefatigable Land-Master, who at last was able to 
 abandon his enforced inaction. His hastily gathered forces 
 were, however, outmatched by the superior numbers of the 
 marauders, and in an encounter at Helmet (25th November) 
 the Germans were beaten back and 300 of the episcopal 
 troops of Dorpat left upon the field.^ 
 
 The war dragged on throughout the early months of the 
 new year ; a waiting game obviously suited Ivan's plans 
 and there was none to force his hand. The dread of 
 Russian - Tartar raids made the Livlander prelates and 
 burggreves chary of sending off their lanzknechts to the 
 support of the Land-Master, and von Plettenberg was for 
 a long time unable either to clear his borders of the free- 
 booting bands, or to carry the hostilities into the enemy's 
 country. From Alexander came no help, only couriers 
 with promises. The King was prodigal with his messengers 
 and tireless in sketching plans of campaign for himself and 
 his allies ; the only detail which he allowed himself to 
 neglect was the carrying out of his share of the preconcerted 
 action. This omission placed his friends in awkward 
 predicaments ; Shikh-Akhmet was a m.iserable fugitive, von 
 Plettenberg found himself facing the whole Moskovite 
 fighting strength, except that detachment which was leisurely 
 besieging Smolensk, Autumn witnessed a quickening of the 
 situation. Still trusting to Alexander's fly-blown promises, 
 the Land-Master assumed the aggressive and trained his 
 ponderous artillery against the walls of Pskov. The 
 
 ^ Schiemann.
 
 170 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 burghers saw their battlements and ramparts crumble away 
 beneath the thundering cannonade of the mighty siege- 
 pieces, and day by day weaker grew the defences which 
 divided them from their bitterest enemies. But while no 
 Polish troops put in an appearance, the hearts of the besieged 
 were gladdened by the sight of the tossing manes of 
 thousands of Tartar horses and the conical head-dress of 
 thousands of Ivan's warriors. The advancing Russian host 
 was large enough to smother the slender following of von 
 Plettenberg, but the iron -sheathed German knights and 
 footmen were capable of offering a stout resistance to the 
 arrows and even the trenchant sabres of their opponents. 
 The Land-Master withdrew his force to the shores of the 
 Smolina Lake, where, on the day of the Exaltation of the 
 Cross (14th September) the Black Cross warriors commenced 
 one of the most brilliant battles of their crowded annals. 
 For three days they held the field against the stubborn 
 attacks of the whirlwind-sweeping squadrons ; " with blood 
 and dust," says an old chronicle, " both steed and rider 
 were bedecked, so that none might tell the colour " ; and 
 when finally exhaustion and discouragement deterred the 
 Russians from renewing the attack, the Iron men were able 
 to claim the victory. But the willing horse had worked 
 itself to a standstill ; von Plettenberg was obliged to lead 
 his scarred and weary followers homeward, and if the 
 Moskovites were too crippled to re-commence their raids, 
 at the same time the Livlanders were forced out of Russian 
 territory.^ 
 
 Meanwhile in another direction had fallen a long 
 impending blow, no further to be averted by the eloquent 
 epistles of the Complete Letter-writer. The redoubtable 
 Hospodar, nursing against Poland the remembrance of 
 recent wrongs, and profiting by her present embarrassments, 
 burst suddenly into Galicia, and gleaned where the Tartars 
 had harvested. Several towns fell with little resistance into 
 his hands, and were annexed to his Moldavian dominions. 
 Not in accord with Ivan was this invasion undertaken, for 
 
 1 Schiemann, Karpov.
 
 VII THE LAST OF THE PA LEO LOG I 171 
 
 the question of the succession to the Moskovite throne had 
 caused a rupture between the two princes. Mengli-Girei 
 was, in fact, the pivot on which the anti- Polish alliance 
 turned ; the Grand Prince was not on good terms with the 
 Hospodar, and the latter could not be considered as other- 
 wise than hostile to the Turkish Sultan, but Mengli was 
 the friend and ally of all three. The winter of 1502-3 
 found matters in much the same state as they had been 
 twelve months earlier. The Grand Prince's troops had 
 been obliged to raise the siege of Smolensk, but they still 
 retained the lands they had seized at the commencement 
 of the war, still held their own in the Baltic districts. A 
 candidate for the blessings traditionally allotted to the 
 peacemaker now appeared in the person of the Pontiff, who 
 sought to bring about an accommodation between the 
 contending sovereigns. The splendid profligate who 
 occupied the throne of S. Peter was not actuated by a 
 constitutional or professional abhorrence of bloodshed — 
 under his pontificate the Eternal City had been a shambles 
 rather than a sheepfold, — but for the present the smiting 
 of the Infidel seemed to him more urgent than the harrying 
 of the Orthodox, especially as the Orthodox seemed well 
 able to retaliate. With an uncrushed and unappeased 
 enemy on their flank, it was clearly impossible for the 
 kings of Hungary and Poland and the Teutonic Order to 
 join in the crusade by which the Borgia fondly hoped to 
 sweep the Ottoman from Europe. Hence the apparition 
 of this very soiled dove masquerading with an olive branch 
 in its crimson beak. 
 
 Ivan was undoubtedly master of the situation, and was 
 able practically to dictate his own terms, which he proceeded 
 to do notwithstanding the clamour of the crowd of envoys 
 and ambassadors — Papal, Hungarian, Polish, Teutonic, and 
 Livlandish — who had gathered at Moskva. In the first 
 place, the Grand Prince would not hear of an " eternal 
 peace," but limited the negotiations to the arrangement of 
 a six-years' truce (25th March 1503 to 25th March 1509). 
 With some slight remissions the Moskovites retained the 
 
 I
 
 172 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 lands they had laid hands on during the war ; Tchernigov, 
 Starodoub, Poutivl, Novgorod -Severski, Briansk, Toropetz, 
 and others, in all nineteen towns, seventy districts, twenty-two 
 gorodoks (townlets), and thirteen villages, were ceded by 
 Alexander to his uncomfortable father-in-law.^ The Liv- 
 landers, who had played so important a part in the war, 
 were left as much in the lurch by their graceless ally during 
 the negotiations as they had been throughout the fighting, 
 and the conditions they were obliged to accept to participate 
 in the truce were far from favourable. The Russian 
 merchants were to be liberated from their prisons at Dorpat ; 
 the bishop of that see was to resume payment of an old 
 tribute of wax and honey to the Grand Prince, and a Greek 
 church was to be erected in the town. The Livlander 
 prisoners were not released by the Moskovites, and against 
 these concessions and disadvantages could only be set a 
 clause which restricted the fishery rights of the Pskovians 
 in Lake Peipus to the east shore."' 
 
 The Khan of the Krim steppes was not directly included 
 in the truce, though Alexander innocently supposed that 
 Ivan's ally was implicated in the general pacification ; the 
 Grand Prince privately took care to prevent Mengli-Girei 
 from sharing this impression, and the Tartar hordes continued 
 to disquiet the Lit'uanian provinces. 
 
 Short though the term of the truce was, it outlasted the 
 two principals who within a few months of each other 
 attained that eternal peace which in life they had been 
 unable to compact for. Ivan, in fact, had but obtained a 
 breathing space in which to arrange the affairs of his family 
 and gosoudarstvo before closing his long reign of forty-three 
 years. While the war was yet being waged he had 
 definitely broken with the Moldavian or Dimitri party, 
 knowing well that Stefan could neither relinquish nor 
 Alexander forgive the loss of the towns which the former 
 had wrested from Poland, and hence that no imprudence 
 on his part would unite his two family connections against 
 him. Dimitri had been stripped of his prospective title and 
 
 ^ S. Solov'ev. 2 Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 173 
 
 guarded as a prisoner in his palace, while the names of 
 himself and his mother were struck off from the prayers 
 of the Church. This step was followed by the proclamation 
 of Vasili as the Grand Prince's successor. The death of 
 Elena in 1505, and of the Hospodar a year earlier, left the 
 youth Dimitri in a forlorn and friendless condition. 
 
 In the winter of 1505 (27th October) Ivan ended his 
 long and remarkable reign. The sovereignty which he relin- 
 quished was scarcely to be recognised as the same which had 
 been bequeathed to him by Vasili the Darkened. From 
 a struggling principality it had shot up into a monarchy, 
 struggling still, but for empire, not existence. The terrible 
 humiliating Mongol yoke, which had been such a bitter 
 reality when Ivan's world was young, seemed now the 
 almost forgotten bogey of a dimly-remembered past. A 
 revolt of the Khan of Kazan, the last event of the old man's 
 reign, served only to emphasise the fact of the altered 
 relations between Tartar and Moskovite. Perm, the regions 
 of the Petchora, and the vast boreal territories which had 
 belonged to the republic of Novgorod more than doubled 
 the extent of the Grand-principality, which had been further 
 swelled by the absorption of Tver and Viatka, and the 
 conquest from Lit'uania of the Russian lands east of the 
 Sojh. The standing and importance of the Moskovite State 
 likewise had kept pace with its expansion during this long 
 reign, and the policy of the Kreml was a matter of interest 
 not merely to Sarai and Riazan and Vilna as heretofore, 
 but to Buda, Constantinople, Wien, and Rome, to Krakow, 
 Kjobenhavn, Upsal, and Koenigsberg. 
 
 Such was the inheritance which Vasili III. Ivanovitch 
 received from the cold hands of his father ; from his mother 
 (who had died in 1503) he derived the reflected glory which 
 centred in the last of the Paleologi. Embarrassments too 
 were not wanting to disquiet the opening days of the new 
 reign. Besides the revolt of Kazan, the suspended hostilities 
 with Poland and Livland threatened the future repose of 
 the State. The alert and provident von Plettenberg was 
 husbanding his resources against a renewal of the war, and
 
 174 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 was, moreover, receiving considerable Teutonic and Catholic 
 support. A loan had been subscribed on his behalf by the 
 cities of Lubeck and Rostock, and the Pope had diverted to 
 his use a share of the receipts accruing from the sale of 
 indulgences — an ingenious device which at the same time 
 equipped the gentlemen of God against the heretics, admitted 
 more souls to swell the triumph-song of Heaven, and, inci- 
 dentally, enriched the coffers of Holy Church. Financial 
 aid was also forthcoming from Maximilian, who granted to 
 the Land-Master a three years' privilege to exact tolls from 
 all ships entering Livlandish harbours (1505).^ The policy 
 of the Emperor at this moment halted between an angry 
 suspicion of the house of Yagiello, which drew him towards 
 a good understanding with Moskva, and a jealous solicitude 
 for the German colony on the Baltic, which pulled him in 
 the opposite direction. Alexander, relieved of the nightmare 
 incubus of his terrible father-in-law, lost no time in resuming 
 his plaints and proposals to the new sovereign. Would 
 Vasili restore the filched territories to Lit'uania and peace 
 to the two countries ? To which the Grand Prince replied 
 that he was willing to conclude peace on the condition that 
 Kiev and Smolensk were ceded to him. Clearly the time 
 was not yet ripe for negotiation. 
 
 In August of 1506 the King of Poland followed his 
 great rival to the grave, cheered on his death-bed by the 
 rare news of a victory over the Krim Tartars. Sigismund, 
 another son of Kazimir, obtained the double election to the 
 Polish-Lit'uanian throne. 
 
 Meanwhile Vasili was engaged in dealing with the defiant 
 Kazanese, not with conspicuous success. The Moskovite 
 army, led by the Grand Prince's brother Dimitri, after having 
 in turn been repulsed by the enemy and victorious in a 
 second attack, was finally taken by surprise and irremediably 
 routed, abandoning in its flight several cannon. Preparations 
 for another expedition were countermanded owing to the 
 submission of the Khan. This pacification was of timely 
 service to Moskva, for relations with Poland became suddenly 
 
 1 Geschichte cUr Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 175 
 
 strained and the truce ceased to be effective. The firefly 
 who led both parties into the uncertain issue of open hostiHty 
 was a Polish pan, Mikhail Glinski, celebrated for his recent 
 victory over the Krim horde. Of Tartar extraction and 
 German education, this restless spirit had attached himself 
 to the Lit'uanian Court, where his success, or the ambition 
 ensuing therefrom, gained him many enemies. The accession 
 of the new king brought matters to a head, and Glinski 
 demanded justice between himself and his detractors. 
 Sigismund procrastinated, and the aggrieved noble went 
 over, with all his followers, to the service of Moskva, 
 plundering and slaying as he went. Vasili took the in- 
 teresting waif under his protection, and the border regions 
 were soon well alight with the fires of war. Russian and 
 Tartar troops followed the beck of the stark strife-kindling 
 free-lance, who had the satisfaction of surprising in his palace 
 near Grodno the pan Jabrzczinski, the foremost among his 
 calumniators. " Have I found thee, O mine enemy } " With 
 savage glee he inflicted the death penalty on his foe, and 
 went on his way exulting. In the month of June Sigismund 1508 
 appeared on the scene with a formidable army and chased 
 the invaders out of his territory. The result, however, of the 
 whole affair was favourable to Moskva ; a peace was effected 
 between the two countries which confirmed Vasili in the 
 possession of his father's conquests and recognised Glinski 
 and other disaffected Lit'uanians as Moskovite subjects. 
 The Order, as usual, was left to take care of itself, and von 
 Plettenberg saw himself with some alarm standing single- 
 handed against Moskva, with only a few more months of 
 the truce to run. Vasili, however, raised no difficulty in the 
 way of a good understanding with the Germanic knights 
 and Livlandish prelates, whom it was to his interest to 
 detach from the Polish alliance, and a fourteen years' peace 1509 
 was concluded on mutually satisfactory grounds. Thus 
 the Grand Prince obtained a respite from the exhausting 
 neighbour-war, which gave him the opportunity to resume 
 the great work of consolidation within his own frontiers. 
 
 Delivered by the fourteen years' peace from the state of
 
 176 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 insecurity which had been almost normal with them for 
 nearly a century, the Pskovians might possibly have looked 
 forward to a season of tranquillity and prosperity. Tran- 
 quillity they were certainly to have, but it was to be the 
 repose of decay, not of belaurelled affluence. The Grand 
 Prince, also delivered from the embarrassments of a foreign 
 war, revived the designs which had long been harboured 
 at Moskva against the independence of Pskov. Betaking 
 himself and his Court to Novgorod in the autumn of 1509, 
 he summoned thither the posadniks, boyarins, and notables 
 of the city on the Peipus to give an account of their 
 grievances against the Governor, Ivan Obolenski, who had 
 rendered himself unpopular. Scarcely had the deputed 
 citizens arrived than they were arrested and shut up in the 
 famous archiepiscopal palace, which, after having furnished 
 a prison for many a subject-ridden kniaz, now became a 
 place of detention for those who were under the sovereign's 
 displeasure. Without a struggle Pskov yielded to the fate 
 1510 of her " elder sister " Novgorod. The vetche was dissolved 
 and the city bell borne down from the Troitza tower. Vasili 
 was faithfully moving in the path marked out by his 
 predecessors. 
 
 The domestic affairs of the Grand Prince's Court were 
 tinged, as indeed was the whole Moskovite life at this period, 
 with a strong Asiatic leaven. Already in his father's life- 
 time a bride had been chosen for him by a method which 
 recalls the wooing of a sultan or a rajah rather than that of 
 a Christian prince; 1500 of the most eligible damsels of 
 the realm were gathered together for inspection, and their 
 number gradually weeded down to ten. These were medi- 
 cally examined, and a " selection of the fittest " was made 
 in the person of Solomonia, daughter of a boyarin of no very 
 high standing. By an irony of circumstance this carefully 
 picked consort disappointed the expectations which had 
 been formed of her, and the prophecies and flatteries which 
 lie in wait for the birth of a royal heir were baulked of their 
 delivery. The absence of a successor in the direct line did 
 not ameliorate the lot of the Grand Prince's nephew, Dimitri.
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 
 
 177 
 
 Since the accession of the new monarch the seclusion of the 
 possible rival had become a close imprisonment, and his 
 death was not unduly postponed. In Oriental State affairs, 
 as indeed in those of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, 
 it is a safe axiom that the inconvenient die young. Dimitri 
 died. Unavoidably, the chronicles of the day suggested 
 foul play, and he would not have been the only Russian 
 Prince of the Blood who was conducted by an expeditious 
 " royal road " through this vale of tears. 
 
 Owing to the renewed importance of Russia in the affairs 
 of Christendom, and the observations handed down to 
 posterity by the ambassadors and commercial agents who 
 penetrated into the bleak and reputedly barbarous regions 
 of '• Muscouvie," the appearance and life of the isolated 
 capital in this century stands out with a hitherto unwonted 
 clearness. Hemmed in on all sides with thick forests, from 
 whence, down the Moskva river, was floated the timber of 
 which the houses were mostly built, the city stood in a 
 setting of open meadows, swarming with hares and roebuck, 
 which were reserved for the Grand Prince's exclusive hunting. 
 Fields and gardens and monasteries straggled so far into 
 the outskirts (or slobodas) that it was difficult to tell exactly 
 where the line of demarcation lay ; for besides the Moskva 
 on one side, and the ditch-like Neglina on the other, there 
 were " no useful defences in the shape of walls, fosses, or 
 ramparts." ^ The Kreml, or citadel, and in time the inner 
 quarters of the town, were however strongly fortified. As 
 is frequently the case in cities with Oriental characteristics, 
 squalor and magnificence were strangely jumbled together. 
 Mean huts and booths were interspersed with cupola-crowned 
 churches and public buildings, which, designed for the most 
 part by Byzantine and Italian artists, presented a quaint 
 and not unpleasing confusion of eastern and western archi- 
 tecture. Despite the " forty times forty churches " which 
 were springing up all over Moskva, the cleanliness which is 
 supposed to accompany godliness was conspicuously absent. 
 " This city" wrote the Imperial ambassador at the Court of 
 
 1 Herberstein. 
 
 N
 
 178 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Vasili, " is so broad and spacious, and so very dirty, that 
 bridges have been constructed here and there in the highways 
 and streets and in the other more distinguished parts." 
 Here, then, in this straggling wood-built metropolis, this 
 germ-cell of the Russian Empire, dwelt the Grand Princes 
 who were slowly evolving into Great White Tzars ; amid a 
 surrounding of cathedrals and mud, holy ikons and squalid 
 hovels, dedicated gates and buildings topped with quaint 
 bulbous domes and cupolas, gold, blue, and silver, moved 
 the rulers of the Moskovite state. Hedged round with 
 dreary ceremonial, waited on by courtiers and chamberlains 
 and servants, clad in long flowing robes that smacked more 
 of Bagdad than of Rome or Wien, the sovereigns of " all 
 Russia" dwelt in a world apart from outside influences, and 
 could only measure things by their own standard. 
 
 As in a rookery at the approach of nesting-time certain 
 
 early birds may be seen quietly pursuing their constructive 
 
 operations amid the turmoil and racket of their less provident 
 
 fellows, so all over Europe at this epoch, amid the anarchy 
 
 which attended the decay of feudalism, the work of building 
 
 was in full progress. The Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns in 
 
 the Empire, the Valois in France, the Tudors in England, 
 
 the Moskovite princes in Russia, were piecing together the 
 
 foundations of what were eventually to be the five Great 
 
 Powers of a transformed Europe. In the early years of the 
 
 sixteenth century it seemed not improbable that the Yagiellos 
 
 would create, out of the chaos of Polish, Magyar, Czech, 
 
 Lettish, and West Russian lands, a personal dominion which 
 
 might crystallise into an empire. But as in a rookery, to 
 
 return to the simile, certain unfortunately situated nests suffer 
 
 from the plundering attentions of competing builders, so the 
 
 house of Yagiello was doomed to see its carefully collected 
 
 materials snatched away in the predatory acquisitions of the 
 
 Austrian archdukes, the Markgrafs of Brandenburg, and the 
 
 Grand Princes of Moskva. And not only had the kings of 
 
 Poland fallen among thieves, as it were, but their hands were 
 
 more or less tied by their dependence on the most selfish 
 
 of all governing classes, an anti-monarchical aristocracy.
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 179 
 
 Between Poles and Moskovites neither truce nor treaty 
 could long be effective, and war soon broke out anew ; 
 Sigismund had at last succeeded in detaching the Krim 
 Tartars from the Russian alliance, or, more probably, the 
 nomads had followed their own lawless inclinations in bursting 
 upon the rich cornlands of Riazan, " more fertile than all 
 the other provinces of Russia." The event served as a 
 pretext for Vasili to march his troops into Lit'uania and 
 besiege Smolensk. The moment was favourable for a 
 rupture. The King of Hungary was tottering towards his 
 grave, and two rival parties were more than anxious to 
 constitute themselves guardians of his youthful son and his 
 two kingdoms. In this struggle Sigismund found himself 
 opposed to the Austrian Archduke, Maximilian, head of the 
 Holy Roman Empire ; more formidable, perhaps, in the 
 former capacity than in the latter. Besides this embarrass- 
 ment, the relations between Poland and the military Order 
 were, to say the least, strained. The election (in i 5 i i ) of 
 Albrecht, of the House of Brandenburg, to the office of Grand- 
 Master, had given new vigour to the knights, who, since the 
 disaster of Tannenberg, had been chafing against the Polish 
 suzerainty. With the support, moral and material, of the 
 Emperor, the Markgraf Joachim, and the Grand Prince of 
 Moskva, it seemed possible that this over-lordship might be 
 thrown off. Under these circumstances Vasili set forth in Dec. 1512 
 mid-winter, attended by his brothers Urii and Dimitri, by 
 Mikhail Glinski, and numerous boyarins, and trailing after 
 him in sledges his unwieldy artillery, served by German 
 gunners, to undertake the siege of Smolensk. From con- 
 temporary accounts this important border city does not 
 appear to have been very elaborately fortified, but its defences 
 were sufficiently strong to withstand the Grand Prince's 
 attack, and in March the invading army returned to Moskva 
 to avoid the dangers and discomforts of the approaching 
 thaw. In the summer of the same year Vasili reiterated 
 the attempt with no better result ; the Russians at this time 
 were not particularly skilled in the arts of sieges. The 
 question of the Hungarian regency and eventual succession
 
 I So THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 still agitated the Courts of Wien and Krakow, although 
 Ladislas had not yet joined the " quiet people," and in 
 February 15 14 an Imperial ambassador appeared at Moskva 
 for the purpose of clinching a treaty between Maximilian 
 and Vasili. The reciprocal agreement which was drawn up 
 between the two parties is important from the fact that, in 
 the German copy, the word " Tzar " was rendered " Kaiser " 
 — the first occasion on which the imperial title was applied 
 to the Russian monarch.^ Three month's later Vasili's 
 lieutenants at Novgorod concluded a treaty with the Hanse- 
 1514 atic League, by which commercial relations were restored to 
 their old footing. In June of the same year the importunate 
 Grand Prince resumed his attack upon Smolensk, and reaped 
 the reward of perseverance. The King of Poland, who had 
 made no effort to succour the beleaguered city, attributed its 
 loss to treachery, and vented his chagrin on the governor, a 
 Bohemian named Solohoub, whom he put to death. The 
 Russian accounts give the credit of the victory to the 
 Moskovite artillery — which ought certainly to have got its 
 range by that time — and to the pacific overtures of the 
 citizens, headed by their Bishop Varsonof - 
 
 The loss of this important place roused Sigismund to a 
 more aeeressive line of action than he had hitherto taken. 
 Konstantin Ostrojhski was despatched against the enemy 
 with a force of 30,000 men ; a force which, though numeri- 
 cally far weaker than that at the disposal of Vasili, was better 
 equipped, better provided with artillery, and, above all, better 
 generalled. In the latter department the Moskovites sus- 
 tained a severe loss by the defection of the unstable Glinski, 
 who, disappointed in his expectation of obtaining the govern- 
 ment of Smolensk in return for services rendered, made 
 arrangements for deserting to the cause of his former sovereign. 
 Sigismund was not loth to receive the strayed lamb back to 
 his fold, but a misfortune, in the shape of a well-mounted 
 band of the Grand Prince's troops, overtook the transient 
 pan before he had reached the Polish lines. Vasili rewarded 
 his treason with rigorous imprisonment, deeming, perhaps, 
 1 Karamzin. ^ S. Solov'ev ; Karamzin.
 
 vii THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS i8i 
 
 that he would be more valuable as a hostage than as a 
 corpse. The two armies now faced each other from either 
 bank of the Dniepr ; the Russians were about 80,000 strong, 
 and had, in addition to superiority of numbers, the further 
 advantage of being on the defensive. This advantage, how- 
 ever, was thrown away by the inaction of the Moskovite 
 voevodas, who stood helplessly looking on while Ostrojhski 
 threw a bridge across the river and safely brought over his 
 heavy artillery. On the 8th September ^ at Orsha, on the 1514 
 left bank of the Dniepr, was fought a terrific battle, in which 
 the hordes of Moskovy went down in hopeless rout before 
 the well-armed knights and well-served artillery of the Polish- 
 Lit'uanian army. Allowing for exaggeration, the losses on 
 the side of the vanquished were enormous. Sigismund, in 
 the exultant letters he despatched to Pope, Cardinals, and 
 the Doge of Venice, announcing the victory, estimates the 
 Moskovite slain at 30,000, and particularises a large number 
 of distinguished prisoners.- The disaster to the Moskovite 
 arms roused the spirit of the Polish faction within the walls 
 of Smolensk. The time-serving Bishop, who had been 
 largely instrumental in the surrender of the town to Vasili, 
 flattered himself that he might again dispose of its destinies, 
 and, with the connivance of several boyarins, sent an invitation 
 to the Polish general to come and possess himself of the 
 place. The Moskovite voevoda, a member of the princely 
 family of Shouyskie, was not, however, a quaniite negligeable 
 in the city, and the wily ecclesiastic's schemes were sharply 
 checkmated. When Ostrojhski came before the gates of 
 Smolensk he might mark a grisly row of corpses strung up 
 on the battlements, the centre of interest for flapping bands 
 of crows and daws ; these were the bodies of his luckless 
 co-operators, who had been seized and executed by order of 
 the governor, with the exception of Varsonof, whose equally 
 guilty but more holy person was secured in a prison. The 
 
 1 Karamzin gives the date as 8th of October. The day is fixed by Sigis- 
 mund's letter to Leo X., written on iSth September, in which he mentions the 
 battle as taking place on ' ' die natali beatissime virginis Alarie, que erat VIII. 
 Septembris,'''' 2 j^cta Tomiciana, torn. III.
 
 1 82 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Polish hetman, thwarted in his hopes of peaceable possession, 
 was likewise unsuccessful in an attempt to carry the city by 
 assault, and the brilliant victory of Orsha had no more 
 substantial result than the re -occupation of a few border 
 posts. 
 
 1515 The death of Mengli-Girei and the accession of his son 
 Makhmet to the Krim khanate, scarcely affected the rela- 
 tions between Moskva and the Horde, for the new Khan's 
 influence had for some time been dominant. Neither 
 Vasili nor Sigismund could count on the support or even the 
 neutrality of the Tartar chief, who took advantage of the 
 hostility between Lit'uania and Moskva to ravage the lands 
 of each with perfect impartiality. Another shift in the 
 political balance deprived the Grand Prince of a more 
 exalted though equally unreliable ally ; a new family com- 
 pact had been patched up between the Kaiser and the 
 Kings of Hungary and Poland, and Maximilian was now as 
 anxious to compose the quarrel in the east as he previously 
 had been to inflame it. The continued successes of the 
 Turks could not fail to inspire uneasiness in a prince who 
 was scheming to acquire a preponderance in the lands of 
 south-east Europe, and the Emperor wished to engineer a 
 powerful alliance, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Polish, 
 against this undesirable neighbour. The idea was obviously 
 unworkable as long as Moskva hung threateningly on the 
 Polish flank, hence the solicitude which the Habsburg felt 
 to bring about a peace between the two Slav powers. For 
 this end an Imperial ambassador, one Sigismund, Baron von 
 Herberstein, left Germany at the end of i 5 1 6 on a mission 
 of mediation to the Moskovite Court, where he arrived in 
 
 1517 April the following year, after a heroic journey over in- 
 numerable lakes and marshes " slippery with snow and ice," 
 over frozen rivers, and, towards the end, across ice rendered 
 rotten by melting snow-water ; much of the " way " lying 
 too through a country desolated by skirmishing bands of 
 Poles and Russians. The chances of successful negotia- 
 tion were not improved by an autumn campaign which 
 Ostrojhski carried on, with disastrous result, in the district
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 1S3 
 
 of Pskov ; the small burg of Opotchka, valiantly defended by 
 Vasili Saltikov, held out for fifteen days against the vigorous 
 assaults of Polish, Lit'uanian, and Bohemian troops, and 
 was eventually relieved, on the i8th October, by two con- 
 verging Moskovite forces which drove Ostrojhski off the 
 field. Notwithstanding this side-play the Polish envoys 
 had joined Herberstein at Moskva, and were seeking to 
 arrange a peaceable understanding between the Grand Prince 
 and their master. Each side put forward absurdly un- 
 warranted claims — Vasili, for instance, stipulated for the 
 cession to Moskovy of Kiev and Polotzk, among other 
 places, while the Poles demanded, in addition to Smolensk, 
 a half-share of Novgorod, Pskov, and Tver. The real bone 
 of contention was Smolensk, and as neither party would bate 
 their pretension to the possession of that city, the negotia- 
 tions came to an abortive end in November. 
 
 If Herberstein's efforts for the termination of the war 
 were not crowned with success, his long and arduous journey 
 was in other respects by no means barren of result. It is 
 mainly owing to observations made on this, and on a sub- 
 sequent embassy, that a picture has been preserved of the 
 life at that gloomy Court, which was partly Asiatic, partly 
 Archaic European.^ In the Rerum Moscoviticarum Covi- 
 mentarii, Maximilian's ambassador set forth to the western 
 world his experiences in the remote and desolate region 
 beginning to be known as Muscouvie, much as an explorer 
 in a more travelled age would retail the account of his 
 wanderings in Central Africa. The Moskva of Vasili 
 Ivanovitch was a curious compound of primitive Russian 
 squalor, Byzantine splendour, the rude hospitality of feudal 
 Christendom, and the dark and tortuous restraint of an 
 Oriental capital. The state banquets, or rather the solemn 
 and awful occasions when the Grand Prince invited the 
 foreign ambassadors to dine with him and his dvoryanins 
 
 1 Much that appeared eastern or barbarous to outsiders was in fact only a 
 survival of customs and costumes that had long died out in the west. Russia, 
 cut off by many causes, already set forth, from the march of progress in 
 occidental Europe, retained many things which had there been cast aside.
 
 i84 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 (courtiers), are good examples of the conglomerate of 
 ceremonial, simplicity, and patriarchal domesticity which 
 obtained at the Moskovite Court. The Grand Prince and 
 his brothers with the highest boyarins sat together at one 
 table ; at another, opposite, sat the distinguished guests of 
 the evening, while round the hall were ranged tables for the 
 remainder of the company. Bread was solemnly served out 
 from the Prince's table to such as he wished to compliment, 
 and the feast invariably opened with the consumption of 
 brandy and roast swans. The dishes were borne in and 
 out by servants sumptuously attired, and in addition to 
 brandy, mead, beer, and Greek wines were served in goblets 
 which, like all the other appointments, were of pure gold. 
 In such ponderous dissipations, in occasional coursing 
 matches in his hare preserves round Moskva, in watch- 
 ing his foreign gunners exercise their skill with the heavy 
 uncouth field-pieces at stated periods, and of course in 
 elaborate religious ceremonies, did the Gosoudar of all 
 Russia fill up the round of his private existence. The 
 coursing seems to have been as cautious and " safe " as the 
 Moskovite state-policy. "When the hare shows herself, 
 three, four, five, or more dogs are slipped, and set after her 
 on all sides ; and when she is taken, there is loud hallooing, 
 as if they had taken a large wild beast." " Moreover, 
 about an hundred men stood in long array, one half of 
 whom were dressed in black, and the other in yellow ; not 
 far from them stood all the other horsemen, to prevent the 
 hares from running through and escaping." ^ 
 
 While the Imperial negotiations had been dragging out 
 their span of stately uselessness, Vasili had effected a 
 diplomatic stroke on his own account. The Grand Master 
 Albrecht, despairing of receiving adequate support from 
 the Emperor, in his present frame of mind, against the 
 aggressive policy of the Polish monarch, turned his eyes 
 towards the schismatic heretic who was playing so large a 
 part in the affairs of east Europe. The common bond of 
 hostility to Sigismund drew together the interests alike of 
 
 1 Herberstein.
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 185 
 
 Grand Prince and Grand-Master, and the plenipotentiary of 
 the latter, Dietrich von Schonberg, was able to conclude 1517 
 a close alliance between Moskva and the Prussian section 
 of the Order. Various causes contributed to delay the 
 threatened struggle between Sigismund and the knights ; 
 chief of which was the restraining influence of the Kaiser, 
 whose narrow family policy did not at present lend itself to 
 a war between Teuton and Pole for the possession of the 
 Baltic provinces. The death of Maximilian, however 
 (January i 5 1 9), removed this obstacle, and the outbreak of 
 hostilities was only postponed by a sudden and victorious 
 incursion of the Krim Tartars upon Podolia and Lit'uania. 
 The respite enabled Albrecht to enlist fresh support in men, 
 money, and material, from several quarters. Von Pletten- 
 berg raised on his behalf a considerable number of troops 
 and a heavy contribution to the war-chest ; the King of 
 Denmark, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Grand 
 Prince of Moskva helped to swell the resources of the 
 venturesome Grand- Master, while on the other hand Sigis- 
 mund knitted together all the available military force of the 
 Yagiellos to crush the insubordination of this ambitious 
 vassal. In the last days of the year 15 19 broke "the long- 
 threatened wild war-storm over the Order-lands." ^ The 
 Polish monarch marched against the presumptuous warrior 
 monks with an army "twelve miles wide," swelled by 
 Bohemian, Moravian, and Silesian contingents. Against 
 this formidable array the undaunted Hohenzollern — worthy 
 scion of an illustrious House — rode forth " on New Year's 1520 
 Day, a dark stormy winter's day," with all the following he 
 could muster. A wild and devastating war ensued, in 
 which whole provinces were cruelly wasted, and the skill 
 and courage of the Order knights were pitted in unequal 
 struggle against the overwhelming might of Poland. In the 
 open country and in the villages and unprotected towns the 
 invaders wrought havoc unchecked, but in the fortified 
 strongholds the Teutons made desperate resistance. Rein- 
 forcements from Denmark helped the Grand-Master to put 
 
 ' Johannes Voigt, Geschichte Preussens.
 
 1 86 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 a better complexion on the struggle ; the beleaguered 
 garrisons of Balga and Braunsberg held out stoutly, and the 
 Order lanzknechts were able to break into Mazovia, and 
 requite on that province the gruesome savageries which had 
 made a desert of the bishopric of Pomesania. At this 
 juncture Vasili undoubtedly threw away the opportunity of 
 his lifetime. Since the breakdown of the negotiations 
 with Poland, his troops had waged a fitful border war with 
 
 (1518) varying success. The neighbourhood of Polotzk had been 
 laid waste, but an attack on that town had failed ; 
 Moskovite armies had penetrated as far as Vilna, and hunted 
 
 (1519) the Lit'uanian forces before them. Now, however, when 
 Sigismund was experiencing an increased difficulty in cop- 
 ing with the opposition of the Grand-master, and dreading 
 moreover an attack from some of the German princes, 
 Vasili, instead of leading an army into Samogitia, concluded 
 
 1520 with his hard-pressed adversary a six months' truce. The 
 following year a " Wafifenstillstand " for four years was 
 arranged between the German Order and the Poles, while at 
 the same time Moskovy was drawn aside from the western 
 war by a recurrence of the troubles with Kazan, which 
 indeed wore a serious aspect. The Krimskie Khan, 
 Makhmet, had displaced the Russian vassal of the Volga 
 Horde, and established in his stead his own brother, Saip- 
 Girei. This defiant action was followed up by an invasion 
 of the grand principality by the Krim Khan, who crossed 
 the Oka and defeated a hastily gathered Moskovite force 
 under kniaz Dimitri Bielski and the Grand Prince's brother, 
 Andrei. The victorious Tartars were reinforced by the 
 Kazanese, led by their new Khan, and the combined host 
 marched upon Moskva, burning and plundering in wild 
 unholy triumph which recalled the fearful days of the 
 Mongol mastery. Vasili " the courageous " fled before 
 the approaching storm. An unkind report was afterwards 
 circulated to the effect that he hid himself under a hay- 
 stack.^ Such an accusation is not to be accepted lightly, 
 though the Russians of that period were not given to poking 
 
 1 Herberstein.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 187 
 
 fun at their sovereign. Possibly the account of Moskovite 
 panic and German staunchness which Herberstein sets forth 
 in his commentary is not altogether uncoloured by national 
 prejudice. One Nikolas, a native of Spire, was placed in 
 command of the Kreml artillery and made the necessary 
 dispositions for withstanding a siege, but the crowds of 
 burgers and countryfolk who had rushed into that 
 sanctuary would have rendered a protracted defence 
 impossible. Threatened with an outbreak of pestilence at 
 any moment — the time was midsummer and the place 
 Moskva — the besieged were glad to buy off the Tartars 
 with the promise of tribute from the Grand Prince to the 
 Krim Khan ; a promise which was unauthorised and need 
 not be adhered to. The invaders withdrew, bearing with 
 them captives computed at the almost incredible number of 
 800,000. A treacherous attempt upon Riazan was foiled 
 by the alertness of another German, " one Johann Jordan, 
 an artilleryman . . . who came from the Innthal." ^ With 
 the receding of the Tartar waters back came the affrighted 
 hares to their feeding-grounds around Moskva, and back 
 came Vasili Ivanovitch to his palpitating capital, to deal out 
 judgment upon those responsible for the disaster on the 
 Oka. A somewhat delicate matter. The kniaz Bielski 
 had no doubt mismanaged the whole affair, but on the 
 other hand the Grand Prince's brother had been the first to 
 yield to the homing instinct which sometimes asserts itself 
 on the field of battle. Under the circumstances the only 
 thing to do was to fasten the blame upon one who, if less 
 responsible, was also of less exalted position, and a noble 
 who had run a good second to Andrei Ivanovitch was 
 accordingly thrown into prison. The matter of the hay- 
 stack does not appear to have been gone into. 
 
 During the greater part of the following year the 1522 
 Moskovite army remained in camp at Kolomna, awaiting a 
 fresh attack from the Krimskie, who, however, remained 
 within the shelter of their wide-stretching steppes. Negotia- 
 tions were going on at the same time with Poland, and in 
 
 1 Herberstein.
 
 i88 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 December a truce of five years was effected, which left 
 Smolensk still in the hands of the Grand Prince. 
 
 The strife between Poland and the Order now entered 
 upon a new development of great historical importance. 
 The Roman Papacy, ever glowering at the irruption of the 
 Faithful (or the Infidel, according to Christian label), into the 
 domains of Christendom, sought to raise enthusiasm and 
 money among the piously disposed piinces and people of 
 the Empire and neighbouring lands, in order to float a 
 crusade against the Ottomans. Among the expedients for 
 obtaining the latter commodity which met with the approval 
 of Christ's Vicegerent, was the barter of indulgences, con- 
 ducted in such wholesale manner that none but the very 
 poor, who could not afford luxuries, were excluded from the 
 attainment of eternal glory. Adversity and competition 
 have an unmistakably broadening effect, and the sixteenth- 
 century camel went through the eye of the once exclusive 
 needle with absolute comfort, and took all its relations, dead 
 and living, with it if so minded. The enterprising Pontiff, 
 however, experienced the bitter perversion of fate which too 
 often mocks the best directed efforts ; not only did the 
 traffic in souls fail in its original purpose of financing a 
 crusade, but its injudicious prosecution among the cities of 
 Northern Germany, where men had grown somewhat doubtful 
 of the accumulated truths of the Church, resulted in the 
 springing up of a new enemy, more formidable even than 
 Islam. Without going into the dogmatical issues involved 
 in the agitation which sprang out of the original " monks' 
 quarrel," it is necessary to note that the " Reformation " owed 
 much of its success to the secularising theories which it put 
 forward, and which exercised a fascinating influence upon 
 the princes and petty sovereigns of the Empire, The Houses 
 of Wettin and Hohenzollern especially, lent favourable ear 
 to the new doctrines, and the Grand-Master Albrecht, while 
 roaming Germany in search of possible assistance against 
 his ever imminent enemy, came in contact with the leaders 
 of the anti-Catholic movement, from whom he imbibed 
 principles which he immediately proceeded to put into
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 189 
 
 practice.^ The fundamental stumbling-block to a composi- 
 tion with Poland was the question of homage insisted on by 
 Sieismund as due from the Grand-Master of the Order. 
 Albrecht had made gigantic efforts to resist this obligation, 
 and to preserve the independence of his office, but he now 
 saw a way by which both his own ambitions and the re- 
 quirements of the King of Poland might be accommodated. 
 This was nothing less than the secularisation of the Order- 
 lands into a hereditary duchy, dependent on the Polish 
 crown ; Albrecht, needless to say, being the proposed Duke 
 thereof. The suggestion, which offered a solution to what 
 had seemed a hopeless quarrel, met with approval from 
 Sigismund, and was embodied in the Peace of Krakow 
 (April 1525), whereby the Grand-Master was transformed 
 " from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran 
 temporal prince." - The required oath of vassalage was 
 tendered by Albrecht and in return the King presented him 
 with a new blazon for his new-born duchy of Prussia ; " the 
 old Order changeth," and the black cross is laid aside for a 
 black eagle, crowned, beaked, and membered gold. In days 
 to come, what time the white eagle of Poland shall droop 
 its failing wings in feebleness, this sable eaglet which it has 
 helped to hatch, grown lusty with maturity, shall snap its 
 hungry beak in unison with the other birds of prey that 
 hover round the doomed one. For the present, it is worthy 
 of remark that the first political result of the religious schism 
 which was to plunge the greater part of Europe, and especi- 
 ally the Empire, into a paroxysm of strife, was the closing of 
 a long and bitter quarrel in the Baltic lands. As regards 
 the immediate effect of the disappearance of the Order from 
 Prussia, Moskva was chiefly concerned in the isolation which 
 that event entailed upon the Teutonic colony in Livland and 
 Estland. In return for the valuable help von Plettenberg 
 had afforded the Grand-Master during the war, the latter 
 had already granted him complete independence from the 
 control of the Prussian executive ; hence, when the secular 
 
 1 Voigt. 
 2 Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe.
 
 igo THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 revolution was effected, the knights of Livland retained their 
 organisation and temporal possessions.^ 
 
 While Sigismund had been employed in bringing East 
 Prussia under his domination (West Prussia was already an 
 integral part of the Polish dominion), Vasili had composed 
 his differences with his Tartar neighbours. Makhmet-Girei 
 had diverted his warlike tendencies towards the subjection 
 of the khanate of Astrakhan ; Kazan, after being several 
 times overrun and almost conquered in a series of cam- 
 paigns (in which the Moskovite voevodas displayed such 
 scandalous slackness that corruption was openly hinted at), 
 concluded a truce of five years with the Grand Prince, The 
 latter, meanwhile, had struck an astute blow at the prosperity 
 of Kazan by prohibiting Russian merchants from attending 
 the great summer fair held annually at the Tartar city, and 
 by establishing a rival fair at Makar'ev, in the province of 
 Nijhni-Novgorod.2 j^. 
 
 At a moment when the western Church was offering a 
 spectacle of dissension and rampant heresy, Vasili occasioned 
 a mild scandal in the Orthodox communion by consecrating 
 his unfruitful consort to the service of heaven, and taking 
 unto himself another wife. Twenty years of conjugal felicity 
 had not been crowned with the desired offspring, and the 
 Grand Prince, weary of waiting for the overdue answer to 
 reiterated prayers, took steps to remedy the breakdown in 
 the succession. Solomonia was bundled off to a convent 
 near Souzdal, where she received the veil, enforced, accord- 
 ing to current rumour, by a whipping.^ Vasili then pro- 
 1526 ceeded to espouse a second wife, selecting for that honour 
 Elena, niece of the imprisoned Mikhail Glinski, This 
 infraction of the Church's laws was connived at by the 
 plastic Metropolitan Daniel, though the majority of the 
 
 1 Schiemann ; Voigt ; Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen. 
 
 Note. — The German branch of the Order elected a new Grand-Master after the 
 defection of Albrecht, and continued, at Mergentheim in Franconia, its existence as 
 a religious organisation, till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the 
 Napoleonic maelstrom swept it away in common with many other worn-out 
 institutions. 
 
 2 Karamzin. ^ Herberstein.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 191 
 
 clergy and many of the boyarins viewed the whole affair 
 with pious reprobation. Tradition credited the inconsiderate 
 Solomonia with the crowning offence of mistaking the 
 nunnery for a lying-in hospital, and giving birth to a male 
 child ; the rumour certainly existed, though it is doubtful 
 if it had any foundation in fact/ Anxious days these for 
 the Moskovite Court The Grand Princess and her husband 
 progressed wearily from shrine to shrine, invoking the good 
 offices of various saints who were supposed to have influence 
 in the matter, and distributing alms and donations with a 
 lavishness wholly foreign to Moskovite finance, which sug- 
 gested a conviction that heaven was open to bribery and was 
 only standing out for its price. At length, after three years 
 of patient expectancy, the much-prayed-for infant arrived 
 "on the 25th August 1530, at seven in the morning," 
 accompanied by a rousing thunderstorm.- The city of 
 Moskva rejoiced with its sovereign at the birth of the 
 heaven-sent child, to whom was given the name of Ivan. 
 The succession was further ensured by the begetting of 
 another son the following year. 
 
 The remainder of the reign of Vasili presented no 
 important features beyond a recurrence of inconclusive 
 hostilities with the Krim Tartars, and occasional diplomatic 
 intercourse with Constantinople. While yet, comparatively 
 speaking, in the prime of life, Vasili was attacked with a 
 leech-baffling malady, which declared itself when he was on 
 his way to the autumn hunting at Voloko Lamsk. For 1533 
 reasons of state it was desirable that the sovereign's 
 critical condition should be kept from the knowledge of the 
 general public, and especially from the foreign ambassadors. 
 Therefore the suffering monarch was sledge-borne in a pain- 
 ful journey to Moskva, at a season when the falling snow 
 and young ice rendered travelling laborious and unsafe. 
 With the exception of his brothers, Urii and Andrei, Mikhail 
 Glinski — restored to liberty and princely favour — and a few 
 boyarins, none were admitted to the Grand Prince's presence, 
 but the rumour of his mortal sickness soon spread. The 
 ^ Herberstein ; Karamzin. - Karamzin.
 
 192 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 dying man played to the end his cold impassive game of 
 statecraft, and his last hours were employed in arranging 
 safeguards and regulations for the government during the 
 minority of his successor. As the third day of December 
 drew to a wintry close the crowds gathered in the streets 
 and stood round the silent palace, and that night no one 
 slept in Moskva. Dark-robed ecclesiastics emerged from 
 their retreats and swarmed into the house of death like 
 vultures swooping upon a dying beast. And as the huddled 
 crowds watched and waited without, a curious scene was 
 being enacted in the grim bed-chamber. With notable 
 exceptions, it had been the custom for Russian Grand 
 Princes to receive on their deathbed the tonsure, monastical 
 habit, and a new name ; this custom the Metropolitan 
 wished to adhere to in the case of Vasili, while Prince 
 Andrei and another layman desired that he should die, as 
 he had lived, a sovereign and not a monk. At midnight, 
 while prince and boyarin were endeavouring to snatch the 
 black neophyte's robe from the Vladuika, and while the 
 latter solemnly and vehemently cursed them " in this world 
 and the next," Vasili Ivanovitch drew his last breath. It 
 was the first time in the course of his career that he had 
 shown any impatience. Hastily they thrust the all- 
 important garment on the corpse, and called it Varlam ; but 
 the baptismal name had a clear minute's start. The great 
 bell of Moskva boomed out to the watching multitudes the 
 news that their sovereign was dead. A new day dawned, 
 and another reign had begun. 
 
 During the reigns of Vasili and Ivan the Great a new 
 factor in Russian history comes into notice, and afterwards 
 develops into no little importance. This was the appear- 
 ance in two distinct localities, which may be roughly 
 designated as the lower basins of the Dniepr and the Don 
 respectively, of organised bands of " steppe-folk," who were 
 neither exactly Russian nor Tartar, nomad nor settled, and 
 who were known under the vague appellation of Kazaks, or 
 Kozaks. The name " has been variously derived from 
 words meaning, in radically distinct languages, an armed
 
 VII THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 193 
 
 man, a sabre, a rover, a goat, a promontory, a coat, a 
 cassock, and a district in Circassia " ; an equal uncertainty 
 hangs over the origin of the race, or rather races. Perhaps 
 the clearest account of the etymology and ethnology of 
 the Kozak is that given by a Russian author in a history of 
 the peoples of the Don region. " Kazak signifies alike 
 volunteer, horseman, freebooter. Malo-Russians, mingled 
 with remains of peoples known under the common name of 
 Tcherni Kloboukie, under the name of Kazaks, constituted 
 one people, who became to all intents and purposes Russian 
 . . . their fathers dwelling from the tenth century in the 
 neighbourhood of Kiev, were themselves already almost 
 Russian. Increasing more and more in numbers, maintain- 
 ing among themselves the spirit of independence and 
 fraternity, the [western] Kazaks organised a Christian 
 republic, and established themselves between the lower 
 basins of the Dniepr and Dniestr, building villages and 
 fortresses." ^ The causes which drove these Slav and Turko 
 outcasts into the wild steppe-land and scarcely accessible 
 islands of the Dniepr, and welded them together in an 
 origin-obliterating union, were first the Mongol invasion, 
 and secondly the gradual establishment of irksome and far- 
 reaching central authorities both in Moskovy and Lit'uania. 
 The absolutism of the one monarchy, and the Catholic 
 persecution of the other, sent men in search of liberty, 
 to swell the ranks of those whose fathers had fled from 
 the insecurity and degradation of a Tartar -haunted land. 
 Similar causes — hostility to the surrounding khanates and 
 impatience of the certain taxes and doubtful protection of 
 the Moskovite government — were responsible for the exist- 
 ence of the Don Kozaks, among whom, however, there was 
 a strong Tcherkess (Circassian) strain, while the Russian 
 element was proportionately weaker. But the great factor 
 in this double evolution was undoubtedly a physico- 
 geographical one. The nature of the steppes themselves, 
 those vast-stretching, level, grass -grown wolds, spread in 
 seeming endlessness under the boundless sky, those solitudes 
 
 1 V. Bronevskago, Istoriya Donskago Voyska, 
 O
 
 194 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 CHAP. VU 
 
 where a man and his horse might lose themselves from all 
 pursuit, called as irresistibly to the lustre after freedom as 
 ever the Highlands of Scotland to the Saxon-hating Kelts, 
 or the Tcherni-Gora to the unconquered Slavs of the Balkan 
 coast. And having lured, it held, and holding, moulded. 
 The Kozak and his wiry steed became as much a part of 
 the fauna of the great Russian plain as the wolves, the 
 hawks, and the steppe-eagles that hunted and roamed 
 throughout its wide expanse.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 The lapse of 500 years found the principles of settled 
 hereditary government in much the same condition in 
 Russia as they had been when the infant Sviatoslav suc- 
 ceeded to the throne of Kiev under the guardianship of his 
 mother. Despite the fact that two of the late Sovereign's 
 brothers were yet living, Elena Glinski assumed the regency 
 on behalf of her three-year-old son, supported by a knot 
 of boyarin- princes, whom the circumstances of the time 
 suddenly threw into prominence. The over- shadowing 
 figures of the last two Moskovite monarchs had almost 
 obliterated the fact that there were persons of importance in 
 the land besides the members of the princely family. Now 
 a whole crop of nobles emerges from the background, like a 
 ready-made second chamber from the brain of an Abbe 
 Sieyes. Ivan Oblenski, an offshoot of the House of 
 Tchernigov, the Bielskis, the Glinskis, and the Shouyskies, 
 form the aristocratic nucleus round which revolve the 
 intrigues and faction vicissitudes which seem the natural 
 accompaniments of queen-mothers and minorities. Neces- 
 sarily the Princess Regent had a lover, in the person of 
 Oblenski, and equally as a matter of course, the latter had 
 personal enemies. Of these he proceeded to dispose with 
 all expediency ; Urii Ivanovitch, uncle of the Grand Prince, 
 suspected of plotting against the Existing Order of Things, 
 was lodged in a state dungeon, where he died of hunger 
 some two and a half years later.^ A more celebrated, if less 
 
 ^ Schiemann.
 
 196 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 august victim was the kniaz Mikhail Glinski, who had 
 expostulated with his niece anent her unseemly intimacy 
 with Oblenski, and was thrown into prison, where he " died 
 
 1534 unhappily." From which it would appear that the old 
 saying concerning the unwisdom of intervening between 
 husband and wife might be applied with equal truth to 
 a less recognised connection. Andrei Ivanovitch, Vasili's 
 remaining brother, took fright at the irreverent procedure of 
 the Regent and her favourite (who caged Princes of the 
 Blood as unconcernedly as though they were linnets or 
 human beings), and stole off one day, with all his household 
 
 1537 and retainers, towards Novgorod. The farther he got from 
 Moskva the more his courage rose, and ere long he had 
 drifted into open rebellion against the boyarin -wielded 
 authority. Numbers of disaffected landowners sped to his 
 support, but the gates of Novgorod remained shut and the 
 Oblenskie were hard upon his track with the best-mounted 
 Moskovite cavalry. Andrei surrendered without striking a 
 blow, and was escorted back to the city of his deep dislike, 
 leaving behind him at intervals along the Novgorodskie road 
 the swinging corpses of thirty of his adherents. His re- 
 maining followers died by torture or in prisons, and the latter 
 fate disposed of the last surviving son of the great Ivan. 
 
 Meanwhile the success of Elena's regency had justified 
 the means taken to retain it. Vasili's death had encouraged 
 the King of Poland to renew with threatening insistency his 
 demands for the restitution of the territories conquered by 
 the late Prince and his father ; refusal on the part of Moskva 
 led to hostilities in which the Lit'uanian forces were unable 
 to obtain any advantages, and a prolongation of the truce, 
 on the terms "as you were," ensued (1537). A skilful 
 balancing of the conflicting interests which agitated the Krim 
 and Kazan Hordes maintained the Moskovite peace in those 
 directions, and a renewal was also effected of the truces with 
 Sweden and the Livlander knights. Nor was the inner 
 administration of the regency wanting in beneficial activity. 
 The Kitai-gorod of Moskva (after the Kreml the most import- 
 ant quarter of the city, containing the houses of the boyarins
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 197 
 
 and the principal bazaars and trading stores) was surrounded 
 by walls and towers which added greatly to the security of 
 the capital.^ Vladimir, Tver, Novgorod, and other provincial 
 towns were newly fortified and in some cases rebuilt ; the 
 state coinage was also put upon a more satisfactory footing. 
 Under these circumstances the severities and loose morals of 
 Elena Glinski might well be overlooked by her subjects. 
 Her greatest offence was yet to come. She died. Of poison, Ap. 1538 
 said many-tongued rumour, on which the only rational com- 
 ment must be the useful Scotch verdict, " not proven." Her 
 untimely death left Oblenski in precarious possession of the 
 supreme authority, which his enemies were already preparing 
 to wrest from him. Foremost among these was the veteran 
 Vasili Shouyskie, nick -named "the Silent," the head of 
 an important Souzdalian family. For seven days lasted 
 Oblenski's regency, and then himself and his sister were 
 seized and thrown into prison, where the fashionable death- 
 by-starvation awaited them. The silent Shouyskie assumed 
 the regency, which he held till his decease in the October of 
 the same year, when it passed to his brother, Ivan Shouyskie, 
 who displayed his newly-acquired power by packing the Metro- 
 politan Daniel off to the cloister, and installing in his place 
 loasaf, hegumen (abbot) of the Troitza monastery. Hard 
 and brutal was the rule of the Shouyskies ; " fierce as lions," 
 bemoaned the Fskovskie chronicle, " were the voevodas, and 
 as wild beasts their people against the peasants." The only 
 check on the absolute supremacy of the dominant family was 
 the ever-present apparition of the kniaz, Ivan Bielski — Ivan 
 and Vasili were fashionable names among the Moskovite 
 aristocracy of that period — who was a formidable competitor 
 for the possession of the regency. Bielski justified the 
 nervous apprehensions of the Shouyskies (who had kept him 
 
 1 Moskva in the reign of Ivan IV. consisted of four principal divisions — the 
 twin centres of the Kreml and Kitai-gorod, the enclosing crescent of the Biel- 
 gorod or White-town, and the large outer husk "enclosing the faubourgs, gardens, 
 woods, lakes, and vast unbuilt-on spaces." Between the houses in the Kitai- 
 gorod and the east wall of the Kreml was the Red Place, or city square, which 
 was the centre of Moskovite public life; "red" in Russian being synonomous 
 with " beautiful." Afterwards the name gained a grimmer significance.
 
 198 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 in prison for several years and only released him at the inter- 
 cession of the new Metropolitan), by taking advantage of the 
 disaffection bred by their arrogance to oust them from the 
 head of affairs. As Regent his rule was milder and less over- 
 bearing than that of the kniaz he had supplanted, and a firmer 
 front was shown against the Tartars of Kazan and the Krim 
 Horde, who were continually devastating the frontiers. Pos- 
 sibly the increased activity was rather forced by their side, 
 for in the year 1541 both Hordes set themselves in motion 
 against Moskva. The Krim Tartars brought a formidable 
 force into the field, augmented by cannon, musketeers, and 
 some squadrons of Ottoman cavalry — the first warriors of 
 that nation who had fought against the Russians. The 
 double danger stifled for the moment the bickerings of the 
 Shouyskie and Bielski factions, and the Moskovites found 
 themselves strong enough, when thus united, to repel the 
 incursion of both Hordes. Safa-Girei and the Kazanese were 
 chased out of the neighbourhood of Mourom, which town they 
 had fruitlessly attacked ; Saip-Girei, confronted by a powerful 
 army on the yonder bank of the Oka, dared not attempt to 
 force the passage, and retired to the Don. The jealousy 
 which existed between the leading boyarins made it impos- 
 sible for the Russians to follow up their advantage by a 
 campaign in Tartar territory, and Ivan Shouyskie turned 
 instead to his own advantage the employment of the troops 
 which the war had placed at his disposal. Secretly supported 
 by many of the notables of Moskva, and openly by those of 
 Novgorod, he resolved upon a bold bid for the recovery of 
 1542 his ascendency. On a dark night in January Petr Ivanovitch 
 Shouyskie rode into Moskva with a picked body of soldiers 
 from Vladimir, and before morning the Kreml was in his 
 hands. Bielski was seized in his bed, and the Metropolitan 
 was disagreeably awakened by showers of stones hurtling 
 through his windows and weapons hammering against his 
 door. The chief of the Church barely escaped with his life 
 to the shelter of the Troitza, an unpleasant exercise for an 
 early morning in mid-winter. At daybreak Ivan Shouyskie 
 entered the city and resumed his old position of authority.
 
 vili IVAN CROZNIE 
 
 199 
 
 Bielski and the Metropolitan were sent off to safe keeping 
 at Bielozero, the lonely stronghold on the waters of the lake 
 of that name, where the Grand Princes' treasures and 
 prisoners were securely stored away,^ This time Shouyskie 
 took good care that his rival should not emerge from prison 
 to trouble him, and the soul of Bielski put on immortality.'^ 
 A new Metropolitan, the second who had been nominated 
 by the Shouyskies, was elected to fill the place of the shifty 
 loasaf, who had leisure, in the seclusion of the Kirillov 
 monastery at Bielozero, to reflect on the unwisdom of being 
 all things to all men in sixteenth-century Moskva. The 
 Novgorodskie had supported the coup d'etat, and their Arch- 
 bishop Makarie was rewarded with the vacant post. In the 
 meantime, while these various Ivans were ruling the State 
 and crushing one another in turn, how fared it with the other 
 Ivan in the background 1 The much-prayed-for princeling 
 had not, since the death of his mother, spent a very happy 
 or altogether comfortable childhood. The chief boyarins 
 and their followers appear to have treated their Sovereign 
 with a curious mixture of neglect, disrespect, and superstitious 
 awe. Surrounded exclusively by the partisans of whichever 
 faction happened to be uppermost, the friendless orphan 
 could only brood in silent resentment over the wrongs he 
 sustained at the hands of his temporary masters. The rude- 
 mannered, tyrannical, gold-greedy Ivan Shouyskie was an 
 especial object of his dislike. A letter written by the mon- 
 arch in after days to Prince Andrei Kourbski, comments 
 bitterly on the fact that though, in the lifetime of the Princess 
 Elena, Shouyskie had possessed only one cloak, green silk 
 trimmed with marten fur, " and that a very old one," during his 
 regency he was able to have cups of gold and silver fashioned 
 him, with his initials graved thereon.^ The despotic jealousy 
 of Shouyskie and of his supporters in the State Council robbed 
 the young Ivan of friends as well as treasure. For one of 
 their number, a boyarin named Vorontzov, the Prince had 
 betrayed a marked partiality, a dangerous compliment, which 
 
 1 Herberstein. 2 g Solov'ev. 
 
 ^ E. A. Solov'ev, Ivan IV. Groznie.
 
 200 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 brought down on the recipient's person the practically- 
 expressed dislike of his fellow-councillors. In solemn con- 
 clave, and in the presence of Prince and Metropolitan, the 
 angry men of State fell murderously upon the courtier whom 
 the Sovereign had delighted to honour, and Ivan's entreaties, 
 backed up by those of Makarie, could scarcely obtain a 
 mitigation of his fate to one of exile and imprisonment. 
 The amusements of the boy Prince, besides religious devotions, 
 at which he was an adept, and the more legitimate forms of 
 hunting, consisted in chasing dogs and cats over the battle- 
 ments of the Kreml, and in wild gallops with his allotted 
 companions through the streets of Moskva, in which the old 
 and unwary were ruthlessly trampled underfoot.^ The days 
 of his repression were, however, drawing to a close. The 
 fearsome Regent Ivan died in 1543, and left a commission 
 of his sons and relatives to replace him. But the reign of 
 the Shouyskies was doomed. The manly exercise of the 
 chase is a valuable school for inculcating self-reliance and a 
 will to overcome the obstacles of life. It was straight from 
 a day's sport in the woods of Vincennes that the grand young 
 Louis, whip in hand, strode in upon the Parliament of Paris 
 and quenched it with an epigram ; it was after the autumn 
 hunting at Voloko-Lamsk that Ivan Vasilievitch first showed 
 his teeth and gave evidence of that cold-blooded severity 
 which was to gain for him the distinctive adjective " Groznie " 
 (Terrible). At Moskva, where the Court had assembled for 
 the festival of Noel, the Prince suddenly accused the ruling 
 boyarins of misgovernment and abuse of their powers ; many 
 had been guilty, but he would content himself with one 
 example. Calling to his kennel-men he bade them seize 
 Andrei Shouyskie and throw him to the dogs. Out into the 
 street they dragged the unhappy man, and there, before the 
 mute, disconcerted boyarins and the long-time Shouyskie- 
 ridden citizens, the Prince's hounds worried the offending 
 kniaz to pieces in the reddening snow. " The little tin gods " 
 had missed " the hour when great Jove wakes " ; Andrei 
 Shouyskie paid dearly for the oversight. The youth of Ivan 
 ^ Karamzin. Schiemann. Austen Pember, Ivan the Terrible.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 201 
 
 still necessitated a regency, and his mother's relatives, the 
 Glinskies, next came into power ; but from the day of the 
 red Noel no liberties were taken with the young monarch. 
 His new counsellors, indeed, encouraged him in his savage 
 inclinations, and the chronicles give instances of callous 
 brutalities inflicted upon Russian subjects by both Ivan and 
 the Glinskies. A party of Novgorodskie arquebusers, who 
 had interrupted one of the Prince's hunting expeditions with 
 importunities respecting their pay, were punished for their 
 presumption by being tortured to death, and a similar ghastly 
 fate awaited some petitioners from Pskov, upon whom was 
 poured blazing spirits, which ignited their hair, beards, and 
 clothes.^ 
 
 When Ivan was in his eighteenth year he celebrated 
 with much pomp and circumstance the double event of 
 his coronation and his marriage with Anastasia, daughter 
 of Roman Zakharin-Koshkin, member of a family which 
 had migrated from Prussia to Moskva in the fourteenth 
 century.- In the hallowed Ouspienskie Cathedral the Jan. 16, 
 Metropolitan crowned him with the title of Tzar, which ^547 
 was here used for the first time at the coronation of a 
 Russian ruler. The old style of Velikie-kniaz dies out 
 from this moment, and as the customary chant, " In 
 plurimos an7ws" swells through those dim frescoed arches, 
 the old order seems to pass away with the wafted incense 
 fumes. A new figure is borne into Russian history amid 
 the striking of bells and shouting of a myriad throated 
 multitude. The Tzar comes ! 
 
 The fact of Ivan's coronation caused no immediate 
 change in the government of Russia, which continued to 
 be directed by the " Vremenszhiki,' or men-of-the-season, 
 that is to say, by the Glinskies. That their administration 
 was iniquitous to an insupportable degree may be gathered, 
 not only from the possibly exaggerated accounts of the 
 chroniclers, but from the fact that long-suffering Moskva 
 
 1 E. A. Solov'ev. 
 
 ^ Anastasia Romanova, daughter of Roman, hence the name by which the 
 family was afterwards distinguished — Romanov.
 
 202 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 was goaded to the brink of revolution. Ivan amused 
 himself with his religious hobbies and other less respectable 
 diversions, and only assumed the part of Sovereign when 
 he wished to " make an example " of some offending 
 subject. The purging of Moskva from the vampire brood 
 that afflicted it, and the simultaneous " reformation " of 
 the young Tzar, form a curious episode in the history of 
 this time. The summer of 1547 was signalised by 
 disastrous conflagrations in the capital, the first of which 
 broke out on the 1 2th April ; the last and most serious 
 occurred in June. The flames on this occasion reduced to 
 ashes a large portion of the Kreml, the Kitai-gorod, and the 
 outer town, and destroyed 1700 of the adult inhabitants, 
 besides children, " who were not counted." Amid blazing 
 streets and rolling smoke-clouds, falling roofs and crash- 
 ing cupolas, panic and anarchy reigned supreme. The 
 populace, rendered unreasonable by terror and hatred, 
 loudly denounced the Glinskies as the authors of the 
 calamity ; in particular, Anna Glinski, Ivan's maternal 
 grandmother, was accused of sprinkling the streets of 
 Moskva with a decoction of boiled human hearts, which 
 apparently possessed inflammable qualities unknown to 
 science. Urii Glinski, the Tzar's uncle, was seized by the 
 enemies of his party and slain in the sanctuary of a sacred 
 building, and the infuriated townsfolk penetrated into 
 the country palace at Vorobiev, whither Ivan had retreated, 
 with a demand for more Glinskies. At this moment a 
 thing happened which, in the accounts of the earlier 
 Russian historians, recalls Edinburgh before the battle 
 of Flodden. A " holy man of Novgorod," one Silvestr, 
 appeared on the scene and quietly annexed the soul of 
 the Tzar. The people had attributed the conflagrations 
 to the Glinskies ; more critical and dispassionate examiners 
 have been inclined to suspect the Shouyskie faction of 
 complicity in the matter. Silvestr, however, put a different 
 complexion on the affair and announced that the partial 
 destruction of the town and burning of the 1700 inhabitants 
 and unenumerated children was the work of God, As
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 203 
 
 he supported this theory by producing " visions," there 
 
 could be no further doubt on the matter — none, at least, 
 
 with Ivan, who saw the visions.^ The conscience-stricken 
 
 young man, convinced that the Glinski administration was 
 
 as unpopular with heaven as it was with the Moskovitchi, 
 
 since such heroic measures had been taken to displace it, 
 
 surrendered himself, body and soul, into the hands of 
 
 Silvestr, who, needless to say, made a clean sweep of the 
 
 Vremenszhiki and replaced them with his own friends. 
 
 Without ruthlessly disturbing the halo of romance and 
 
 sanctity which has been fastened upon the man of 
 
 Novgorod, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that the 
 
 monk was an old acquaintance of Ivan — who was a 
 
 frequent visitor to all the religious establishments within 
 
 his reach — and took advantage of the popular excitement 
 
 and general disorder to upset the palace intrigues of both 
 
 the Glinski and Shouyskie factions. That Silvestr, and 
 
 the equally nebulous layman, Adashev, whom he associated 
 
 with him in the new government, exercised a restraining 
 
 and beneficent influence on the young Prince may well 
 
 be believed ; with an opposition of watchful and resentful 
 
 nobles in the background, circumspection was essential, 
 
 and Ivan, who had seen a consuming fire, an angry 
 
 populace, and a frowning Providence threatening him on 
 
 all sides, was likely to be a docile pupil. For the time. The 
 
 austere and monkish repression of the latest Vremenszhiki 
 
 was the finishing touch necessary to perfect the education 
 
 of the Terrible Tzar. 
 
 The early part of Ivan's reign, and the whole of the 
 preceding one, are characterised by the recurrence at 
 irregular periods of a deliberate campaign against Kazan. 
 The Russians seem to have borrowed the tactics of the 
 wolves which inhabited their steppes and forests, and to 
 have leisurely and persistently wearied their quarry down, 
 without caring to rush in and dispatch it. Again and 
 again did the Tzar summon from the far corners of his 
 dominions an enormous army, trail forth his ponderous 
 
 ^ Karamzin.
 
 204 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 siege-pieces and sacred banners, take an affecting farewell 
 of his capital, and march upon the Tartar city. The 
 wooden walls were relentlessly battered down, the garrison 
 reduced to the last extremity, and then the Moskovite hosts 
 would return home in good order. The walls were easily 
 rebuilt and the Kazanese would pursue the even tenor 
 of their way. It would almost appear as though the 
 Russians were loth to irrevocably destroy the only enemy 
 against whom they warred with any comfort. A more 
 feasible explanation is that the Kazanese supplemented 
 their feeble defences by a judicious outlay of the metal 
 which corrupts, and that some of the Moskovite voevodas 
 did not return empty-handed from these abortive expedi- 
 tions. In 1552 Ivan determined to set once more in 
 motion the huge army which had been left quartered on 
 the frontiers of Kazan, a locality which had had a de- 
 moralising effect on the troops, many of whom had shaved 
 off their beards to please the Tartar maidens who for the 
 time being under-studied their wives, " to prove," remarked 
 a scandalised messenger from the Metropolitan, " by the 
 indecent nudity of your faces, that you have shame to be 
 men." Familiarity had bred contempt, and the dwellers 
 in the city by the Volga's shore scornfully refused to 
 open their gates at the approach of the 150,000 footmen 
 and the 150 cannon which the Tzar brought against them. 
 The Moskovites prepared for a long and obstinate resist- 
 ance, and by way of a beginning erected and dedicated 
 three pavilion churches in their camp. Events justified 
 their expectations ; the Kazanese held out stoutly against 
 both the assaults of the besiegers and the offers of the 
 Tzar. August and September passed in continual sorties and 
 battles without the walls, skirmishing attacks by the Kozaks 
 in the tzarskie army, and mining operations by the German 
 engineers. The overwhelming forces and superior artillery 
 which Ivan was able to bring against the city at length 
 beat down the heroic defence, and the triumphant Mosko- 
 vites put their stubborn and still resisting enemies to the 
 sword. The Tzar is said to have been moved to tears
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 205 
 
 at the sight of so many Tartar corpses ; " they are not 
 Christians," he obser\'ed, " but yet they are men." The 
 reduction of Kazan was an event of the first importance 
 in Russian annals. It marked an epoch. "The victory 
 of Ivan the Terrible is the first great revenge of the 
 vanquished over the vanquishers . . . the first stage reached 
 by European civilisation in taking the offensive towards 
 Asia." ^ Prudence suggested that Ivan should remain on 
 the scene of his conquest until his authority over the 
 neighbouring districts was assured ; a desire to return to 
 his capital in the full flush of triumph prompted him to 
 disregard more solid considerations. He was still very 
 young. The newly-acquired territory was therefore left 
 under the united protection of the Christ, the Virgin, the 
 Russian intercessory saints, and Aleksandr Shouyskie. 
 Ivan, on his homeward way, received the welcome intelli- 
 gence that his wife had given birth to a son, the Tzarevitch 
 Dimitri, first of a series of Ivanovitches so named. The 
 prolonged rejoicings, banquetings, and thanksgivings which 
 ensued at Moskva were followed by a disagreeable sequel ; 
 Kazan, despite the august protection under which it had 
 been left, rose in revolt, and the Russian ascendency was 
 seriously imperilled. The Tzar's health at the same time 1553 
 broke alarmingly down, and another long minority seemed 
 to threaten the State. The boyarins and princes, summoned 
 to take an oath of allegiance to the infant Dimitri, showed 
 a strong reluctance to bind themselves down in the manner 
 required ; the succession of Ivan's child to the Tzardom 
 would mean a Romanov regency and a repetition of the 
 faction intrigues which had attended the early years of 
 the present reign. Urii. the Tzar's brother, appears to have 
 been a weakling in mind and body, too feeble even to 
 decorate with the divine attributes of monarch ; in Vladimir 
 Andreievitch, the Tzar's first cousin, however, there existed 
 a possible candidate for the throne, and even Silvestr and 
 Adashev hesitated between the claims of the hereditan,- and 
 collateral succession. The oath, whatever its value might 
 
 ^ Rambaud.
 
 2o6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 be, was exacted from the unwilling courtiers, but Ivan's 
 recovery prevented the necessity of testing it. The con- 
 valescent Tzar, in spite of the remonstrances of his advisers, 
 set off on a course of shrine visiting, taking with him his 
 unfortunate offspring, who was scarcely of an age to stand 
 such energetic piety. In fact he died on the journey. The 
 pilgrimage of Ivan was, if the chroniclers and some of the 
 later historians are to be believed, disastrous in another 
 fashion. Among the religious establishments visited was 
 the Piesnoshkie monastery, wherein was caged an interest- 
 ing prisoner. Vassian, Bishop of Kolumna in the reign of 
 Vasili, had been deprived of his episcopal office during the 
 time of the regencies on account of his evil life ; now, in the 
 decrepitude of age, he is represented as harbouring with 
 unquenched passion the unholy frettings of a sin-warped 
 mind. Ivan desired an interview with the hoary reprobate ; 
 perhaps after a course of devotions among a community of 
 irreproachable saints, living and departed, he was attracted 
 by the rare personality of a sometime bishop who was no 
 better than he should be. The monk -with -a- past seized 
 the grand opportunity to poison the monarch's mind 
 against his boyarins, his relations, and his subjects, and 
 Ivan drank in with greedy ears the vicious counsels of the 
 unhallowed recluse. It is a fascinating picture, the aged 
 priest who had eaten his heart out in helpless bitterness 
 these many years, and chafed against the restraint of his 
 prison-cell, given at last one deadly moment of revenge in 
 which to work a superb evil against the society that had 
 mishandled him. And as the Tzar went out from his 
 presence a changed man, might not the ex-prelate have 
 flung a crowning blasphemy at his heaven and chanted 
 exultingly tmnc dimittis ? Ivan, indeed, in the hands of 
 the chroniclers, is a creature easily swayed ; a monk from 
 Novgorod tells him to be good, and he straightway abandons 
 the wrong-headed sins of his wayward youth and becomes 
 an exemplary monarch, till a monk of Piesnoshkie gives 
 him dark and evil counsel, and sends him forth upon the 
 world with a cankered, blood-lusting soul.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 207 
 
 The Tzar's return to health was accompanied by a return 
 of Moskovite prosperity. Another Tzarevitch, Ivan, replaced 
 the dead Dimitri ; Kazan was gradually Kozaked into sub- 
 mission, and received a bishop as a mark of special favour. 
 Another conquest equally important was achieved without 
 bloodshed. The Astrakhanese having insulted the envoys 
 of Moskovy, a small but well-equipped army was sent against 
 them, with the result that this khanate, once the head-country 
 of the redoubtable Golden Horde, acknowledged Ivan's 
 sovereignty and yielded equal rights in the Volga fishery to 
 his Great Russian subjects. The Nogai Tartars, occupying 1554 
 the intermediate steppes, submitted at the same time to the 
 Moskovite dominion, and the Russian state, still cut off from 
 the Black Sea, to which in the tenth century it had given its 
 name,^ wriggled its way down to the Kaspian. 
 
 The acquisition of the two Tartar sovereignties, while 
 giving increased importance and security to Ivan's dominions, 
 and opening up a valuable trade with Persia and other 
 eastern countries, did not tend to make Moskovy less Asiatic, 
 or bring her closer into the European family. The Tzar's 
 political ambitions turned naturally towards the west. With 
 a sagacity equal to that of his most celebrated successor, and 
 in opposition to the advice of his counsellors, he wished to 
 find a free outlet for communication with the great Empire- 
 Republic (which, though decaying in organisation, was at 
 this moment so instinct with life), and with Europe generally. 
 The death of Sigismund of Poland (1548) and the accession 
 of his son, Sigismund -August, had scarcely affected the 
 grudgingly pacific relations between the two countries, though 
 their common grievance against the Krim Tartars seemed to 
 warrant the hope of a more cordial understanding. With 
 Sweden the Moskovites waged one of those short inconclusive 
 wars, in which neither party seemed to have any definite 
 object in view, beyond the fact that they " lived unhappily " 
 as neighbours. A forty years' truce concluded the hostilities 1557 
 between these ancient enemies. It was about this time that 
 
 1 In Byzantine writings of that period it is sometimes styled " Sea of the 
 Russians."
 
 2o8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 some adventurous merchant-seamen of the city of London 
 " discovered " Moskovy, by way of the White Sea, and opened 
 up a commercial and diplomatic intercourse between the two 
 isolated nations who were one day to come face to face with 
 each other on the roof of the world. The country, however, 
 towards which Ivan's thoughts were chiefly turned was the 
 uniquely governed Baltic land, comprising Estland, Livland, 
 and Kourland, and the adjacent islands of Dago and Oesel. 
 The extinction of the Prussian section of the Order had 
 necessarily weakened the Livlandish branch, and the spread 
 of Lutheran ideas had further added to the confusion which 
 reigned throughout the Baltic burghs. Nowhere, perhaps, in 
 Europe did bishops wield such extensive temporal powers, 
 and the fact that local opinion ran strongly in the direction 
 of the reformed principles and of secularisation made the 
 immediate future of these districts a very open question. 
 Ivan had a solution of the difficulty which he was not loth 
 to put into practice. A grievance he undoubtedly had 
 against the Livlanders, who had hindered his intercourse 
 with the Hansa League and prevented free immigration of 
 artificers and craftsmen from the Empire into Russia. Con- 
 sequently he suddenly bethought him of the clause in the 
 original truce with von Plettenberg, whereby an annual 
 tribute from the town of Dorpat had been agreed to, and 
 promptly lost sight of. The Tzar reminded the Livlandish 
 envoys of this unremembered pledge, and refused to renew 
 
 1557 the truce until the arrears had been paid in full. The repre- 
 sentatives of the Land-Master and the sovereign bishops 
 argued and promised, but they did not pay, and Ivan 
 prepared for war. Von Furstenberg vainly endeavoured to 
 rouse his subordinates and coadjutors to a sense of the 
 coming danger. The Bishop of Dorpat hastily declined the 
 offer of a few companies of lanzknechts, whose loosely dis- 
 ciplined habits he well remembered ; he had forgotten the 
 
 1558 Russians. In January three divisions of Moskovite, Tartar, 
 and Tcherkess troops, under the command of a Glinski, a 
 Romanov, and an erstwhile Khan of Kazan, rode into the 
 Order territory and wasted Livland and Estland to within
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 209 
 
 four miles of Revel/ The outskirts of Dorpat were burnt, 
 and the invaders returned from this preliminary winter 
 campaign with a heavy spoil of cannons, church bells, 
 treasure, and captives. A contemporary account accuses 
 the Tartars of fiendish cruelties upon the hapless inhabitants 
 who fell into their clutches ; among other fantastically 
 devised tortures, men were fastened on to the ground, holes 
 punctured into their sides, and gunpowder poured therein, 
 which being ignited, sent the victims into shreds.- Ivan's 
 object in sending war and desolation careering through the 
 land was to bring the various factors which composed its 
 government into subjection to his authority, as the Prussian 
 State had been brought under the sovereignty of Poland. 
 The Livlanders still imagined that peace might be bought, 
 and at a Landtag held at Wolmar in March it was resolved 
 to send envoys to the Tzar with an offer of 60,000 thalers. 
 Ivan refused to receive the ambassadors, and the chances of 
 reconciliation were still further lessened by an outbreak of 
 hostilities between the opposing fortresses of Narva and 
 Ivangorod, the former of which was captured by the Russians. 
 The war recommenced with renewed vigour on the part of 
 the invaders ; the defending forces were too hopelessly dis- 
 organised to offer an effective resistance to the Moskovite 
 attack. Churchmen and Ordermen, nobles and burghers, 
 blamed each other mutually, and the luckless peasantry 
 (who since their conversion to Christianity by the Sword 
 Brethren had scarcely been surfeited with the peace and 
 goodwill which had been officially promised them) suffered 
 at the hands of all. Dorpat, Neuhausen, Ringen, and many 
 other strongholds fell before the assaults of the Moskovites, 
 and Ivan's troops extended their ravages into Kourland. 
 But meanwhile significant events had been taking place at 
 the headquarters of the Order. Von Fiirstenberg had re- 
 signed his office to a younger man, Gotthard Kettler, and 
 this new chief had inaugurated vigorous measures whereby 
 to save, if possible, some fragment from the ruin of the 
 rapidly dissolving anachronism which had held together for 
 
 1 Schiemann, ^ Quoted by Schiemann. 
 
 P
 
 210 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 over 300 years. The Kings of Poland, Sweden, and Den- 
 mark were appealed to for assistance, and a more spirited 
 opposition was shown to the Tzar's voevodas. A half-hearted 
 irruption of the Krim Khan, Devlet Girei, into Moskovite 
 territory towards the close of the year did not materially 
 weaken Ivan's grip upon the struggling provinces, but in the 
 following May, through the mediation of the new King of 
 1559 Denmark (Frederick II.), an armistice of six months was 
 granted to the distressed Livlanders. Kettler, the Archbishop 
 of Riga (Wilhelm Hohenzollern), and the various repre- 
 sentatives of the Order, the cathedral lands, and the cities 
 sought to turn this respite to good account. Like vultures 
 swooping down from an empty sky, the agents of the neigh- 
 bouring northern powers appeared suddenly on the scene 
 now that they understood that the Baltic Bund really meant 
 dying. The Empire, torn and exhausted by the religious 
 warfare which had attended the progress of the Reformation, 
 was unable to take effective part in the obsequies of its 
 detached colony. Other interested waiters upon Providence, 
 however, there were in plenty. ?/Iagnus of Holstein, brother 
 of the King of Denmark, was elected successor to Johann 
 Munchausen, Bishop of Oesel and Wiek, who was willing, 
 for a substantial recompense, to evacuate a bishopric which 
 had become neither Catholic nor safe. Revel and the Est- 
 landish barons turned their eyes Swedenward, while in 
 September an alliance was formed between Poland and the 
 expiring Order, which showed in which direction Kourland 
 and Livland were likely to fall. The truce came abruptly 
 to an end in the midst of all these schemings, and the Order 
 knights fought their last campaign amid depressing circum- 
 stances. The strongly fortified town of Fellin, in which 
 ex -Master von Fiirstenberg had entrenched himself, was 
 captured — or bought — by the Moskovite voevoda Kourbski, 
 and another disaster overtook the Cross warriors at Ermes, 
 where a whole detachment was surrounded by an over- 
 powering force of the enemy and all who were not slain 
 taken as prisoners to Moskva. The Tzar who had wept 
 over the dead Kazanese did not on this occasion permit his
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 211 
 
 triumph to soften his feelings towards the wretched captives, 
 who were flogged through the streets of the capital with 
 whips of wire and then beheaded/ Hatred and fear of the 
 Tartar-tinged and autocratic Moskovite sovereignty, heightened 
 by acts such as this, drove the Baltic folk more speedily into 
 the arms of the various foreign powers who were able and 
 willing to absorb them. Oesel had already come under 
 Danish influence; in June 1561 Erik XIV. of Sweden 
 (who had succeeded Gustavus Vasa the preceding September) 
 took Estland formally under his protection. Sigismund- 
 August completed the partition by taking over from the 
 Order Kourland and as much of Livland as was not in the Mar. 1562 
 hands of the Russians. The former province was erected 
 into a hereditary duchy dependent on the Polish crown, and 
 bestowed upon the ci-devant Master, Gotthard Kettler, who 
 was transformed into Duke of Kourland ; the ecclesiastical 
 lands of the Kourlandish bishopric of Pilten, however, " went 
 with " the territory of Oesel, which also comprised the 
 church-lands of Wiek in Estland. Riga remained for the 
 present a free city, depending more or less upon Poland, 
 and the archbishopric was extinguished on the death of its 
 last prelate, Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in 1563.- Thus passed 
 away in violent dissolution the strange anomalous time- 
 honoured Baltic Bund, that missionary outpost of western 
 Christianity and civilisation, which had crammed its com- 
 merce and its Christ swordwise down the throats of the Liv 
 tribes, had led an existence of intermittent strife with its 
 neighbours and within itself, and dying, left a legacy of two 
 hundred years' warfare behind it. 
 
 Ivan, in killing the Order, had not reaped unmixed 
 benefits from his destructive efforts ; he had advanced the 
 Russian frontier in a direction in which expansion was most 
 needed, but he had seen a large accession of territory fall 
 to his hereditary enemy, Poland, and his other hereditary 
 enemy, Sweden, had obtained a foothold south of the Finnish 
 gulf — two circumstances which did not bode peace on his 
 
 ^ Schiemann, 
 2 Schiemann ; S. Solov'ev ; Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen.
 
 212 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 north-west frontier. At Moskva meanwhile troubles were 
 brewing. The Tzar had probably never forgotten or forgiven 
 the part Adashev and Silvestr had played when their 
 sovereign seemed little better than a dead dog, and his 
 consort had since that affair nourished open enmity against 
 the two advisers. Their opposition to the war with Livland, 
 in place of which they would have preferred a crusade against 
 the Krim khanate, still further nettled Ivan, and the 
 Vremenszhiki might plainly perceive that their " season," 
 which had set in amid the glowing ashes of a burnt Moskva, 
 was drawing to a close in the winter of the Tzar's displeasure, -m 
 
 (Aug. The death of Anastasia (who had erewhile presented her fl 
 
 ^^ ° husband with another son, Thedor, and a daughter, Eudokiya) " 
 
 did not improve the monarch's temper, and the fallen 
 favourites were glad to leave the unhealthy neighbourhood 
 of the Court Adashev was sent in the capacity of voevoda 
 to the newly acquired fortress of Fellin, and the man of 
 Novgorod relapsed into the obscurity of the cloister. Their 
 rule had been ambitious, austere, and paternal to the point 
 of irritation, and they left behind them a circle of disparaging 
 courtiers who helped the Tzar to remember how arrogant his 
 disgraced counsellors had been in the past, and to realise 
 how dangerous they might be in the future. It was darkly 
 hinted at the Kreml that Anastasia Romanov had died in the 
 prime of life and health, and that she had been the enemy 
 of the Vremenszhiki. Ivan himself raked up real or imagined 
 grievances against these restrainers of his violent youth, and 
 before long the frown of the Tzar was followed by a stroke 
 of his far-reaching arm, Adashev was removed to a prison 
 at Dorpat, where he died six months later — by his own hand, 
 said his enemies ; Silvestr was sent to contemplate the 
 abstract to the music of " the ice-fields which grind against 
 the Solovetsky Monastery on its savage islet " in the White 
 Sea — a favourite storing-place for inconvenient churchmen, 
 as Bielozero was for lay offenders. 
 
 A new circle of favourites and boon companions sprang 
 fungus-like around the stern-grown Tzar, but for the future 
 they ceased to try and control his goings ; if they could 
 
 1
 
 vm IVAN GROZNIE 213 
 
 avoid being trampled on they counted themselves lucky. The 
 Basmanovs — Thedor, the son, " with the face of an angel 
 and the heart of a devil " — were among this sinister throng, 
 which also included Maluta Skouratov, " readiest of all to 
 minister to his depraved inclinations and shameful lusts." ^ 
 Ivan, after the punishment of Silvestr and Adashev, was 
 seized with remorse — for wasted opportunities. He might 
 have been so much more savagely exemplary than he had 
 been. It was not yet too !ate to remedy the omission ; 
 Adashev had been disposed of, and the recluse could not 
 well be dragged forth again and re-sentenced ; but there 
 were others. The gravest political fault that must be laid 
 to Ivan's account is that his cruelties were occasionally stupid. 
 In the instance of his first experiment at a reign of terror he 
 selected as principal victim of his unappeased wrath Daniel 
 Adashev, brother certainly of the late minister, but one of the 
 few reliable voevodas with the army in Livland. The exact 
 ground on which he received the death-sentence — beyond the 
 fundamental one of blood-relationship with a fallen idol — 
 does not transpire, but the fault was apparently a com- 
 prehensive one, as with him perished his youthful son, his 
 wife's father, his brother's wife's brothers, and his relative 
 Ivan Shiskin, with wife and child." At the same time was 
 put to death, on the double charge of sorcery and affection 
 towards the Adashevs, a woman of Livland, a convert to 
 Orthodoxy, who had come to Moskva with her family, the 
 interesting name of Magdalin, and a reputation for piety. 
 The first perished with her. Other victims of the Tzar's 
 dislike or distrust were sent either to their graves or to 
 Bielozero, and then the " young man's fancy " lightly turned 
 to " thoughts of love." Envoys were sent to the King of 
 Poland suggesting the marriage of Ivan with one of 
 Sigismund-August's sisters as a basis of peace between the 
 two countries, but the negotiations fell through. The question 
 of Livland had added another item to the many vexed points 
 which made a durable reconciliation impossible. The offended 
 
 1 E. A. Solov"ev, Ivan IV. Groz)jie. 
 - N. A. Pole%-oi, Tzarstz'ffvanie loanna Groziia^o.
 
 214 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Aug. 1561 wooer haughtily turned his back upon possible western brides 
 and allied himself with a beautiful Tcherkess maiden, of a 
 princely house, whom he caused to be Christianised and 
 baptized at Moskva under the name of Mariya. Towards 
 the close of the following year Ivan assembled an immense 
 army with which to give practical effect to his resentment 
 against Poland, and in January 1563 led his troops in person 
 against Polotzk. Probably no previous Russian prince or 
 voevoda had ever been at the head of so imposing a host ; 
 its fighting strength was computed at 280,000 men, another 
 80,000 accompanied the huge baggage train, and 200 cannon 
 bumped in their sledges over the frozen snow. How such a 
 multitude of men and horses was maintained in the frost- 
 bound and much ravaged border province of Polotzk it is 
 difficult to surmise. Fortunately the siege was not of long 
 duration ; the old capital of the House of Isiaslav surrendered 
 to the mighty host which encompassed it, and Ivan was 
 able to add the title of Grand Prince of Polotzk to his already 
 fatiguingly imposing designations. His return journey to 
 Moskva was a repetition of his earlier triumph after the 
 fall of Kazan. As on that occasion, he was met with the 
 pleasing intelligence that his consort had presented him with 
 a son (Vasili).^ The infant continued the parallel by dying 
 when a few weeks old. Another death happened in the tzarskie 
 family towards the end of the year, Urii, the weakling brother, 
 dropping quietly out of existence at this time. Makarie, 
 the Shouyskie-elevated Metropolitan, died on the last day of 
 the year, " leaving behind him the blessed memory of a 
 prudent pastor." '" As he had lived in peace with the various 
 Vremenszhiki and with Ivan himself, the prudence cannot 
 1564 be gainsaid. Athanasie, the Tzar's confessor, was elected to 
 the vacant post, which he probably found less onerous than 
 that of keeper of his Majesty's conscience. 
 
 A truce of six months had been accorded to Sigismund- 
 August, notwithstanding which both Moskovites and Poles 
 
 1 According to Pember "christened Dmitri, like his first-boni." Karamzin 
 and Polevoi designate him Vasili. 
 
 2 A. N. Murav'ev, History of I he Russian Church.
 
 VIII 
 
 IVAN GROZNIE 215 
 
 (the latter with the assistance of the Dniepr Kozaks) 
 mutually harried each other's lands. The Polish ambassadors 
 who came to Moskva in December 1563 put forward the 
 usual inflated demands for Pskov, Novgorod, and other 
 integral Russian possessions ; scarcely likely to be yielded to 
 a country which had just lost a valuable province. Ivan's 
 diplomatists countered these extravagant proposals by equally 
 unreasonable claims, and the futile negotiations — which more 
 resembled a Dutch auction — were broken off in January. 
 The renewal of active hostilities brought disaster upon the 
 Moskovite arms ; in the ill-fated neighbourhood of Orsha 1564 
 Petr Ivanovitch Shouyskie, in command of a large Russian 
 force, was surprised by the hetman Nikolai Radzivil and 
 completely defeated. Among the many conflicting accounts 
 of this battle it is impossible to estimate what was the 
 proportionate loss of victors and vanquished, but it is fairly 
 evident that the Moskovites abandoned their cannon and 
 baggage train to the enemy, that they were pursued by 
 moonlight through brakes and swamps, and that Shouyskie 
 lost his life in the battle or the flight. According to some 
 writers his body was found in a well. The consequences 
 of this defeat were not weighty, but Ivan was at the 
 same time confronted with the defection of one of his most 
 important voevodas, Aleksandr Mikhailovitch Kourbski. 
 This boyarin, who held command of the troops in Livland, 
 had been a companion-in-arms of Daniel Adashev, and was 
 well disposed towards the Vremenszhiki who had had so grim 
 a downfall. As Moskovite generals went, he had been 
 energetic and fairly successful, though at a battle at Nevl he 
 had been worsted by a much inferior Polish force. The 
 cruelty and tyranny which were making the Tzar daily more 
 breathlessly interesting to his courtiers roused apprehensions 
 in the mind of Kourbski, who suddenly took the resolution 
 to transfer his services to the cause of Sigismund-August. 
 The letter or declaration in which he informed the Tzar of 
 the reasons which had driven him to take this step was 
 couched in terms of Biblical reproach, and upbraided the 
 tyrant with having shed the blood of innocent men and slain
 
 2i6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the mighty ones of Israel. Kourbski was pleased with this 
 composition and expressed his intention of having a copy of 
 it buried with him. Ivan, who was not so pleased with it, 
 drove his iron-tipped staff through the foot of the messenger 
 who had brought it, and kept it there while he read it ; and 
 it was a long letter. An extraordinary correspondence 
 ensued ; Ivan hurled at his departed boyarin reproaches, 
 scriptural texts, sarcasms, and fragments of classical history. 
 Why to save his miserable body had Kourbski stained his 
 immortal soul with treachery ? What, he wished to know, 
 would happen to Kourbski's soul "on the day of awful 
 judgment " ? How had he dared to say that the throne of 
 God was surrounded by his (Ivan's) victims, against the 
 authority of the Apostle, who said that no man could see God ? 
 Heretic ! " You tell me that I shall never again see your 
 Ethiopian face. O Heaven ! what misfortune for me ! " 
 And let him place his letter in his coffin, thereby proving 
 that he was no Christian, since Christians loved to die in 
 forgiveness and not hate. "Written in our residence of 
 Moskva, in Great Russia, the 5th of the month of July, the 
 year of the world 7,072." ^ 
 
 The passing over of Kourbski infused new vigour into 
 Sigismund-August's war measures. Devlet-Girei, who had 
 been on the point of concluding an alliance with Moskva, 
 was suddenly induced by Polish gold to make an inroad 
 upon Riazan ; Kourbski and Radzivil led a large army 
 against Polotzk, and hostilities were actively prosecuted in 
 Livland. Nothing, however, resulted from this triple attack ; 
 Riazan was heroically defended by the Basmanovs, father 
 and son, until reinforcements arrived to drive the Tartars 
 back into the steppes. Polotzk equally defied the Polish 
 arms, and the Moskovites on their part captured the 
 Lit'uanian fortress of Ozeriszh. In Livland neither side 
 could claim a decided advantage. 
 
 Had Ivan at this crucial moment gathered together the 
 formidable resources at his command and led his army against 
 his old hereditary enemy, enfeebled by the rule of a weak 
 
 1 Skazaniya kniazya Kourbskago, edit, by N. Ustryalov ; Karamzin.
 
 vni IVAN GROZNIE 217 
 
 and aristocracy-fettered king, and involved, moreover, in a 
 quarrel with Sweden, he might have achieved a conquest 
 more splendid and important than those of Kazan and 
 Polotzk, and have wreaked on foreign foes his consuming 
 lust for blood. But suspicion, the Nemesis of tyrants, had 
 already commenced to haunt the dark mind of the Tzar, 
 and he cared not to risk his sacred person in the hands 
 of possibly traitorous boyarins. His warped imagination 
 peopled Moskva with treason -mongers and conspirators, 
 secret adherents of Kourbski and of the disgraced 
 Vremenszhiki. Promiscuous arrests and judicial murders 
 had not increased the gaiety of the capital, and Ivan 
 glowered round upon gloomy and anxious faces with a 
 sense of injured and threatened majesty. One morning 
 in December boyarins and citizens saw with a feeling of 
 uneasy alarm the Kreml square crowded with sledges, in 
 which were piled crosses, ikons, church and domestic furniture. 
 State treasures, and the various paraphernalia necessary to a 
 peregrinating Tzar. The Terrible was about to desert his 
 capital on the eve of the festivities of Noel. Escorted by 
 a troop of horsemen, and accompanied by his family and 
 favourite courtiers, Ivan Vasilievitch Groznie swept out of 
 Moskva before the eyes of his silent and wondering subjects. 
 This portentous Hegira halted at the Aleksandrovskie 
 sloboda, a village some 107 verstas (86 miles) from the 
 capital, where the Tzar set up his Court afresh. The 
 unknown is proverbially the dreaded. All Moskva shivered 
 at this mysterious departure. Clergy, boyarins, and towns- 
 folk asked themselves what boded the winter flittiner of 
 their sovereign ; they had not long to wait for an explana- 1565 
 tion. On the 3rd January came a New Year's message 
 from Aleksandrov to the Metropolitan, and another to the 
 merchants and people of Moskva. The burden of both 
 these epistles was, that during Ivan's minority and under 
 the administration of Silvestr and Adashev the interests 
 of the State had been neglected and its coffers plundered ; 
 that Moskva still swarmed with a brood of disaffected and 
 rebellious boyarins, and that whenever the long-suffering
 
 2i8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 sovereign wished to mete out justice to the guilty, the 
 MetropoHtan and clergy interfered to screen them from 
 their well-deserved doom. Hence the sorrowing Tzar had 
 resolved to shake the dust of an ungrateful capital off his 
 feet, or in other words, to leave the white-built but black- 
 hearted city to simmer in its own iniquities. The effect of 
 this announcement was general panic and consternation, as 
 Ivan had probably intended it should be ; a deputation of 
 clergy, boyarins, merchants, and townsfolk, headed by Pimen, 
 Archbishop of Novgorod, waited upon the Tzar in his 
 retreat at Aleksandrov and humbly implored him to return 
 to his desolate capital and to deal with the evil-doers as 
 seemed best to him. Ivan graciously relented and made a 
 solemn entry into the city on the 2nd February. If the 
 chronicles are to be credited, the change of air and scene 
 had done him little good as far as bodily health was 
 concerned, and the people were appalled to behold the 
 ravages which two months' absence had wrought on the 
 person of their sovereign, who now appeared before them 
 " a gaunt, bent man, with dull eyes, matted, unkempt hair, 
 and a gloomy fierceness stamped upon every feature." ^ 
 Certainly this Tzar gave his subjects plenty of excitement. 
 As a conqueror he had retaken possession of Moskva, and 
 a new batch of regulations marked his return to the 
 head of affairs ; most notable of these enactments was the 
 institution of a personal body-guard, chosen from the ranks 
 of the courtier boyarins, and originally fixed at lOOO strong 
 (afterwards raised to 6000), to whom was given the name of 
 Opritchnina, or select legion. These satellites and creatures 
 of the Tzar fulfilled the duties of guards, police, and special 
 messengers, and became the agents for such cruelties and 
 extortions as Ivan could not superintend in person. They 
 carried at their saddle-bow a broom and a dog's head, to 
 signify that they swept treason out of the land and devoured 
 the Tzar's enemies ; the terror they inspired among the 
 unfortunate people upon whom they were let loose earned 
 for them the name of " Kromieshniki," "of the outer 
 
 I Pember.
 
 viii IVAN GROZNIE 219 
 
 darkness," or literally "outers." Another new departure 
 was the commencement of a palace outside the walls of 
 the Kreml ; an unaccountable whim, unless Ivan feared to 
 be shut up like a rat in a trap among a people whose 
 patience might one day give out, and who might hunt for 
 a Vasilievitch as on a memorable occasion they had hunted 
 for Glinskies. For the present the Moskvitchi were huddled 
 like sheep in the corner of a pen, watching with nervous 
 interest the movements of the personage who might be 
 said to embrace the double part of shepherd and wolf. No 
 time was lost in getting to business ; in the month of 
 February a batch of victims was selected to inaugurate 
 the new days of personal rule — a dark festival, in sombre, 
 gloomy, and terrible setting, and not as yet common enough 
 to have lost the thrill of expectancy. A list of names 
 stalk spectre-wise across this ugly page of Moskva's history, 
 as the bearers of them walked to their doom under the 
 gaze of a blood-frozen multitude. Aleksandr Gorbati, who 
 at least had fought for the Tzar " from Kazan to the field 
 of Arske," and his son Petr, who at the age of seventeen 
 could not have been steeped very deeply in treason, died 
 together under the executioner's axe. Four other enemies 
 of the Tzar's repose suffered by the block ; for a fifth 
 was reserved a more ghastly punishment. Kniaz Dimitri 
 Shaferov expiated his real or imputed crimes by a slow 
 death by impalement. All day long, it was said, he 
 lingered, bearing his pain heroically ; and Church and Tzar 
 looked on impassively at a deed more meanly cruel than 
 that monk - taught tragedy, the memory of which they 
 bewailed every Good Friday. To the credit of the Metro- 
 politan, be it said, that having not the courage to thwart 
 his sovereign's sacrificial bent, he retired from an office 
 whose merciful functions he might no longer wield, and 
 withdrew into the Novo Spasskie monastery. Germanus, 
 Archbishop of Kazan, was pitched upon to fill the vacant 
 post, but Ivan quarrelled with him before the ceremony of 
 consecration had time to take place, and the old man 
 escaped thankfully back to his former diocese. The Tzar
 
 220 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 then nominated Filipp, hegumen of the Solovetski Lavra, 
 who unwillingly assumed an office which could not fail to 
 bring him into disastrous contact with the Terrible and 
 his unbearable Opritchniki. 
 
 Ivan divided his time between the capital and the 
 Aleksandrovskie sloboda, which latter place he transformed 
 into a peculiar hybrid settlement, half fortress, half monastery, 
 in which he led an equally peculiar life. A whim or a 
 superstitious fancy caused him to garb himself and his boon 
 companions with the titles and even the robes of monks, 
 but the religious routine of this strange establishment was 
 no make-believe. Matins and masses and vigils were here 
 observed, perhaps more regularly than in most Russian 
 monasteries of that day, and by none more punctiliously 
 than by the Tzar-abbot ; a fearful and wonderful being, if 
 contemporary reports have not grossly lied, grovelling in 
 abject fervent worship before the chapel altar at one 
 moment, and gliding out to superintend the fiendish torture 
 of some wretched captive at another, returning " radiant " 
 and comforted — grotesque and scarcely credible, yet 
 supported by the facts that are available. While the 
 baboon -hearted sovereign passed his days in a blended 
 medley of piety and savagery, buffoonery and State affairs, 
 his familiar sprites, the Six Thousand, infested Moskva 
 and a large portion of the country districts like a devouring 
 pest or an army of occupation. Princes, boyarins, burghers, 
 all who were not connected with the Elect Legion, were 
 liable at any moment to be insulted, plundered, or mal- 
 treated by the light-hearted and light-fingered Opritchniki, 
 and redress from the Tzar there was none. Houses and 
 lands were ruthlessly filched from unoffending subjects in 
 order to provide for the wants and luxuries of the favoured 
 legionaries.^ 
 
 The new Metropolitan, a man of firmer fibre than 
 his immediate predecessors, inevitably clashed against the 
 drifting forces of oppression and State anarchy which bore 
 athwart him, and incurred the disfavour alike of Tzar and 
 
 ' Schiemann, Karamzin, E. A. Solov'ev, Polevoi.
 
 vni IVAN GROZNIE 221 
 
 Opritchniki. Previous to his consecration he had made a 
 half-hearted attempt to procure the suppression of the 
 latter, and in return they hated him with a thoroughness 
 which boded his ultimate destruction. Throughout his 
 ministrations in the gloomy and splendid temples of Moskva 
 the grinning dog's head must have been ever before his eyes, 
 and the renewed cruelties and executions with which the Tzar 
 terrorised the capital made a rupture daily more imminent. 
 
 During these inward developments of Ivan's reign a 
 curious languor had crept into the foreign relations of the 
 country. It seemed as if the three north-eastern powers 
 were gorged and torpid after having assimilated within their 
 maws the decayed carcase of the Baltic Bund. The Swedish 
 raven and the Slav eagles sat inertly blinking at each other, 
 or indulged in desultory sparring over the remains of their 
 banquet. Perennial embassades, solemnly and sumptuously 
 upholstered, trailed to and fro between Moskva and the 
 Lit'uanian capital, and concurrently Kozaks and razboyniks 
 (moss-troopers) kept alive the smouldering embers of war. 
 As a matter of fact neither of the three neighbour nations 
 was in a position to engage in a vigorous foreign campaign. 
 In Sweden Erik, second monarch of the House of Vasa, was 
 undoing the good work of his father and sowing the whirl- 
 wind which was shortly to sweep him from his throne. In 
 Poland the line of Yagiello seemed likely to come to an 
 end with the childless Sigismund-August, and men looked 
 anxiously or selfishly forward to the prospective troubles of 
 an open succession ; for the most part selfishly. In Russia 
 Ivan, who might have reaped splendid profit from the 
 embarrassments of his rivals, seemed bent rather on warring 
 upon his own subjects. His hatred of the boyarins may 
 legitimately be explained by the recollections of his dreary 
 and friendless youth, and of the torturing anxiety of his 
 sick-bed, when loyalty ran cold and men turned their backs 
 upon the seemingly setting sun. And yet the prime mover 
 in that incipient treason appeared for long to have escaped 
 the jealous fury that bore so strong a sway in the Tzar's 
 breast. Vladimir Andreivitch, who had put himself forward
 
 222 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 as his cousin's under-study, was for many years the object 
 of caresses rather than openly shown resentment. Fiefs, 
 palaces, commands, and other compliments were showered 
 upon him, as though to remove the possibility of further 
 disaffection. But there are more ways of killing a cat than 
 by choking it with cream. Ivan one day summoned his 
 relative to visit him at Aleksandrovskie, and rode forth to 
 meet him with a band of ever-useful Opritchniki — and some 
 1569 poison. Vladimir, accompanied by his wife and two children, 
 was intercepted at a little village on the road, where all four 
 were forced to drink of the Tzar's hospitality — a beverage 
 which needed no digestion. 
 
 Whatever object Ivan may have had in selecting a man 
 of Filipp's disposition for the office of Metropolitan, he soon 
 laboured to displace him therefrom ; " there is no law to say 
 such things as may disgust the ear of kings," and Filipp 
 had been, for a Russian churchman, tolerably outspoken. 
 (1568) The uncompromising Vladuika was arrested, arraigned on some 
 raked-up charge relating to his monastic life, deposed from his 
 office, and immured in a cell of the Otrotch monastery near 
 Tver. Here in the following year Maluta Skouratov helped 
 him to die ; Ivan has the credit of having added a martyr to 
 the Orthodox calendar. Kirill, hegumen of the Novinski 
 monastery (Moskva) replaced Filipp in the Russian primacy. 
 Despite the passive and unresisting temper with which 
 the Moskovites seem to have endured the tyranny of their 
 sovereign and his satellites, Ivan was never free from appre- 
 hension on the score of treason. The carefully -guarded 
 seclusion of his life both at Aleksandrov and at the 
 capital betray his nervous fears in this respect, and even 
 more unmistakable is the drift of the correspondence he 
 had with Elizabeth of England on the subject of a possible 
 asylum in that country. In the last years of Edward VI. 
 the English navigator Richard Chancellor, of " the Mystery 
 Companie and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the 
 Discoverie of unknown lands," had stumbled upon Moskovy 
 while searching for a northern passage to India and China, 
 and diplomatic and commercial relations had been opened
 
 VI 11 IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 223 
 
 up between the two countries. The Queen responded 
 graciously to " the deare most mightie and puissant Prince, 
 our brother, great lord Emperor and greate Duke Ivan 
 Easily of all Russia," promising a sanctuary for " the free 
 and quiet leeding of your highnes lief . . . and that it maie 
 be laufull for you to use your christian relligion in such 
 sorte, as it shall be best like you." Besides, the letter went 
 on, a place should be appointed for the prospective fugitive 
 and his Court " as long as you shall like to remaine with 
 us," adding, however, "upon your owen charge." The Tudors 
 were not given to quixotic extravagance. 
 
 Russia it has well been said is the country of contrasts, 
 and the reign of Ivan furnishes some curious anomalies of 
 administration. Of all the strange fruit to be borne under 
 the circumstances of time and place — in the Moskovy of the 
 sixteenth century — a States-General was about the last to be 
 looked for. And yet this was indeed the apparition which 
 the violent control-impatient Tzar called up to advise him 
 on the purely administrative question of continuation or 
 termination of the Polish war. In the summer of 1566 
 came to Moskva an unwonted assemblage of boyarins, higher 
 clergy, small proprietors, merchants, and townsfolk, 339 in 
 all, to deliberate on the matter which had been submitted 
 to their decision. Sigismund- August had abandoned his 
 demands for the restitution of Smolensk and Polotzk, and 
 was willing to unite with Ivan in a scheme for driving the 
 Swedes out of Estland and partitioning that province and 
 Livland amicably between the two Slav powers. The East- 
 Russian monarch did not jump at these favourable proposals, 
 but insisted that Riga, Wenden, Wolmar, Ronneburg, and 
 Kokenhausen should be added to his share of Livland. 
 Possibly his object was to harass Lit'uania by a prolongation 
 of the war, in the hope that, on the death of Sigismund- 
 August, the electors of the grand duchy might be driven to 
 put a term to their country's sufferings by bestowing their 
 suffrages on their most formidable neighbour ; as the Poles 
 had done in the case of Yagiello. The King refused to 
 make the required concessions, hence the deadlock which
 
 224 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 » the Russian Diet was called together to discuss. The 
 assembly unanimously concurred in refusing to abate the 
 Tzar's demands upon Livland, which appeared to them 
 extremely reasonable. Thus the old Slavonic custom of 
 violently disposing of a minority was not called into requisi- 
 tion ; had the unanimity been the wrong way Ivan would 
 probably not have shrunk from a heroic treatment of the 
 case. Whatever hopes the Tzar may have entertained of 
 detaching Lit'uania from the Polish crown were dispelled by 
 the political stroke which Sigismund-August effected a few 
 years later ; by the Union of Lublin, signed, after many a 
 stormy sitting, on the ist July 1569, Poland and Lit'uania 
 were definitely bound together in a dual but indivisible 
 realm. The question of the succession to the double throne 
 still remained open, but it was scarcely likely that the 
 turbulent and almost independent nobles of the Polish 
 provinces would turn their thoughts towards the grim despot 
 of Moskva, charm he never so wisely. Ivan, however, in 
 obstinately refusing to conclude peace on any but the most 
 exorbitant terms, and confining his military operations for 
 the most part to unimportant border skirmishes, was pursuing 
 the time-honoured Moskovite wolf-borrowed policy of wearing 
 down an adversary by persistent untiring attack. Even 
 more hoary and respectable with the sanction of age, dating 
 indeed from the days of Sviatoslav Igorovitch, was the 
 happy-go-lucky neglect of the southern and eastern 
 possessions of the gosoudarstvo, which were generally left 
 with no better protection than those with which nature had 
 surrounded them. South of Moskva nothing matters, might 
 have expressed the indifference with which the Russian 
 statecraft permitted its outlying districts in this direction to 
 1569 be continually overrun by marauding armies. In the year 
 of the Lublinskie Union a Turko- Tartar invasion, having 
 for its nucleus 17,000 troops under the command of an 
 Ottoman pasha, entered the steppe-lands of the Azov basin 
 to prosecute what might be considered a holy war against 
 the Infidel conquerors of Kazan and Astrakhan. With the 
 idea of bringing the Mussulman lands watered by the Volga
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE zz^ 
 
 into closer touch with Azov, and thereby with the water-way 
 to Constantinople, the Turkish plan of campaign included 
 the gigantic project of uniting that river with the Don by 
 means of a canal. Neither this undertaking nor the medi- 
 tated swoop upon Astrakhan was seriously prosecuted, and 
 the invaders seem to have gathered alarm from the awful 
 stillness of the solitudes into which they had penetrated, and 
 to have seen Moskovite armies stealing upon them where 
 only the foxes and the steppe-eagles sought their prey amid 
 the waving grasses. The Tartar auxiliaries gradually 
 dispersed and the famine -wasted troops of the Sultan 
 re-embarked at Azov without having encountered human 
 enemies other than the skirmishing bands of Tcherkess 
 warriors who had harassed their retreat. 
 
 Permanently at war with Poland, never safe from the 
 hostility of the Krim Tartars, and threatened with the 
 aggression of the great Mohametan power of South -East 
 Europe, Ivan seemed to find among his own subjects enemies 
 more punishable than any who menaced him from without. 
 Moskva and Aleksandrov had been the scene of many a 
 nightmare deed of cruelty ; many an action of injustice and 
 oppression had been perpetrated by the fiend-hearted Oprit- 
 chniki in the country districts ; but now something on a 
 larger scale was to be attempted. The "episode of Novgorod," 
 one of the most terrible events of a terrible reign, is intro- 
 duced by some of the earlier historians in a somewhat 
 fantastic manner. One Petr, a native of Volhynia, who had 
 suffered for some offence at the hands of the Novgorodskie 
 authorities, revenged himself by calumniating the city rulers 
 in the too susceptible mind of the Tzar ; his story was that 
 a letter, addressed to Sigismund-August, and signed by the 
 Archbishop (Pimen) and the leading inhabitants of the city, 
 offering to transfer their allegiance to the Polish monarch, 
 had been hidden behind the image of the Mother-of-God in 
 the Sofia Cathedral at Novgorod, where it was eventually 
 found by a confidential agent dispatched by Ivan from 
 Moskva.^ Why a letter intended for the King of Poland, 
 
 ^ Karamzin, S. Solov'ev. 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 and presumedly of some urgency, should have been placed, 
 and left, in such a curious position, is not very apparent. 
 That such treason was actually meditated is at least possible. 
 Novgorod, clinging to the memory of lost liberties and 
 departed glories, may not unnaturally have turned wistful 
 eyes towards any protector who might save her from a 
 dynasty which, in the person of Ivan III., had wrought her 
 such lasting injury, and in the person of his grandson 
 threatened her with further oppressions. The morbidly 
 suspicious mind of the Tzar would not be without apprehen- 
 sion on this score, and in this case there is no reason to 
 presuppose that evidence, real or concocted, was an essential 
 preliminary to preventitive action. In the autumn of 1569 
 the incriminating letter is said to have been found. In 
 December the Tzar, with the Tzarevitch Ivan, his favourite 
 boyarins, and an army of Opritchniki, set out on a punitive 
 expedition against Novgorod and the neighbouring towns. 
 Like a python encoiling its prey this strange peregrinating 
 " bed of justice " moved towards the devoted city, leaving an 
 ugly streak of blood and desolation in its track, Klin, a 
 small township near Tver, was the starting-point of the red 
 carnival. What exact offence the inhabitants had committed 
 in the eyes of their sovereign it is impossible to say, since 
 they could scarcely have been suspected of complicity in the 
 alleged treasonable correspondence with Sigismund-August. 
 The Tzar, however, let slip his " peculiars " on them, and 
 murder and pillage became the order of the day. " Houses 
 and streets were filled with corpses, and neither women nor 
 children were spared." ^ Hence onward, at Tver, Torjhok, 
 Gorodnya, and in all the villages as far as lake Ilmen, the 
 same scenes of blood and rapine were enacted ; the roads 
 leading to Novgorod were strewn with dead bodies.""^ It was 
 during this grisly progress through the dark snow-swathed 
 pine-forests, where the ravens watched over the frozen corpses, 
 and the wolves feasted on what the Kromiesniki left behind 
 them, that Maluta Skouratov turned aside to the Otrotch 
 monastery and transacted his business with the ex-Metro- 
 1 E. A. Solov'ev. 2 £. A. Solov'ev, Polevoi, S. Solov'ev.
 
 VIII 
 
 IVAN GROZNIE 22; 
 
 politan Filipp, Truly the frosts of winter seemed to have 
 got into men's blood and all feelings of mercy and goodwill 
 to have evaporated at the festivals of Noel. To the 
 Novgorodskie, awaiting the arrival of this dread visitation, 
 tidings kept pouring in which might well have roused them 
 to the defiance of despair, and armed them against their fate. 
 The Opritchniki had already drawn a cordon round the Jan. 1570 
 slobodas and outskirts of the city, and were ransacking the 
 numerous monasteries which studded the sandy plain, putting 
 to death such of the inmates as showed the least sign of 
 opposition. But there was no Martha to organise resistance, 
 no Mstislav the Brave to step in between Novgorod and her 
 doom. When Ivan, accompanied by his son, courtiers, and 
 a formidable body-guard of Strielitz, made his entry into 
 the terror-stricken city, he was met on the famous Volkhov 
 bridge by the Vladuika Pimen at the head of the clergy 
 and principal citizens, with the cross and sacred banners 
 displayed. The miraculous ikon, which had repelled the 
 attack of the Souzdalskie besiegers, failed to turn the heart 
 of the Tzar, and the Archbishop's quavering blessing was 
 refused. Novgorod was given over to slaughter and pillage 
 and Pimen himself was spared only to perform antics de- 
 grading alike to his manhood and his office. For six weeks 
 the city and its outskirts was a continued scene of confisca- 
 tion and wholesale execution ; numbers of the inhabitants 
 were flung into the Volkhov, at a point near the bridge 
 where its waters never freeze, and so many were disposed of 
 in this way that lake Ladoga is said to have been tainted 
 by the carrion. The total number of the victims has been 
 variously computed, contemporary accounts fixing the death- 
 roll from 2770, "besides women and common folk," to the 
 maximum and probably enormously exaggerated figure of 
 60,000.^ In a curious and appallingly suggestive register, 
 preserved at the Kirillov monastery, in which Ivan used to 
 keep a reckoning of his victims and apparently apprise his 
 God of their dispatch, there is the following entry : " O 
 Lord! give peace to the souls of 1505 of Thy servants, 
 
 1 Karamzin, E. A. Solov'ev.
 
 228 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Novgorc^ians." ^ The number of unburied corpses was 
 sufficiently great to cause a pestilence, which rounded off 
 the Tzar's act of vengeance. After having denuded the 
 celebrated Cathedral of its bells, vessels, ikons and other 
 treasures, and destroyed cattle, grain, and whatever could 
 not be conveniently carried off, Ivan called together the 
 wretched remnant of the citizens and graciously asked for 
 their prayers on behalf of himself and his family. 
 
 Then, in the middle of February, he departed towards 
 Pskov, leaving the silent city alone with its dead. A 
 romantic, but not necessarily romancing, element runs 
 through the account of Ivan's dealings with Pskov. Sharing 
 in the conjectural guilt for which Novgorod had been so 
 mercilessly chastised, the Tzar had devised for the city on 
 the Peipus a similar punishment. Halting at one of the 
 monasteries without the walls, on the eve of his intended 
 assize, he was moved by hearing the bells of all the churches 
 and religious houses around toll at midnight, in funeral 
 anticipation of the threatened butchery. His feelings were 
 still further worked upon by the appearance on the scene of 
 a local celebrity, one Nikolai, half- hermit, half- charlatan, 
 who offered him meat, and on being indignantly rebuked — 
 it was Lent — boldly accused the Tzar of feeding on human 
 bodies. This stark, uncanny being, in the vigorous words 
 of Sir Jerome Horsey, an adventurous Englishman who 
 visited Moskovy several times in various capacities, " with 
 bold Imprecations and Exorcismes calling him Blood-sucker 
 and Deuourer of Christian flesh, swore by his Angell that 
 hee should not escape death by a present Thunderbolt, if 
 he or any of his did touch the least childs haire in that 
 Citie."^ It is not improbable that this madman and fanatic 
 may have made a strong impression upon a kindred spirit, 
 and the unusual occurrence of a thunderstorm in February, 
 which the chronicles relate, would have added to the Tzar's 
 superstitious uneasiness. Of the existence of this " sorcerer " 
 
 ^ Karamzin. 
 
 '^ Sir lerome Horsey' s Obsei~vations in seventeene yeeres travels aiid experience 
 in Rvssia, and other countries adioyning.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 229 
 
 Horsey gives evidence at first hand : " 1 saw this Impostor, 
 a foule creature ; hee went naked Winter and Summer. . . . 
 His HoHnesse could not endure me," he adds, which, as the 
 Englishman was openly sceptical as to his supernatural 
 powers, was not wonderful. Whatever may have influenced 
 the Tzar to an unwonted deviation into humanity, he 
 suddenly stayed his avenging hand and returned to Moskva 
 with his Opritchniks, his Court, and the captive Archbishop. 
 That he was in any way satiated with cruelty does not 
 appear, as in the same year he treated the capital to a 
 blood -carnival on a grander scale than any it had yet 
 witnessed. What gave added alarm to this new reign of 
 terror was that no one was safe from implication, for the 
 Tzar's own seeming favourites and the most trusted of his 
 creatures were arrested one after the other. The Basmanovs, 
 father and son, Viskovatui, the Treasurer Founikov, Athan- 
 asie Viazemskie, Ivan Vorontzov, and scores of other princes 
 and boyarins were pounced upon and hurried off into safe 
 keeping, while sinister preparations went forward in the 
 great square of the Kitai-gorod. On the 25th July all was 
 in readiness ; eighteen gibbets and a large cauldron suspended 
 over a glowing furnace, with other implements of punish- 
 ment, met the Tzar's eye as he rode with Maluta Skouratov 
 and other yet surviving favourites on to the scene of execu- 
 tion. But one important item was lacking ; where were 
 the onlookers ? The great square was deserted, for the 
 Moskvitchi had hidden themselves away from the alarming 
 spectacle which the Gosoudar had prepared for them ; there 
 was no knowing where the matter would stop. Ivan sent 
 his soldiers to summon his subjects to the show, and even 
 went in person to beat up the skulking citizens, who flocked 
 with quaking hearts to the various coigns of vantage round 
 the Red Place. The audience having been secured, the 
 prisoners were marched out in a long file to the scene of 
 their punishment. The crowd, scanning the wan faces of 
 the victims, missed that of Viazemskie, who had died under 
 torture, and the Basmanovs were also absent. A crowning 
 horror was reserved for them. But see, the Tzar speaks.
 
 230 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Raising his voice that all might hear, he demanded of the 
 people of Moskva if the tortures and executions they were 
 about to witness seemed to them just ? They did, they did. 
 No shred of hope could the doomed men grasp from that 
 hoarse murmur of servile approbation. Like beaten gladiators, 
 reading their fate in the upturned thumbs and hard faces of 
 the onlookers, they stood unfriended before that vast multi- 
 tude. I.H.S. has taken the place of the S.P.O.R., but fifteen 
 hundred years have not materially removed Christian Moskva 
 from the ethic-level of pagan Rome. Up to the mounted 
 monarch was led the first victim, Viskovatui, whom Ivan 
 accused of treasonable correspondence with the King of 
 Poland, with the Sultan, and with the Krim Khan, emphasis- 
 ing his accusations by slashing the boyarin's face with his 
 whip. Bound, gagged, and hung by the feet, he was 
 forthwith hacked to pieces ; Maluta Skouratov. descending 
 from his horse, sliced off an ear by way of a beginning. 
 Founikov was dispatched by alternate drenching with boiling 
 and iced water, and " expired in horrible torments." Others, 
 to the number of about 200, were put to death in various 
 manners, the Tzar himself having the credit of impaling one 
 old man on his lance.^ On what evidence, if any, these 
 men were found guilty of treason and disloyalty it is 
 impossible to know, but this at least may be remarked, that, 
 enjoying as they did the Tzar's favour and patronage, they 
 had scarcelv a motive for wishing to overturn or undermine 
 his authorit}\ The executions on the Red Place, renewed 
 after an interval of a few days, were not the only outlet for 
 the monarch's anger or blood-thirst ; other evil deeds are 
 related of this reign of terror, this running amok of a human 
 being among his unresisting fellows. It was said that Ivan 
 forced Thedor Basmanov, the '' angel-faced," to kill his own 
 father : a ghastly deed which did not save the perpetrator 
 from a death by torture, and which at least need not be 
 unreser^-edly believed in. Torture was also meted out to 
 the widows of some of the most distinguished of the victims 
 of the Red Place, and eighty were said to have been flung 
 ' Karamzin, E. A. Solov'ev, Schiemann.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 231 
 
 into the Moskva river. Such a glut of corpses defied 
 expeditious or thorough burial, and for nnany days and 
 nights the inhabitants of that horror-haunted city witnessed 
 packs of dogs crunching and tearing human bones and 
 flesh in the dr>' ditches beneath the Kreml walls and in the 
 open spaces of the Kitai - gorod. Some of the bodies 
 appear to have found their way into the tzarskie fish-ponds, 
 and carp and pike grew bloated on the rich banquet' And 
 amid the gloom and stifled wailing the dread author of it 
 all, the man of terror and blood and punishments, prostrates 
 himself daily in the holy places, bumping his forehead on 
 the pavement before the sacred ikons. Splendid triumph of 
 the Nazarene ! Oh glorious irony ! The great Orthodox Tzar, 
 conqueror of Kazan and Astrakhan and Polotzk, master of 
 the lives and liberties of his trembling subjects, bows in 
 abject worship before the picture of a woman and a little 
 child. 
 
 Amid the seemingly indiscriminating severities with 
 which Ivan cowed the inhabitants of his principal cities, his 
 mind was engaged in the conduct of a dexterous and well- 
 thought-out foreign policy. The same year that witnessed 
 the episode of Novgorod and the butchery in the Kitai-gorod 
 was signalised by a long-laboured truce (to run for three 1570 
 years) between Mosko\y and Poland. The growing ex- 
 pectancy of a vacancy of the Polish-Lit'uanian throne had 
 no doubt something to do with this reconciliation. That 
 Ivan seriously put himself forward as a candidate for that 
 extremely limited and curtailed monarchy seems to be the 
 case, judging from the significant instructions which his 
 ambassadors received, to keep strict silence, when in Poland, 
 on the subject of the Tzar's domestic t^-rannies.- Equally 
 surprising, but nevertheless credit-worthy, the Tzar was not 
 without a party among the liberty and license-loving Polish 
 nobles, many of whom, particularly at Warszawa, were said 
 to be adopting Moskovite costume in view of a coming 
 dynastic displacement. His adherents were chiefly among 
 the szlachta, or small nobilit>% who numbered in their ranks 
 
 1 Horsey. - Schiemann, Kaxamzin.
 
 232 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 many of the Reformed persuasion. At this period Protestants 
 and Orthodox were lumped together in Poland, under the 
 common designation of Dissidents, and suffered equally at 
 the hands of the dominant Catholics. Hence many members 
 of the Diet were more alarmed at the prospect of an Austrian, 
 or other Jesuit-ridden king, than at the possible unmanage- 
 ability of the Moskovite Tzar. While awaiting the drift of 
 events in Poland, Ivan set in motion a course of action by 
 which he hoped to drive the Swedes out of the Baltic 
 provinces. His idea was to enlist the sympathy and support 
 of the long-suffering Livlanders and Estlanders by setting 
 up a puppet king who should govern the old lands of the 
 Bund, under the suzerainty of Moskva. The title of King of 
 Livland, offered, according to contemporary report, suc- 
 cessively to ex-Master von Fiirstenberg and the Duke of 
 Kourland (by both of whom it was declined), was eventually 
 accepted by the ambitious but effete Magnus of Holstein, 
 (1570) Duke of Oesel and Wiek. Magnus paid a visit to Moskva 
 — in some trepidation, for the city was getting an unhealthy 
 reputation — and returned with the Tzar's proclamation of 
 his new dignity, backed up by five -and -twenty thousand 
 Russian troops. With this force and his own German 
 guards, the Holsteiner advanced upon Revel, which, however, 
 held out against both his wiles and his assaults ; the latter 
 he discontinued after a siege of thirty weeks' duration (i6th 
 March 1571), burning his camp-works and withdrawing his 
 army into quarters. This rebuff settled the fate of the 
 vassal " kingdom." In another direction Ivan's foreign policy 
 had been equally unsuccessful — in an attempt, namely, to 
 cultivate friendly relations with the Ottoman power. The 
 embassy which he sent in 1570 to Constantinople, to con- 
 gratulate Sultan Selim on his accession, was coldly received, 
 and a demand put forward for the relinquishing of the 
 Russian sovereignty over Kazan and Astrakhan. The 
 uneasiness which the Tzar felt with regard to the possibility 
 of a forward Mussulman movement was increased by news 
 which was brought to Moskva in the spring of i 5 7 1 of a 
 warlike activity among the Krimskie Tartars. Whether
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 
 
 m 
 
 instigated by Turkish influences, or by the anti-Moskovite 
 party in Poland, or whether acting on his own initiative, 
 Devlet-Girei was certainly preparing for an inroad upon 
 Russian territory, and Ivan hastily assembled an army of 
 50,000 men, which he posted, under the leadership of several 
 voevodas, along the banks of the Oka, where the enemy was 
 expected to pass. The invading force, said to be 120,000 
 strong, eluded this first line of defence and bore straisrht 
 upon Moskva. The Tzar, who might with the forces at his 
 disposal have held the Tartars in check till the army of the 
 Oka came up on their flank, fled, as his father Vasili had 
 done, as most of the Grand Princes of Moskva had from 
 time to time done under similar circumstances, and sheltered 
 himself at Rostov, leaving the capital to its fate. Weakened 
 and dispirited by this desertion, the force which had raced 
 back from the Oka and arrived at much the same time as 
 the Krimskies made no attempt to defend the slobodas and 
 outlying quarters of the city, which were set on fire by the 
 Khan's orders. Ignorant, probably, of the strength of the 
 Russian garrison, and fearing to be taken unawares by a 
 reinforcement from the north, the Tartars made no further 
 move upon the city, and indeed the rapid spread of the 
 flames made pillage impossible. With the exception of the 
 stone-built Kreml, nearly the whole town was destroyed, and 
 the loss of life, though probably enormously exaggerated by 
 contemporary writers, was undoubtedly very great. " Then 
 might you haue seene a lametable spectacle," writes an 
 English traveller twenty years later, "... the people burn- 
 ing in their houses and streates, but most of all such as 
 laboured to passe out of the gates farthest from the enemie, 
 where meeting together in a mighty throng, and so pressing 
 euery man to preuent another, wedged themselves so fast 
 within the gate, and streates neare vnto it, as that three 
 ranks walked one vpon the others head, the vppermost 
 treading downe those that were lower : so that there perished 
 at that time (as was sayd) by the fire and the presse, the 
 number of 800,000 people, or more." ^ Or less. Another 
 * Giles Fletcher, the Elder, Of the Russe Common Wealth.
 
 234 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Englishman, Sir Jerome Horsey, bears witness to the fact 
 that numbers of the inhabitants, plunging, with all their 
 removable valuables, into the river, to escape from the flames 
 and the Tartars, sank beneath its waters, and that long after 
 the bodies had been disposed of, it was a fashionable amuse- 
 ment to drag the river bed for submerged treasure, adding 
 significantly, " I my selfe was somewhat the better for that 
 fishing." Satisfied with the striking and easily-accomplished 
 chastisement which he had inflicted upon the half-dreaded, 
 half-despised enemy, the Khan withdrew his Hordes, carrying 
 with him immense numbers of captured Moskovites, and 
 pursued at a safe distance by the tzarskie voevodas. Ivan, 
 returning to his desolated capital and dreading a renewal of 
 the struggle with an antagonist, formidable in himself and 
 possibly a forerunner of Turkish hostility, began to reckon 
 on the necessity of purchasing peace by the surrender of 
 Astrakhan. While, however, the victorious Tartar was 
 plaguing him with taunting messages and importunate 
 demands, the Tzar diverted his mind to the consideration of 
 a more pleasing matter. His second wife Mariya had died 
 in 1569, and he had for some time contemplated a renewal 
 of the marriage state. The present seemed to him a good 
 opportunity for carrying out his project, and the usual pre- 
 liminaries were set in motion. The selection of a mate for 
 the Russian Gosoudars was conducted on a thoroughly 
 democratic principle, and any young woman of healthy and 
 pleasing appearance might aspire to the honour of becoming 
 Tzaritza. On this occasion over 2000 of the likeliest 
 maidens of Moskovy were brought to the Aleksandrovskie 
 Sloboda, and the Court doctors and midwives helped the 
 monarch to make his choice, which fell upon a young girl of 
 Novgorod, Martha Sobakin. Either the work of selection was 
 badly done, or the Tzar was particularly unfortunate, or the 
 bride met with foul play, for she died before the marriage 
 ceremonies were well through. Needless to state the thwarted 
 widower inclined to the last alternative, and several persons 
 were put to death on suspicion. The proverb "one funeral 
 makes many " certainly applies to the decease of a Tzaritza in
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 235 
 
 sixteenth-century Moskva. A batch of boyarins and voevodas 
 were ordered to execution the same winter (1571), on the 
 charge of having been in league with the Tartars, and doubt- 
 less some such suspicion was a deciding factor in Ivan's 
 supine flight before the invaders. Some were impaled, others 
 knouted to death, others poisoned.^ 
 
 Whether this sanguinary example had the effect of en- 
 couraging " les autresl' or whether the damage sustained by 
 Moskva from the Tartar brands stung the Russians to excep- 
 tional effort, a renewal of the invasion by the Khan met with 
 a determined and successful opposition. An enormous army 
 of Krim and Nogai Tartars, reinforced by troops of Yeni- Aug. 1572 
 Tscheri and other Turkish soldiers, pushed across the Oka, 
 but was encountered and decisively defeated by a Moskovite 
 force of inferior numbers, under the command of Kniaz 
 Vorotinski and Ivan Sheremetiev. The slaughter was heavy 
 and the issue of the day swept away all question of with- 
 drawal from Astrakhan, and gave Moskovy a long immunity 
 from trouble with the steppe-folk. Ivan, who, while the 
 attack threatened, had been seized with a desire to visit the 
 northern districts of his dominions, returned from Novgorod 
 to share in the general rejoicing. In the early part of the 
 year he had scandalised and embarrassed the heads of the 
 Church by taking unto himself a fourth wife, Anna Koltov- 
 skoi ; after having accomplished this breach of the Church's 
 law he still further disturbed the spiritual fathers by announc- 
 ing his sin to the Synod then sitting for the election of a 
 Metropolitan in the place of Kirill, deceased, and demanding 
 absolution. The Vladuikas, torn between love for their 
 precious dogmas and a natural and earnest desire to fall in 
 with the Tzar's wishes, yielded finally to the stronger senti- 
 ment and hallowed the union. In order to prevent other less 
 privileged persons from imitating the Tzar's example, they 
 hastened to " menace with a fulminating anathema those who 
 should dare to enter into a fourth marriage." Antonie, Arch- 
 bishop of Polotzk, was elected Metropolitan. 
 
 While Moskva was yet quaking in anticipation of another 
 
 ^ Karamzin, Polevoi.
 
 236 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chai>. 
 
 visit from Devlet-Girei, an anxiously awaited event had taken 
 place in the grand-duchy of Lit'uania. At Knyszyn, near 
 1570 Grodno, on the 7th July, had passed away the amiable 
 Sigismund- August, " last of the Yagiellos." Instantly the 
 states composing the Polish kingdom were plunged into the 
 modified anarchy of an interregnum, and various aspirants 
 to the kingly title, starting suddenly into the foreground, 
 added to the general confusion. The internal differences 
 which complicated the election of a successor to the defunct 
 monarch were succinctly stated in the correspondence of a 
 French diplomat, who informed his Court " there are four 
 sorts of discords and different principles which greatly retard 
 the election, which are : of the Lit'uanians with the Poles, of 
 Great Poland with Little Poland, of the barons with the rest 
 of the nobility, and of the Catholics with the Protestants." ^ 
 The faction of the Szlachta, or small landowners, was more 
 or less identical with the Great-Poland party, while Little 
 Poland was the stronghold of the higher magnates ; this line 
 of demarcation was further accentuated by the personal 
 rivalry of Uchanski, Archbishop of Gniezno, who led the 
 former party, and Firley, Grand Marshal of the realm, who 
 headed the other. Add to this the fact that the Protestants 
 were divided into more or less hostile camps of Lutherans, 
 Calvinists, and Anabaptists, and a fair idea will be gathered 
 of the field wherein the agents of the several candidates were 
 to ply their arts. Of the princes who placed themselves, or 
 were placed, in competition for the throne of the Yagiellos, 
 the one whose claims stood forth most prominently was the 
 Austrian Archduke Ernst, second son of the Emperor (Maxi- 
 milian II.). The Habsburgs, who had already absorbed 
 Bohemia and were almost as firmly established in that part 
 of Hungary which was not occupied by the Turks, had on 
 every possible occasion contracted matrimonial alliances with 
 the Polish royal House, and hoped to add the Lekh kingdom 
 to their family dominions. The candidature of the Archduke 
 was backed by the imperial influence and had, moreover, the 
 
 1 Vulcob, French ambassador at Wien ; quoted by the Marquis de Noailles 
 in Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1 572.
 
 vni IVAN GROZNIE 237 
 
 support of the Papacy, whose agent, Cardinal Commendone, 
 was working to secure his election. On the other hand there 
 were considerations which made his success by no means a 
 foregone conclusion ; the great body of the Protestants would 
 unite in objecting to a monarch whose family traditions were 
 bound up with Roman Catholic supremacy, and many of the 
 Poles were apprehensive that an Austrian connection would 
 involve them in a war with Turkey, a thing they were parti- 
 cularly anxious to avoid. Above all, he personified German 
 intrusion, an element naturally distasteful to the Polish 
 national spirit. The same dread of a foreign war which 
 weakened the chances of the Archduke was the strongest 
 factor, especially with the Lit'uanians, in advancing the 
 Moskovite candidature. The term of truce had nearly run 
 out and Ivan had clearly let it be understood that an un- 
 friendly election would mean renewal of war. That the 
 Tzar, as sovereign, might be a worse affliction than as a 
 hostile neighbour was a contingency partly provided for by 
 the jealous restrictions of the Pacta conventa, which he 
 would be required to sign preliminary to his coronation. The 
 idea of the Moskovite party in Lit'uania was, however, to elect 
 the weak and more easily handled Thedor, Ivan's second son, 
 rather than the father. None of the Protestant princes who 
 put themselves forward — John, King of Sweden (brother-in- 
 law of the late Sigismund-August), Stefan Batory, Voevoda 
 of Transylvania, and the young Duke Albrecht-Freidrich of 
 Prussia — were strong enough to command the confidence 
 even of their co-religionists. A further candidate there was, 
 however, from an unexpected quarter. Henri de Valois, 
 Duke of Anjou, brother to his Most Christian Majesty of 
 France, and favourite son of Catherine de Medici, was a young 
 gentleman who was casting about in various directions for an 
 opening suitable for the development of his ambitions, and 
 whose relations and acquaintances were exceedingly desirous 
 to see him settled. Charles IX. was anxious to have this too 
 brilliant brother removed to any sphere other than the king- 
 dom of France, already in a sufficiently electric condition, a 
 wish which was shared by Coligny and the Huguenots ;
 
 238 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 while Catherine nursed the proud hope of seeing all her sons 
 decorated with the kingly title. Monsieur himself was least 
 enamoured of the project. From the Polish point of view he 
 made an ideal candidate ; belonging to a powerful House, 
 which was neither German nor Moskovite, he was strong 
 without being dangerous, and the good understanding which 
 existed between the Louvre and the Porte would be an 
 excellent guarantee for immunity from Turkish aggression. 
 Nor was the Catholic bias of the Valois an insuperable ob- 
 stacle to his election. The Prince who hunted Huguenots 
 with such apparent zeal had in his boyhood dallied with the 
 principles of the Reformation, and in later life seriously 
 considered the project of placing himself at the head of the 
 Protestants of the Low Countries.^ He was in fact a thorough 
 opportunist, and would probably hold, like his namesake of 
 Navarre, in similar though reversed circumstances, that a 
 kingdom outweighed the significance of a mass. His interests 
 were actively pushed by the ambassador dispatched from 
 France for that purpose, Jean de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, 
 and the hesitancy of the Emperor and uncompromising 
 attitude of the Tzar smoothed the way for his election. The 
 news of the " happy and holy enterprise," which had been 
 carried to a successful conclusion in the streets of Paris in 
 the small hours of the 24th August, was not received in 
 Poland with the same complacency with which it was hailed 
 at Rome, and the French candidature received a severe 
 check. For months the name of the Duke of Anjou was in 
 evil odour among the electors, and the sleepless efforts of 
 Montluc were directed to the task of whitewashing his 
 employer from the red stain of S. Bartholomew. The long- 
 drawn-out proceedings which delayed the Diet of election, 
 and which gave Poland an entirely new constitution, altering 
 the whole course of her history, also gave time for the feeling 
 against the Valois to die down ; the French agents made 
 good use of the respite and the Anjou cau.se steadily gained 
 fresh adherents, till on the eve of the election scarcely any 
 other candidate was seriously considered. Thus it came to 
 1 De Noailles, Henri de Valois, etc.
 
 viii IVAN GROZNIE 239 
 
 pass that, by an irony of fate, the stormy sittings of the Diet 
 of Warszawa, which lasted for the greater part of April and 1573 
 May, resulted in bestowing the Polish crown on the prince 
 who, of all the competitors, least coveted it. And in fact 
 the hotly-contested prize, as it came out of the long inter- 
 regnum, was scarcely a brilliant possession ; " it was not the 
 heritage of the Yagellos intact that the Bishop of Valence 
 would have to take back to the brother of Charles IX., but a 
 crown despoiled of a part of its privileges, and, under the 
 title of king, nothing in truth more than the life-presidency 
 of a republic." ^ The terms of the celebrated Pacta conventa, 
 to which every succeeding king would be required to give 
 his adhesion, were, among others, that the king should have 
 no voice in the election of a successor ; must respect the 
 religious liberty of the Dissidents ; must neither undertake 
 a war nor impose taxes without consent of Diet ; nor marry 
 nor divorce a wife without the same sanction ; and that no 
 foreigners should hold any public office. 
 
 A throne pent in with such conditions would scarcely 
 be attractive in the eyes of the tyrant of Moskva, and Ivan 
 seems to have used his influence less to promote the candi- 
 dature of himself or his son than to secure the election of 
 the Austrian Archduke. That he should be anxious to have 
 the Empire for a near neighbour might appear strange ; 
 his real concern was lest a good understanding between a 
 Franco-Polish King and the Sultan should lead to his own 
 undoing. It was perhaps, however, an indirect effect of the 
 influences of the free election on the banks of the Vistula 
 that led the Tzar to disband his feared and hated Opritchniks 
 (1572). While the Poles were yet in the throes of settling 
 the procedure of their Congress, Ivan took advantage of 
 the settled state of affairs in his own dominions and the 
 embarrassed condition of his neighbours to make a further 
 attack on the Swedish garrisons in Estland. With an army 
 of 80,000 men he burst into a land whose inhabitants were 
 complacently engaged in celebrating the festival of Christmas 
 week, and changed the scenes of carol and carousal into 
 
 1 De Noailles.
 
 240 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 those of litany and desolation. Wittenstein was captured 
 after a brief resistance, during which the Tzar's abiding 
 favourite, Maluta Skouratov, lost his life. His fall was 
 avenged, according to the Livlandish chronicles, by a 
 holocaust of the prisoners, Swedes and Germans, who were 
 burned alive on a pile of faggots.^ A fit and seemly deed, 
 if true, for the man who had exchanged with the Emperor 
 Maximilian sentiments of pious horror at the affair of S. 
 Bartholomew. Further Moskovite successes, and one of those 
 wordy correspondences in which the Tzar revelled, were 
 followed by a curious truce with Sweden, to run for two years 
 (July 1575 to July 1577), and limited in scope as well as in 
 duration, since it was only to effect a suspension of arms 
 between the neighbouring provinces of Novgorod and Finland. 
 Estland was still to be disputed at the sword's point. For 
 mysterious reasons of his own — possibly to lull German and 
 Danish susceptibilities — Ivan continued to place Magnus of 
 Holstein, his vassal " King," in the forefront of his Baltic 
 policy, and the unwilling Princeling was carried off to Moskva 
 to be solemnly wedded to Mariya, daughter of Vladimir 
 Andreivitch. Having made her an orphan the Tzar might 
 well think it incumbent on him to provide her with a husband, 
 but Magnus was scarcely overjoyed with a dowry of some 
 inconsiderable presents and the government of the township 
 of Karkus — to which dimensions his kingdom had shrunk. 
 1575-6 The campaign in the Baltic debatable lands resulted in a 
 further strengthening of the Russian foothold in that quarter ; 
 Pernau was stormed and taken with a loss of 7000 men ; 
 Helmet, Ermes, and other places in Livland surrendered to 
 Ivan's voevodas, and the stronghold of Habsal, in Estland, 
 fell into their hands. From his western neighbours the 
 Tzar had met with no opposition in his sea-ward course ; 
 the Poles, after the prolonged and elaborate labours of 
 their king-choosing, had been again confronted, under 
 extraordinary circumstances, with the dangers and difficulties 
 of an interregnum. Never more than half reconciled to the 
 eastern exile which his restricted Polish sovereignty entailed, 
 
 ^ S, Solov'ev, Karamzin. 
 
 i
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 241 
 
 Henri de Valois no sooner heard that he had succeeded to 
 the crown of S. Louis (his brother had died on the 30th 
 May 1574) than he fled precipitately from the kingdom 
 over which he had reigned for barely seven months. Once 
 more the shadow of the Habsburg loomed over the land, 
 and there seemed indeed no suitable candidate with which 
 to oppose the Austrian nomination. The Papal, Imperial, 
 and Moskovite influence, as well as that of the Archbishop 
 of Gniezno and the principal senators, pointed in the same 
 direction ; the Szlachta alone held out against the Archduke 
 and his father. The Habsburg hopes were destined, however, 
 to be again falsified, and a new rival sprang up against them 
 in Stefan Batory, Voevoda of Transylvania. This vigorous 
 prince, whose high qualities had secured him his sovereignty 
 on the death of the last of the Zapolya dynasty, speedily 
 became the favoured choice of the Szlachta and Dissident 
 party, and, as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, his election 
 would guarantee the Poles from Turkish hostility. On the 
 other hand they were threatened with the Tzar's displeasure 
 if they did not elect either Maximilian or his son, the Arch- 
 duke. To the Poles, if not to the Lit'uanians, the Moskovite 
 was a lesser bugbear than the Turk, and the popular vote 
 was for Batory. The Archbishop and the Senate adhered 
 to the Austrian cause, and the Diet (held at Warszawa, Decem- 
 ber 1575) resulted in a double election. The battle was not 
 necessarily to the strong, but the race was undoubtedly to 
 the swift ; in April of the following year the dilatory 
 Habsburg wrote to inform his brother of Moskva that " we, 
 in December last, with great glory and honour, were elected 
 to the kingdom of Poland and grand duchy of Lit'uania." 
 Ivan replied to Maximilian that he congratulated him on his 
 election, but had since learned that Stefan Batory was at 
 Krakow, crowned, and married to the Princess Anne Yagiello 
 (sister of Sigismund-August). Stefan had shown as much 
 hurry to arrive in his kingdom as Henri had displayed in 
 escaping from it, and his accession was an accomplished 
 fact ; the death of the Emperor in the ensuing October 1576 
 removed the chance of a civil contest. The new King, 
 
 R
 
 242 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 though brought up under Catholic influences, was supposed 
 at the time of his candidature to be of the Protestant 
 communion ; he adapted his religion, however, to harmonise 
 with that of the majority of his subjects, and of the wife 
 whom it was politically expedient he should marry, and 
 during his reign was the protector of the Jesuit party in 
 Poland.^ To Ivan and to Russia his elevation boded 
 trouble, and the Tzar appears to have realised the danger 
 and to have taken a bold but well-considered step to meet 
 it. While Stefan was engaged in breaking dow^n the armed 
 resistance of the burghers of Dantzig, who would have none 
 of him, the forces of Moskovy were sent in overwhelming 
 strength into the Baltic provinces, and stronghold after 
 stronghold wrested from Swede and Pole alike. Even the 
 Holsteiner and German troops were treated as enemies — 
 Duke Magnus was in temporary disgrace — and the country- 
 folk were in some instances punished with brutal severity, 
 flogged, burned alive, and in other ways made to suffer for 
 the obstinate resistance of a foreign garrison. As a display 
 of armed strength and resolution the campaign would have 
 been valuable had it been followed up by a demand for a 
 definite peace with Poland, coupled with a threat of im- 
 mediate invasion of that country. Ivan had sufficient troops 
 at his disposal to have overrun Kourland and parts of 
 Lit'uania and to have forced peace or an unseasonable war 
 upon Stefan. Instead of which, after having roused against 
 himself the enmity of all the interests involved in the master- 
 ship of the disputed provinces — Swede, Pole, Dane, and 
 German — he suspended hostilities and returned to Moskva, 
 there to renew the bloody process by which he periodically 
 thinned out his circle of boyarins and courtiers. Mikhail 
 1577 Vorotinski, the conqueror of Devlet-Girei, and one of the 
 most illustrious of the Russian voevodas, was tortured nigh 
 unto death on a charge of sorcery, and died while being 
 conveyed to Bielozero. Leonidas, successor to Pimen in the 
 archiepiscopate of Novgorod, was sewn up in a bear-skin 
 and worried to death by hounds. Other noted Moskovites 
 
 1 W. R. MorfiU, Poland.
 
 vni IVAN GROZNIE 243 
 
 were executed in various manners at the same period. 
 While the Tzar's seemingly blind rage was striking down 
 some of his most capable voevodas, his adversary was 
 straining every nerve to ensure success in the coming 
 struggle. Drawing as exhaustively as was prudent on the 
 resources of his kingdom and grand duchy, Stefan at the 
 same time applied for external support in many directions ; 
 from Transylvania came troops, from Brandenburg cannon, 
 from Sweden active co-operation, while the Pope and Sultan 
 individually blessed the enterprise. In August 1579 the 
 storm burst ; the King, having formally declared war on 
 Ivan, marched upon Polotzk, and the decisive moment had 
 arrived when it would be seen whether the new-grown 
 Russian gosoudarstvo would be able to maintain its high- 
 water mark of western expansion, or whether all it had 
 gained during the embarrassments and weakness of its 
 neighbours would be lost at the first recoil. The composite 
 army of Stefan probably consisted of better fighting material 
 than any the Tzar could send against him, but the advantage 
 of numbers and resources lay overwhelmingly with the 
 Moskovite. Allowing for the large detachment which it 
 was necessary to keep in the neighbourhood of the Oka to 
 guard the capital from a possible Tartar attack, Ivan had 
 still sufficient forces wherewith to have returned again and 
 again to the relief of Polotzk, and to have extended the war 
 at the same time into undefended parts of Lit'uania and 
 Polish Livland. This plan was indeed partially put into 
 operation ; 20,000 Asiatic horsemen were dispatched into 
 Kourland, and reinforcements were sent to the Russian 
 garrisons in Livland and Ingermanland (which was threatened 
 by the Swedes). But the scheme of campaign stopped short 
 at this point ; the constitutional timidity of Moskovite war 
 policy asserted itself, and Ivan remained with the bulk of his 
 army in deplorable inactivity at Pskov, while Polotzk and 
 the neighbouring stronghold of Sokol, bravely defended but 
 perseveringly attacked, fell into the hands of the invader. 
 The harrying of the provinces of Sieversk and Smolensk 
 wound up the Polish campaign for the year. Accustomed
 
 244 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 to winter warfare, the light troops of Moskovy might have 
 taken advantage of the cold season to have inflicted retributive 
 damage on their enemies, but the Tzar, thoroughly alarmed 
 at the military vigour of this upstart opponent, wasted his 
 opportunity in fruitless negotiations and in soft answers 
 which failed to turn away wrath. Stefan, having allayed 
 the grumblings of his barely tractable subjects, marched in 
 1580 the ensuing summer against Velikie-Louki, which, after a 
 spirited defence, was carried on the 5 th September. Through- 
 out the winter the war continued in the Baltic lands, where 
 Poles, Swedes, and Danes — Magnus had early thrown off 
 his allegiance to Moskva — captured several places from the 
 Russians. Ivan, who had retired to the gloomy sanctuary of 
 his beloved Aleksandrov, continued his proposals for peace 
 in a correspondence with Stefan, which gradually assumed an 
 angrier tone. " Man of blood ! " breaks forth this astonishing 
 letter-writer, " remember that there is a God." 
 
 Amid the troubles pressing upon him from without, the 
 sovereign still found time for marrying and giving in 
 marriage. The bride for whose espousal he had obtained 
 the dispensation of the Church had proved sterile, at least 
 she had not increased his family, and she was, like his 
 (1575) father's first wife, dispatched to a convent, while another 
 Anna replaced her ; on this occasion the episcopal blessing 
 was not asked for. Now, while the flames of disastrous war 
 were blazing over the lands which a century of patient effort 
 had reclaimed from the west, Ivan celebrated at Aleksandrov 
 1580 his nuptials with Mariya, daughter of the boyarin Thedor 
 Nagoi, and those of his second son, Thedor, with Irena, 
 sister of the voevoda Boris Godounov. 
 
 The insatiate Stefan continued to employ both pen and 
 sword against his hard-pressed adversary. In a letter reject- 
 ing Ivan's renewed offers of peace, with which he prefaced a 
 new campaign, he taunted the Tzar with his ill-sitting 
 correctitude ; " You reproach me with having mutilated the 
 dead ; it is false, but certain is it that you torture the 
 living." Entering thoroughly into the style and spirit of 
 Ivan's controversial essays, he further recommended him to
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 245 
 
 re-read the fiftieth Psalm in order to acquaint himself with 
 the duty of a Christian. The Tzar had found his match. 
 
 As in the two preceding years, the month of August 1581 
 brought with it Batory, thundering his cannon this time 
 against the walls of Pskov. The reputation of the great 
 captain had drawn to him warriors from many lands, and 
 the white-eagle standard flapped in the van of an army, 
 100,000 strong, mustering in its ranks Poles, Letts, 
 Magyars, Austrians, Kourlanders, Prussians, Lubeckers, 
 Danes, and Scots. The ancient city on the Peipus shore, 
 which for many a stormy hundred years had been a bulwark 
 of the Russian land against the aggressions of the west folk, 
 opposed a heroic resistance to the mighty efforts which were 
 made for its subjection, and the flood of Polish conquest 
 received a timely check. The stupor of fear and helpless- 
 ness which seemed to have settled down on the Tzar and 
 his voevodas neutralised to a great extent the effect of this 
 stubborn defence ; the Swedes captured Habsal, Narva, and 
 other places of less importance in Estland, and later, led by 
 de la Gardie, one of those brilliant soldiers with whom 
 France periodically fascinated the world, penetrated into 
 Russian territory and took Ivangorod, Yam, and Kopor'e. 
 Soon after these disasters Ivan effected a ten years' truce Jan. 1582 
 with Batory, a composition being brought about largely by 
 the diplomatic efforts of Pope Gregory XIII., who was 
 fascinated, as many an astute Pontiff had been, with the 
 prospect of alluring Russia into the Catholic fold. The 
 terms of the truce were ruinously disadvantageous to the 
 gosoudarstvo, and Ivan could scarcely have been forced to 
 sacrifice more if he had staked and lost a series of pitched 
 battles against his foe. Velikie-Louki was restored to him, 
 but Polotzk remained in the hands of the victors, and 
 Livland, snatched piecemeal from the Teutonic knights and 
 contested inch by inch for a quarter of a century, was yielded 
 at one wrench to Poland. The patient and persistent efforts 
 of a long reign, the dogged struggle towards the shores of 
 the Baltic and free intercourse with Western Europe, were 
 relinquished as the price of a temporary and uncertain peace,
 
 246 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 and the Moskovite Empire was thrown back upon itself, like 
 a conquered Titan thrust down into his chasm. And in 
 another direction Ivan had with his own hand fatally 
 shattered, in a fit of unrestrained passion, the dynastic hopes 
 and strivings which had been advanced and safeguarded 
 with such ruthless severities. Side by side with the gloomy 
 Tzar in his later years, partaker of his amusements and 
 debauches, sharer of his labours of State, had grown up the 
 young Ivan Ivanovitch, designed to carry on the holy line 
 of Moskva when his father should be no more. And in one 
 respect at least he had shown himself an apt pupil ; he had 
 already married three wives " without having been a 
 widower." ^ It was no part of the Moskovite theory of 
 government that the Princes of the Blood should expose 
 their sacred persons in the forefront of their country's 
 battles, and the young Ivan does not appear to have de- 
 parted from the prevailing custom of passive aloofness ; the 
 humiliations and losses which the Russian State was suffering 
 at the hands of Batory stung the Tzarevitch, however, into 
 a desire to show a bolder front to the oppressor, and he 
 requested his father to let him lead an army to the relief of 
 Pskov, then the centre-point of the Polish attack. A natural 
 and proper request, under the circumstances, but to the 
 suspicion-haunted old Tzar, on that fatal November day, it 
 was the bursting-in of the dreaded summons, " the younger 
 generation knocking at the door." Wildly he accused his 
 son of desiring to supplant him, wildly struck at him with 
 his terrible iron-tipped staff; Boris Godounov, rushing in to 
 save the Tzarevitch, received most of the blows, but one had 
 crashed upon the youth's head, which would never now wear 
 the crown of all the Russias. The heavy thuds suddenly 
 ceased and a wail of anguish rang through the silent palace : 
 " Unhappy me, I have killed my son ! " The terrified 
 attendants, rushing into the chamber, found the wretched 
 father weeping over the body of the dying Tzarevitch. In 
 one moment of blind fury the primeval ape-instinct had 
 leaped forth and had destroyed the weaving and toiling of a 
 
 ^ Karamzin.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 247 
 
 lifetime of specialised effort. Ivan Ivanovitch died a few 
 days later (19th November 1581) from the effects of the 
 blow, and Greek monks at Constantinople, Jerusalem, 
 Antioch, and Alexandria chanted subsidised prayers for the 
 repose of his soul. As in the preceding generation, the 
 next heir (Thedor) ^ was a weakling, and the Tzar's mad act 
 had opened up the possibility of his throne passing to one 
 of the boyarin families upon whose repression so much 
 savage ingenuity had been expended. The dreary outlook 
 with which the old man was confronted may have largely 
 influenced his supine surrender to Polish demands, and the 
 equally humiliating truce with Sweden, effected a year later, 1583 
 by the terms of which not only Estland, but Narva, Ivan- 
 gorod. Yam, and Kopor'e were left in the possession of the 
 victors. Moskovy was still further shut in from the sea, and 
 the Peipus, which had been a Russian lake, became a natural 
 barrier between three converging monarchies. One ray of 
 success and aggrandisement pierced through the miasma 
 gloom that shrouded the Moskovite land and gathered 
 thickest around the tzarskie palace. In the last quarter of 
 a century which had witnessed the opening up of far scarce- 
 dreamt -of regions by daring European explorers, the 
 century of Cortez and Pizarro, of the bold sea-captains who 
 shed lustre on " the spacious days of great Elizabeth," the 
 Russian Tzarstvo was swollen by the haphazard conquest of 
 the vast Sibirian " province ; " a province which " com- 
 prises about a thirteenth part of the globe, and is almost 
 3,000,000 square miles larger than the whole of Russia in 
 Europe, including both Poland and Finland." ^ Nor was 
 this huge region of the north, this " land of the long nights," 
 as the Chinese had called it in the remote past of their 
 history, a barren and unprofitable possession ; mines of salt, 
 copper, and silver, forests stocked with valuable fur-bearing 
 animals, and watered by navigable rivers and large fish- 
 yielding lakes, and in some districts tracts of fertile arable 
 
 1 Pronounced Fedor ; the Russian letter corresponding to the Greek Theta 
 in form has been rendered Th (in the proper names Thedor, Martha, etc.) to 
 distinguish it from the Slavonic F, but it has the same pronouncing value as the 
 latter letter. 2 Pember.
 
 248 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 land, compensate for the awful desolation which spreads over 
 the greater part of it during the long winter. For many 
 centuries the Russians had tapped at the outer fringe of this 
 unexplored wilderness, and the enterprising folk of Nov- 
 gorod had brought some of its produce into their markets ; 
 the later Grand Princes had put forward claims to a 
 shadowy sovereignty over the principality or khanate of 
 Sibir (a town on the Irtuish), and Ivan himself had kept an 
 eye on this ultima Thule of the Moskovite forests. The 
 Stroganovs, descendants of a merchant family of Tartar 
 extraction who had settled in the oblast of Perm, were 
 granted powers of administration over as much territory as 
 they could reclaim from the tribes on their frontier, and a 
 system of patient pioneering was carried on for some twenty 
 years. The happy idea of utilising the restless military 
 energies of the Don Kozaks, who were a scourge alike to 
 their Tartar and Russian neighbours, in more thoroughly 
 exploiting the Sibirian country, occurred to the administra- 
 tors of the Moskovite outpost ; an invitation was sent to a 
 
 1579 band of these freebooters, who had made their own country 
 too hot to hold them, to turn their weapons against the 
 " infidels " who were resisting the encroachments of the 
 White-Russian traders. The Kozaks, headed by a chief 
 named Ermak, responded readily to an offer which promised 
 them full indulgence of their fighting and marauding in- 
 stincts, with the additional advantage of official sanction. 
 They were outlaws most of them, and would have been put 
 to lingering deaths if they had strayed into the clutches of 
 Moskva, and the Tzar was highly scandalised at their em- 
 ployment in his service ; he showed himself, however, to be 
 of a forgiving disposition when, with a {^^ hundred followers, 
 
 1581 the intrepid Ermak had conquered for him the vast north- 
 eastern province. The Kozak chief, still struggling to hold 
 and extend the territories he had won, received as a mark 
 of Ivan's approval a cuirass which had once adorned the 
 monarch's person. As if symbolical of the ruin which so 
 often attended the Tzar's favour, the present was the con- 
 tributing cause of Ermak's destruction ; plunging one night
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 249 
 
 into the waters of the Irtuish, to escape from a surprise attack 
 of his enemies, the weight of the armour bore him down, 
 and he sank in the icy flood. Ivan's reign had opened 
 auspiciously with the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan ; it 
 closed with the acquisition of Sibiria, by which Russia made 
 her first giant stride into Asia. 
 
 Amid the state and domestic troubles which shadowed Oct. 1583 
 the Tzar's old age, and while he was endeavouring to bring 
 about a marriage between himself and one of the English 
 aristocracy (Lady Mary Hastings), the woman who was 
 still his wife presented him with another Dimitri — a puny 
 princeling, born surely in an evil hour, whose ghost was to 
 haunt the land for many a woeful year. A few months 
 later Ivan's health began to fail, and when, from the Red 
 Staircase of the great palace at Moskva, he observed a comet 
 in the winter sky " of which the tail had the form of a 
 cross," he beheld in it the presage of his death. Sickening 
 rapidly, he expired somewhat abruptly, while engaged in a 
 game of chess with one of his courtiers, on the i 8th March 
 1584. 
 
 The great death-dealing Tzar was dead himself at last, 
 the child that had been so fervently prayed for had gone 
 back, in the fulness of his years, whence he had come. 
 They tonsured the grim corpse that frightened them still, 
 and called it Jonah, in the name of the Kirillov monastery ; 
 but they buried it as the Orthodox Tzar, Ivan Vasilievitch, 
 in the Cathedral of Mikhail the Archangel, amid the strik- 
 ing of the great bells of the Kreml and the sobs and 
 lamentations of the people. 
 
 Among Russian historians Ivan IV. has found apologists 
 as well as writers who have held him up to execration and 
 condemned his statecraft and his cruelties alike. Even 
 while examining critically the evidence against him on the 
 latter score, the result arrived at is that he was probably as 
 " terrible " as he is painted. Chronicles and historical 
 accounts were still largely in ecclesiastical hands, and scant 
 justice would be done to the memory of a man who had 
 married six or seven wives. The Church might forgive his
 
 250 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 hates, but never his loves. Nor can the evidence of 
 Kourbski be accepted as unbiassed in the matter of Ivan's 
 character. Other contemporary witnesses there are, how- 
 ever, whose testimony points in the same direction, and 
 who were in no way interested in libelling the Tzar. 
 Horsey, who was on terms of good fellowship with him, 
 wrote, "The Emperour liueth in feare, daily discouers 
 Treasons, and spends much time in torturing and execution." 
 A Venetian attached to the Polish Embassy at Moskva in 
 1570 described the Tzar as "the greatest tyrant who has 
 ever existed," and mentions a delinquent voevoda being 
 thrown to a savage bear, " kept for that purpose." The 
 cruelties and oppressions practised by the Russian monarch 
 were widely commented on during both the Polish elections, 
 and the reports largely militated against his candidature. 
 Finally the document in the Kirillov monastery, in which 
 the Tzar complacently prays for the souls of 3470 of his 
 victims, would, if authentic, show that the extent at least of 
 his executions has not been exaggerated. Nor is this gloat- 
 ing savagery, blended as it was with a rational and under- 
 standable policy, difficult to comprehend. Ivan the Terrible 
 was the outcome of a long line of Moskovite princes, men 
 who had been actuated by one ruling idea, which idea was 
 in him so developed and specialised that he was nothing 
 short of a monomaniac. The idea was that Moskovy, and 
 God, and Gosoudar were scarcely distinguishable entities, 
 bound up in indissoluble bonds. With the substitution of 
 other countries, other sovereigns in other days have fallen 
 into the same confusion. Jealous, awe-inspiring, pain-inflict- 
 ing, terrible — such was the conception of a God among 
 peoples in most parts of the world, such was the character 
 which came naturally to the holy. Orthodox, Moskva-bred 
 Tzar. The religious side of Ivan's nature was always 
 prominent ; his prostrations in the churches, his zeal in 
 monastic regulations, the pious reflections which formed so 
 remarkable a part of his correspondence, the solemn fore- 
 bodings over Kourbski's soul, were all indications of a mind 
 steeped in dogmatic belief.
 
 VIII IVAN GROZNIE 251 
 
 Grim and dreary, mean and monstrous, as the Moskovy 
 of this period seems, with its Aleksandrovskie sloboda, its 
 gibbets, axes, impalements, and boiling cauldrons, its man- 
 devouring hounds and blood - splashed bear - dens, its 
 Kromiesniki and dumb driven population, its gutters run- 
 ning red and carp growing bloated on human flesh, and 
 above all, everywhere, those glittering crosses ; yet not in 
 Eastern Europe alone could " such things be." A brilliant 
 writer, drawing his materials from the history of mediaeval 
 Italy both before and after the Renaissance, has " pictured 
 the awful and beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood 
 and weariness had made monstrous or mad : Filippo, Duke 
 of Milan, who slew his wife, and painted her lips with a 
 scarlet poison that her lover might suck death from the 
 dead thing he fondled ; . . . Gian Maria Visconti, who 
 used hounds to chase living men, and whose murdered body 
 was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him ; 
 . . . Ezzelin, whose melancholy could be cured only by the 
 spectacle of death, and who had a passion for red blood as 
 other men have for red wine ; . . . Sigismondo Malatesta, 
 . . . the Lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome 
 as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena 
 with a napkin, and gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup 
 of emerald ; " ^ . . . these examples, garnered from one 
 corner of Western Europe, show that humanity and in- 
 humanity are sometimes convertible terms under sunny 
 Italian skies, as well as amid dark pine-forests and snow- 
 piled wastes. The century which produced the Moskovy of 
 Ivan the Terrible was not barren of sinister deeds in other 
 parts of Christendom, and Russia was at least free, perhaps 
 by very reason of its stifling autocracy, from the horrors 
 which attended the great religious upheaval in the West ; 
 when Paris and the French provinces were glutted with 
 Huguenot blood ; when Alva was dealing out " confiscation, 
 imprisonment, exile, torture, and death " to the Protestants 
 of the Netherlands ; when the Calvinists of Geneva were 
 burning Servetus alive for " heresy " and roasting men and 
 
 1 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
 
 252 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, vin 
 
 women to death for " witchcraft " ; when Calvin himself was 
 suggesting to the Lord Protector Somerset that both 
 Catholics and Protestant sectaries "alike well deserve to 
 be repressed by the sword " ; and when, in Northern 
 Germany, banishment and — in the case of the Chancellor 
 Crell — the scaffold were being employed by the Lutherans 
 to stamp out Calvinism. 
 
 S. Solov'ev, E. A. Solov'ev, Polevoi, Schiemann, Karamzin, Pember. 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GREAT BOYARIN 
 
 When the people of Moskva became sufficiently familiar 
 with the fact that their terrible Gosoudar was dead and safely 
 buried, even if their imagination could not picture him, as 
 his son had, in his coronation speech, solemnly assured them, 
 " transformed into an angel," they began to take stock of the 
 men who had replaced him in the government. The effete 
 and placid Thedor was supported by a Douma (Council) of 
 five. Of these Ivan Petrovitch Shouyskie, member of a family 
 which had tasted the sweets of power and drained the dregs 
 of disgrace in the early years of the late reign, had won new 
 consideration and honour by his celebrated defence of Pskov 
 Mstislavskie was another Rurik- descended boyarin-kniaz 
 Bogdan Bielskie represented the last of Ivan's Vremenszhiki 
 Nikita Romanov was important as maternal uncle of the new 
 Tzar, and Boris Godounov, descendant of a Tartar family 
 Christianised in the fourteenth century,^ stood nearest the 
 throne from the fact of being brother to the Tzaritza Irena.^ 
 The Douma, thus constituted, did not long retain its original 
 formation. A sudden popular commotion in the capital took 
 the form of an ugly rush towards the Kreml ; the Kitai-gorod 
 was overrun by a surging mob of many thousands, scarcely 
 to be held back by the strielitz from forcing the gates of the 
 citadel. Mstislavskie and Romanov, fronting this tumultuous 
 gathering and inquiring the nature of its demands, learned 
 
 ^ N. Kostomarov, Rousskaya Istoriya, etc. 
 
 ^ Karamzin distinguishes the first as Ivan Petrovitch Shouyskie, Kostomarov 
 as Petr Ivanovitch Shouyskie, while Solov'ev gives an alternative of Ivan Petro- 
 vitch or Thedor Shouyskie.
 
 254 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 from a thousand throats that the blood of Bogdan Bielskie 
 was in request. A compromise was effected ; the offending 
 boyarin was removed from the Council to the comparatively 
 harmless post of Governor of Nijhnie-Novgorod, and the 
 Moskvitchi returned to their houses. Whether this was a 
 spontaneous ebullition, a reaction from the passive endurance 
 under Ivan, or whether it was set afoot by the Shouyskie 
 family, who had considerable influence among the merchant 
 class, and were not unused to such machinations, it strength- 
 ened the hands of the one man whose authority dwarfed that 
 of Romanov, Shouyskie, and Mstislavskie alike. Godounov 
 was a man capable of grasping to the full the advantages 
 which his position as kinsman of a weak, easily-ruled sovereign 
 cfave him, and he was of sufficient merit to labour for the 
 welfare of the State as well as for his own interests. The 
 latter were by no means neglected ; immense territorial 
 possessions in the Dvina district and along the valley of the 
 Moskva, certain State revenues and other desirable perquisites 
 swelled his yearly income to the estimated total of 93,000 
 roubles,^ and he was reputed to be able to bring 100,000 
 men into the field." But the man who swayed the councils 
 of the Tzarstvo and stood behind the puppet-monarch Thedor 
 was far removed from the ordinary type of Vremenszhikie, 
 and the internal and foreign affairs of the realm suffered 
 nothing by the transfer of administration from Ivan IV. to 
 Boris Godounov. His predominance checked, if it did not 
 altogether repress, the boyarin struggles and intrigues which 
 the weakness of the Tzar invited, and at the same time the 
 man who was practically Regent had the address to govern 
 as though with the co-operation of the whole Council. One 
 of the first acts necessitated by the political circumstances of 
 the Court was the removal or banishment of the Tzarevitch 
 Dimitri, with his mother and the whole clan of the Nagois, 
 to Ouglitch, a town some 90 verstas from Moskva. Here 
 they remained in a state of repressed disaffection, biding their 
 
 ^ According to Karamzin 900,000 roubles. 
 
 2 S. Solov'ev ; N. Kostomarov, Roiisskaya htoriya v' jhizneopisaniyakh eya 
 glavnieysktkh dieyatelen.
 
 IX 7HE GREAT BOYARIN 255 
 
 time till the day when the young Dimitri should succeed his 
 half-brother and the Nagois should dispossess the Godounovs. 
 This was a factor which Boris had always to reckon with, 
 and which perhaps forced his statesmanship out of the legiti- 
 mate groove of throne-serving. That his ascendancy would 
 be accepted without a struggle by the other members of the 
 Council was scarcely to be expected ; Romanov died in 
 1586, and soon after Mstislavskie drifted over to the Shouy- 
 skie faction, in opposition to Godounov. That intrigues 
 would be set on foot against his authority was extremely 
 probable, but whether a definite plot existed or not, one was 
 at least " discovered," in which the two counsellors and several 
 other boyarins were implicated. The offenders were dealt 
 with in a spirit of moderation which had been long foreign 
 to the Court of Moskva ; Mstislavskie entered the Kirillov 
 monastery at Bielozero, others of his party were imprisoned 
 or banished to distant parts of the realm. The Shouyskie, 
 enjoying the protection of the Metropolitan (Dionisie), sur- 
 vived the storm which swept away so many of their colleagues. 
 Meanwhile the Regent's diplomacy had been exerted to defer, 
 for the time being, hostilities with any of the four states — 
 Turk, Pole, Swede, and Tartar — which permanently threatened 
 Russia with aggression. With Sweden a prolongation of the 
 truce for four years was effected in December 1585; the 
 Krimskie khanate was weakened by civil war and dynastic 
 revolutions, and little was to be feared from that quarter. 
 The chief danger lay with Poland, and Batory was only held 
 back by the controlling hand of the Diet and the protests of 
 the Lit'uanian landowners from renewing his profitable cam- 
 paigns against Moskovy. Under these circumstances it was 
 with feelings of relief that the Council of State, sitting at 
 Moskva, heard, on the 20th December 1586, of the death of 
 their enemy, which had taken place eighteen days earlier 
 (13th December according to the new reckoning of the 
 calendar, initiated by Pope Gregory and adopted throughout 
 west continental Europe, by which Russian — and English — 
 time was left twelve days behind). The death of this prince 
 reversed the whole position of affairs between the two coun-
 
 256 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 tries, and instead of living in constant apprehension of fresh 
 inroads upon their territory, the Moskovites were able to 
 entertain the prospect of an advantageous union with the 
 neighbour State. For the third time Thedor had a chance 
 of securing the Polish crown by election, and Godounov 
 hastened to support his candidature with more vigorous 
 measures than had been employed on the former occasions. 
 The Russian party, both in Poland and the grand duchy, 
 had gained strength since the last interregnum, and the 
 Regent was able to offer terms of a nature likely to appeal 
 to many of the electors. A perpetual peace between the 
 two Slav powers would allow of a vigorous and hopeful 
 opposition to Ottoman aggression, and the troops of Moskov}', 
 including Kozaks, Tcherkess horsemen, and Tartars from 
 Eastern Russia, would be placed, free of charges, at the dis- 
 posal of the Poles. Moldavia, Bosnia, Servia, and Hungary 
 would be wrested from the Sultan and incorporated with 
 Poland (an arrangement to which the Kaiser might have had 
 a word to say), and Estland would be snatched in like 
 manner from Sweden and annexed to the Lekh kingdom, 
 except Narva, which would be Moskovy's modest share of 
 the spoil. Moreover, the rights and liberties, as well as the 
 taxes and revenues of Poland, would remain in the hands of 
 the Senate. Neither of the alternative candidates — the 
 Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor, and Sigis- 
 mund, son of King John of Sweden and of a Yagiello princess 
 — could hold forth such tempting inducements. The imperial 
 Habsburg family was held in cheap estimation on account of 
 its failure either to defend its hereditary dominions against 
 the Turks, or to exert its authority over the Protestant 
 princes of Northern Germany, and the Emperor himself was 
 alluded to as " great only by title, rich only in debts." The 
 Archbishop of Gniezno, who had at one time and another 
 supported the Valois and Habsburg parties, on this occasion 
 exerted his influence on behalf of the Rurikovitch. An 
 anarchical assembly which met near Warszawa in July (i 587) 
 under the name of a Diet, but which resembled more a triple- 
 divided camp, was reduced to some degree of order and
 
 IX THE GREAT BOYARIN 257 
 
 coherence by the adoption of badges distinctive of the various 
 candidates. The partisans of Thedor displayed a sJiapka 
 (conical Russian head-gear), those of Maximilian an Austrian 
 cap, while the sea-power of Sweden was typified by a herring 
 — presumably salted. The shapka carried the day by a 
 large preponderance, and nothing remained for the agents of 
 Thedor but to satisfy the final stipulations of the Polish 
 Senate. Besides the demand for a certain sum of money 
 down, which would have been conceded, the obstacles to a 
 ratification of the election were seemingly trifling ; but they 
 were insuperable. Thedor would not consent to be crowned 
 at Krakow, to put the title King of Poland before that of 
 Tzar of the Russias, nor to dally in any way with the Roman 
 Catholic religion. Without these concessions the Poles 
 refused to bestow their suffrages on the Russian prince, and 
 their choice finally fell on Sigismund Vasa, whose election 
 brought the crowns of Poland and Sweden, Moskva's two 
 hereditary enemies, into the same family. That Godounov 
 should have declined to bargain further with the Polish 
 electors on behalf of Thedor does credit to his foresieht : for 
 the Russian sovereign to have accepted the crown under the 
 limitations and conditions imposed by the Senate would have 
 been to surrender at the outset to the turbulence and inde- 
 pendence of the western Slavs, and possibly to weaken his 
 hold upon his own spell-bound subjects. He would have 
 ruled over the Polish palatinates as nominally as Rudolf over 
 the free cities of Northern Germany, and the infusion of the 
 ideas of the western commonwealth into Moskovite minds 
 would have been pouring new wine into old bottles with dis- 
 astrous result. 
 
 The Regent, disconcerted by the submission of all the 
 parties in the Diet to the accession of the Swedish prince, 
 managed to avert a possible outbreak of hostilities between 
 the countries which had so nearly been allied by compacting 
 for a truce of fifteen years. 
 
 While dealing with the precarious foreign affairs of the 
 country and superintending the domestic administration, 
 Godounov had to fight hard to maintain his own position. 
 
 S
 
 258 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Thedor had inherited from his father, if nothing else, a 
 weakness for all that appertained to religion, and the greater 
 part of his existence alternated between devotional exercises 
 and the safe amusement of watching bear-fights. Over a 
 mind so constituted, a priest of high position would naturally 
 have a good chance of obtaining a dominating influence, and 
 the Metropolitan was quite willing to play the part of 
 another Silvestr. The only obstacle to this ambition was 
 the Tzar's brother-in-law, who brooked no competitor for the 
 tzarskie favour. Hence between Regent and Vladuika 
 lurked an animosity which drove the latter into the arms of 
 the Shouyskie party. Thus a powerful league of the clergy, 
 boyarin, and merchant interests (the latter were hand in 
 glove with the Shouyskie) was formed in Moskva against 
 the Godounov rule. Boris derived his power in the first 
 place from his connection with the Tzar through the Tzaritza 
 Irena, and it was the aim of the malcontents to break this 
 important link on the ground of the latter's alleged sterility, 
 and to wed Thedor instead to a Mstislavskie princess. The 
 Metropolitan favoured the scheme — Ivan the Terrible had 
 evidently stretched the consciences of his clergy on the 
 marriage question beyond retraction — but the vigilance of 
 the Regent dragged it prematurely to light. None of the 
 conspirators were molested for their share in the intrigue, 
 but the Mstislavskie princess was compelled to become an 
 abiding inmate of a convent. The real or alleged discovery 
 of a plot against the throne, presumably, since some of the 
 Nagoi family were implicated, in favour of the young 
 Dimitri, gave an excuse for the long-deferred vengeance of 
 Godounov. Ivan Shouyskie, the defender of Pskov, was 
 dispatched to Bielozero, Andrei Shouyskie to Kargopol ; 
 both, it was said, were afterwards strangled in prison. 
 Thedor Nagoi and six of his companions were publicly 
 executed, an example meant, no doubt, to strike terror into 
 the disaffected at Ouglitch. Batches of the Mstislavskie 
 were forced into religious houses, and many other boyarins 
 were exiled to various parts of the gosoudarstvo — some to 
 Sibiria, the first detachment of a long procession of political
 
 I X THE GREA T BOYA RIN 
 
 259 
 
 offenders which has never since ceased to wend its way from 
 Russia into the " land of the long nights," The Metropolitan 
 was deposed and his place filled by lov, Archbishop of 
 Rostov. 
 
 Godounov was for the time master of the situation. 
 His enemies were either dead, or deported, or devoted, in 
 various monasteries scattered up and down the country, to 
 a course of religious seclusion, if not of blessed meditation. 
 Only at Ouglitch, growing up among the Nagoi colony, was 
 the child who must surely one day exact a heavy retribution 
 from the man whom he was taught to — omit from his prayers. 
 Unless he should happen meanwhile to cut his throat in a 
 fit of epilepsy, 
 
 A renewal of the war with Sweden drew together, at an 
 opportune moment, the discordant forces which threatened 
 at times to dislocate the machinery of government. The 
 time-honoured Moskovite foreign policy, like the wolves' 
 hunting to which it has been already compared, derived its 
 strength from its patient persistence, rather than from any 
 brilliancy of rapid conception or swift action. At peace for 
 the time being with Poland, and not anticipating trouble 
 from the Khan of the Krim Horde, Godounov took up the 
 threads which had dropped from the nerveless hands of the 
 failing Ivan, and returned to the struggle for an opening 
 into the Baltic. The truce with Sweden having expired 
 without either country being able to come to terms, Thedor 
 prepared, in January 1590, to lead the huge army which 
 had been collected from all quarters of his dominions, part 
 of the way at least towards the Estlandish and Finnish 
 frontiers. The presence of the sovereign was to some extent 
 necessary to maintain order and harmony in an army which 
 included among its leaders a Mstislavskie (in chief com- 
 mand), a Godounov, and a Romanov, besides other jarring 
 elements. The Tzar, however, did not venture his person 
 farther than Novgorod, from which point the Russian host 
 diverged upon its double destination, one body marching 
 across the frozen Neva, the other directing its course towards 
 the disputed fortresses of the Ingermanland province. Yam
 
 26o THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 was carried by assault and a force of 20,000 Swedes defeated 
 outside Narva, which place was then invested. To save this 
 important stronghold, the representatives of the King of 
 Sweden concluded a hasty truce, to run for one year, ceding 
 meanwhile Ivangorod and Kopor'e to the Tzar's voevodas 
 (25th February). This sudden forward movement on ^ the 
 part of Moskovy aroused the alarm and suspicion of the 
 Poles, whose young king especially felt bound to make a 
 diversion on behalf of Sweden ; hence ominous mutterings 
 filtered through to Moskva from Krakow, and the Dniepr 
 Kozaks (who had been organised into regiments by Stefan 
 Batory) began to commit depredations along the Lit'uanian 
 border. A Polish embassy which arrived at the capital in 
 the autumn, after adopting a somewhat aggressive tone, 
 finally renewed the truce between the two countries for a 
 term of twelve years. The Swedes were likely, however, to 
 renew the struggle in the north in the coming spring, having 
 refused to yield to the Russian demand for the cession of 
 Narva and Korelia, and there were rumours afloat of a 
 simultaneous outburst of hostilities on the part of the 
 treacherous Krimskie Tartars. While Moskva was thus 
 threatened with a double attack, a mysterious and appalling 
 1591 tragedy had happened at Ouglitch. At noon on the 15th 
 of May the inhabitants, alarmed by the furious beating of 
 the bell at the Nagoi Palace, rushed into the court to find 
 the Tzarevitch Dimitri with a gaping wound across his 
 throat, and his mother and some servants shrieking over his 
 yet warm corpse. The palace and town had been for some 
 time haunted and overlooked by agents of the Regent, who 
 naturally wished to keep himself informed as to the course 
 of events in this hotbed of sedition and intrigue ; naturally 
 also the popular imagination fastened the presumed murder 
 on these Godounovskie emissaries, who were seized and 
 put to death, together with their servants and one or two 
 suspected citizens and a woman " who went often to the 
 palace ; " in all some dozen persons. The aggrieved and 
 excited populace easily persuaded themselves that Boris 
 Godounov had planned and caused to be executed this
 
 IX THE GREAT BOYARIN 261 
 
 catastrophe, and many historians have unreservedly endorsed 
 their judgment, though, apart from the fact that Dimitri's 
 death could not have been otherwise than a joyful relief to 
 the Regent, it is difficult to see what evidence there is to 
 connect him with the crime. The murder of a Tzarevitch, 
 the last heir in the direct Moskovite line of the holy House 
 of Rurikovitch, was not an event which could be passed 
 over without inquiry, even if the alleged instigator were a 
 boyarin in high Court favour ; an investigation was necessary 
 in any case, but it is at least worthy of notice that the man 
 selected to preside over the collection of evidence and to sift 
 the whole matter at the place where it occurred was Vasili 
 Shouyskie, brother to the princes of that family who had 
 suffered imprisonment and death at the hands of Godounov. 
 The report drawn up by this kniaz, who could scarcely be 
 otherwise than the enemy of the man whom the popular 
 voice condemned, entirely exonerated both the Regent and 
 his supposed agents, and declared the Tzarevitch to have 
 killed himself in a fit of epilepsy, to which he was subject. 
 The subsequent massacre was laid to the charge of the 
 Nagois. The theory put forward by Kostomarov that 
 Shouyskie, " a cunning and pliant man," conducted the in- 
 vestigation and distorted the evidence in a manner which 
 would win him the favour of Godounov in order to avoid 
 unpleasant consequences to himself, seems under the circum- 
 stances scarcely plausible. The death of Dimitri left Boris 
 more or less in the position of a claimant to the throne of 
 the Russias, and he would be more than ever an object of 
 jealousy and suspicion to the princely families who had the 
 blood of Rurik or Gedimin in their veins. Hence Shouy- 
 skie, however guarded in the language of the report he was 
 called upon to make, would hardly go out of his way to bias 
 the judgment of Court and country in favour of his enemy 
 and rival. Between the verdict of the men who had care- 
 fully examined the evidence relating to the affair and the 
 wild accusations of an angry and disaffected people there 
 was a wide divergence. Historians have for the most part 
 endorsed the latter. Whatever the truth of the matter, a
 
 262 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 murderous retribution was meted out to the people of Oug- 
 litch for the slaughter of the Regent's agents ; many of the 
 Nagois were exiled or imprisoned, and Dimitri's mother was 
 forced to enter a convent, while numbers of the inhabitants 
 were executed or sent beyond the Ourals. Ouglitch was 
 reduced almost to a desert. The same summer which wit- 
 nessed the death of Dimitri Ivanovitch saw Khan Kazi-Girei 
 stealing out of the sun-parched steppes towards Moskva at 
 the head of a large and rapidly-moving army. The best 
 troops of Moskovy were far away in the north, watching the 
 movements of the Swedish generals ; others had to be 
 brought in all haste from the encampments along the Oka 
 to defend the capital from this sudden, if not altogether 
 unexpected attack. The slobodas surrounding the city were 
 hurriedly fortified and the outlying monasteries transformed 
 into fortresses. The Tzar, contrary to precedent, remained 
 at the Kreml, and was witness of the magnificent battle 
 which ensued under the walls of Moskva, and which recalled, 
 while it lasted, the classic struggles on the plains of Troy. 
 The defence was superintended by kniaz Thedor Mstislavskie 
 and Godounov, the latter of whom understood the difficult 
 science of working in harmony with men who were his 
 4th July personal enemies. Although the issue of the day's strife 
 1591 was not of a decisive nature, the Khan had no stomach for 
 further fighting, and fled precipitately back to his own 
 country, arriving at Baktchisarai with scarcely a third of his 
 army. The ignominious failure of this invasion checked any 
 disposition which Sigismund may have had for annulling the 
 truce with the Tzar of Moskovy, whose voevodas were now 
 free to give their undivided attention to the scrambling 
 hostilities which had broken out in Finland and in the 
 neighbourhood of the White Sea. The war dragged on in 
 these wild and bitter regions without any very decisive 
 action enlivening the general torpidity of its course ; the 
 failing health of King John of Sweden made him anxious 
 to obtain at least a suspension of arms, and negotiations 
 were set on foot for that purpose previous to his death 
 (November 1592), which resulted in the conclusion of a two
 
 IX 
 
 THE GREAT BOYARIN 263 
 
 years' truce (each side to retain what it then held) in 
 January 1593. The external peace which Russia for the 
 moment enjoyed was clouded by the apprehension which 
 was naturally felt at the accession of Sigismund Vasa to his 
 father's kingdom, an event which bound Poland and Sweden 
 into a dual monarchy and made the acquisition of a Baltic 
 outlet more than ever a difficult task for Moskovite state- 
 craft. The apprehension was, however, soon allayed. The 
 union of crowns was by no means followed by a union of 
 hearts, and the close relationship into which the two king- 
 doms — one aggressively Lutheran, the other preponderatingly 
 Catholic — were drawn only served to bring to the surface 
 the animosities of race and creed which existed between 
 them. Sigismund, who was Catholic by religion and more 
 or less Polish in his sympathies, had a powerful Lutheran 
 rival in his Uncle Karl, Duke of Sudermanland, and the 
 Skandinavian kingdom was more likely to be involved in a 
 civil war than to fight hand in hand with Poland against 
 Russia. Under these circumstances the truce between 
 Sweden and Moskovy was supplemented (i8th May 1595) 
 by an "eternal peace," the former power ceding, besides 
 Yam, Ivangorod, and Kopor'e, Korelia with the town of 
 Keksholm.^ It was probably the clearing of the atmosphere 
 in the north which emboldened Godounov, while lulling the 
 Ottoman Court with proffers of friendship, to send a sub- 
 stantial contribution to Kaiser Rudolf in furtherance of the 
 half-hearted crusade by which he was attempting to dislodge 
 the Turks from Hungary. A magnificent consignment of 
 the rich fur-products of the Sibirian forests, — sable, marten, 
 beaver, black fox, and other skins, in scores of thousands, 
 valued at 44,000 roubles, — was spread out in twenty rooms 
 of the imperial palace at Prague for the edification and 
 astonishment of the courtiers and merchants of the old 
 Bohemian city (1595). The inevitable clashing of the 
 Ottoman and Russian powers, only deferred on account of 
 the manifold embarrassments of both, made it desirable that 
 Moskva should be no longer dependent in ecclesiastical 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev, Karamzin.
 
 264 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 matters on the Turk-tolerated Patriarch at Constantinople, 
 and it was perhaps partly on this account, partly with the 
 view of gratifying the Russian clergy and his partisan, the 
 Metropolitan, lov, that Godounov in i 589 secured the promo- 
 tion of the Primate to the office of Patriarch of Moskva, 
 with four Metropolitans (Novgorod, Kazan, Rostov, and 
 Kroutitsk) under him. A more lastingly important stroke 
 of internal administration, effected by the Regent at this 
 time, also fell in with his private ends in addition to safe- 
 guarding the interests of the State. This was the abolition 
 of the " Ur'ev den," or S. George's day, on which the peasants 
 had been wont to decide for the ensuing year whether they 
 would remain with their present masters, or migrate, literally, 
 to fresh fields and pastures new. This right of annual 
 "betterment" had lately shown a tendency to work in one 
 direction ; the opening up of Sibiria and the greater security 
 from Tartar raids which the agriculturalist of the south of 
 Russia now enjoyed drew the peasants in steady streams 
 from their accustomed grounds, and the small proprietors, 
 the military backbone of the gosoudarstvo, who were unable 
 to offer the privileges and immunities which the richer land- 
 owners held forth, found their estates gradually drained of 
 the labour which alone made them valuable. Godounov 
 grappled boldly with the situation ; he issued an edict which 
 forbade the serf to change his master, and thus by one stroke 
 bound the peasant to the soil and the grateful small land- 
 owner to his party. 
 
 The dynastic hopes of the house of Moskva had been 
 fluttered in 1592 by a report that the Tzaritza was in a 
 condition which might well be termed interesting, since the 
 birth of an heir was of such vital importance to Russia ; 
 Irena did indeed bring forth a daughter, who was baptized 
 with the name Theodosia, and died. This was the last 
 expiring flicker of the paling torch of the Ivanovitch dynasty. 
 On the 7th of January 1598 Thedor himself expired, leaving 
 his vacant throne somewhat vaguely at the disposal of his 
 widow, the Patriarch, the Regent, and Thedor Romanov. 
 " In the person of this vague and virtuous sovereign," sums
 
 IX 
 
 THE GREAT BOYARIN 265 
 
 up a French historian, "the race of bloody and violent men 
 of prey who had created Russia was extinguished." ^ For 
 the first time in her political history Russia was fronted 
 with an interregnum. The widowed Tzaritza, the only re- 
 maining representative of the sovereign authority in the eyes 
 of the people, made the void still more pronounced by 
 retiring with her brother into the New Monastery of the 
 Virgin, which hallowed retreat promptly became the centre 
 of anxious solicitations and political manoeuvrings. As 
 Irena Godounov would do nothing to remove the deadlock, 
 Boris Godounov became indispensable, and the Patriarch, 
 with the assent of the principal citizens, offered him the 
 crown of Monomachus and, as far as he was able to speak 
 with authority, the sovereignty of the Russias. Boris wisely 
 deferred the choice of a Tzar to the decision of a representa- 
 tive gathering of the Moskovite States, a step which, while 
 it gave his enemies a longer time to develop their opposition, 
 would place his election, if carried, on a surer foundation. 
 The Sobor which assembled at the capital in the month of 
 February was composed of 474 members, of which 99 were 
 clergy, 272 of the boyarin and landowner class (of which 
 119 were small proprietors), and the remainder starostas, 
 deputies from the provincial towns, and representatives of 
 the merchant bodies." With the clergy and small proprietors 
 the Godounov interest was predominant, and men of all 
 sections were conversant with the ability and energy which 
 the Regent had displayed in dealing with the foreign affairs 
 of the country, left by Ivan in such unpromising plight. 
 There were many boyarins whose pedigrees gave them a 
 more legitimate claim to sit on the throne of Rurik, but 
 none who inspired such confidence as did Godounov. The 
 latter was unanimously elected to the sovereignty, and only 
 stimulated the popular voice by affecting to hold back from 
 the proffered dignity. On the 21st of February, amid the 1598 
 striking of the 5000 bells of Moskva's many churches, the 
 Patriarch went forth at the head of his clergy, followed by 
 the greater part of the inhabitants of the city, and bearing 
 
 ^ Rambaud. 2 3. Solov'ev, Kostomarov.
 
 266 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the ikon of the Mother of God of Vladimir, towards the 
 monastery of the Virgin ; Godounov met this imposing 
 outpour with another procession, bearing the less celebrated 
 but equally adorable Mother of God of Smolensk. Satisfied 
 of the solidity of his call to the throne, he at length put 
 aside his hesitation and allowed himself to be proclaimed 
 Gosoudar and Tzar of all the Russias. In effect nothing 
 was changed, except that he ruled in name what he had 
 already ruled in fact ; on the other hand, however, if he 
 exchanged the position of Vremenszhik for that of sovereign, 
 he lost the authority which even the weak Thedor had been 
 able to impart to him — the authority of a time-honoured 
 " legend." With the Russians legend and ideal counted for 
 more than an apprenticeship of capable public service, and 
 greater homage was paid to an Orthodox sovereign who hid 
 from the enemy under a haystack than to a voevoda who 
 died fighting superbly for his country. Crueller tortures 
 were inflicted upon brave and blameless men in their midst 
 than any for which sixty generations of Jews were held 
 accursed, yet it was the inflictor and not the victim who was 
 accounted holy, and worthy to sleep beneath the wings of 
 the archangels. Boris, with all his record of past services 
 and recommendation of present ability, with all his benevol- 
 ence and dexterity, could count on nothing more than the 
 makeshift loyalty of his subjects. 
 
 His first action after his election, before even his corona- 
 tion had taken place, was one which bespoke alike vigour 
 and calculation. A rumour, possibly not without some 
 foundation, but such as was current at Moskva every 
 summer, credited the Krim Khan with designs for an im- 
 mediate invasion of Russian territory. Boris did not wait 
 for more exact information, but forthwith assembled from 
 all parts of the gosoudarstvo a splendidly equipped arm>' 
 which was estimated at 500,000 men. This demonstration 
 of potential fighting power and resource not only awed the 
 Khan into good behaviour, but served as a hint to the 
 Swedes and Poles that the new sovereign of Russia, albeit 
 of comparatively humble origin, was not a factor to be
 
 IX THE GREAT BOYARIN 267 
 
 despised in the affairs of North-eastern Europe ; it fulfilled 
 too another purpose, that of bringing the voevodas, boyarins, 
 Tartar vassals, and Kozak hetmans from distant parts of 
 the realm into immediate contact with their new ruler. 
 The development of the quarrel between Sigismund and his 
 uncle Karl, which gradually became a struggle between 
 Poland and Sweden, freed Moskovy from the danger of 
 attack from either power, and had Boris been able to wholly 
 shake off the cautious traditions of his predecessors and 
 enter into aggressive alliance with one or other of the 
 combatants, Riga or Revel might have fallen into his 
 hands and the coveted eye-hole into Europe have been 
 secured. The Tzar, however, clung too faithfully to the old 
 policy which had borne so little fruit. Nothing but sheer 
 force would move the Swedes out of Estland or the Poles 
 out of Livland, and nothing short of compulsion would make 
 the inhabitants of these provinces receive the Russians as 
 saviours ; yet the same blind of a vassal kinglet which had 
 failed disastrously in the case of Magnus was tried again, 
 with a Swedish prince, Gustav (son of the late Erik XIV.), 
 as its figure-head. Gustav created no enthusiasm among 
 the Livlanders — who were not in a position indeed to show 
 any — and ended by inspiring disgust in his patrons at 
 Moskva. It is probable that Boris was merely staying his 
 hand while Poles and Swedes fought out their domestic 
 quarrels, and hoped to profit by the exhaustion which such 
 conflict must necessarily entail by plundering both parties. 
 The opportunity never came. Little by little the sovereign 
 became aware that he was scarcely possessed of the love of 
 the people for whom he had done so much ; the clergy were 
 offended at his suggestion of founding a university, the 
 citizens were aggrieved that he introduced skilled foreigners, 
 who were so badly needed to reorganise the sciences and 
 arts of the country, all classes were scandalised because he 
 shaved off his beard. A terrible famine, caused by inclement 
 weather in the spring and summer of 1601, brought out the 
 good qualities of the Tzar, who disbursed immense sums 
 ungrudgingly among the starving poor, and grappled vigor-
 
 268 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 ously and with partial success against the prevailing scarcity. 
 The people, however, saw in the calamity only the wrath of 
 God against a prince who had caused sacred blood to be 
 shed ; with their eyes strained upwards to the frescoed roofs 
 of their churches they missed the human endeavour and the 
 open-hearted charity which was striving to alleviate their 
 misfortunes. Portents of disaster and bodings of coming 
 trouble succeeded the famine, for the most part of a very 
 understandable nature. Beasts of the chase became scarce 
 in the forests, packs of famished dogs and wolves roamed 
 round the villages, eagles screamed over Moskva, and black 
 foxes were caught about the city, in addition to which, 
 unknown birds and beasts, strange and therefore marvellous, 
 were observed throughout the country. As there had been 
 a general scarcity of vegetation, and as the towns were 
 honeycombed by the hastily-dug graves of those who had 
 died of want — numbering some hundreds of thousands — 
 this sudden invasion of the forest-folk was not inexplicable. 
 It was also said that women and animals gave birth to 
 monsters ; certainly about this time rumour gave birth to 
 extraordinary reports, of more disquieting omen than any 
 of the rest, that Dimitri Ivanovitch had survived the evil 
 designs of his would-be murderers and was yet alive. The 
 people who had credited an irritated Deity with exacting 
 hecatombs of victims for the foul death of a Tzarevitch, were 
 equally prone to believe that the Tzarevitch was not dead, 
 and it only remained for the rumour to take concrete shape 
 for Boris's throne to be seriously imperilled. With the 
 taint of disaffection visible around him, his government 
 began to take a harsher tone. Although never verging upon 
 the savagery of the later Moskovite sovereigns, the clemency 
 of the first years of his reign was laid aside as useless. 
 Bogdan Bielskie, who had earned the hatred of the citizens 
 in the days of the Terrible, now incurred the displeasure of 
 Boris by alleged contumacy ; it was said that his beard was 
 plucked piecemeal from his chin by the Tzar's orders, but 
 beyond this he was only banished to another district more 
 remote than the one he had formerly administered. More
 
 IX THE GREAT BOYARIN 269 
 
 thorough was the swoop upon the Romanov family ; the 
 five sons of the late member of Thedor's Douma, Nikita 
 Romanov, stood high in the public esteem, and stood also 
 very near the throne. An elected prince had some cause to 
 fear the competition of such a powerful and popular family, 
 albeit they were not of Rurikovitch blood. The charge 
 which was suddenly brought against them, of a design to 
 remove the sovereign by means of poison, was probably one 
 of those whispered calumnies which bred freely in the half- 
 Asiatic, wholly mediaeval atmosphere of Moskva. It was 
 nevertheless a convenient excuse for destroying the influence 
 of this dangerous party ; the head of the house, Thedor, 
 was constrained to enter a monastery, where, as the monk 
 Filarete, he seemed safely out of the way. The other 
 brothers underwent more or less rigorous imprisonment 
 (the severities of which were eventually relaxed), while a 
 crowd of allied or sympathetic boyarins were ordered into 
 captivity or received governorships in remote parts of the 
 country. No blood was spilt except incidentally that of 
 serfs and servants, tortured to disclose incriminating in- 
 formation concerning their masters. That the Tzar, who 
 had received his earliest impressions at the Court of Ivan 
 the Terrible, did not act more in the spirit of his times is 
 a circumstance which may stand to his credit, especially 
 when regard is had to the influences which surrounded him. 
 The Moskva of those days was an environment which in 
 itself propagated monstrous and reactionary ideas. Here 
 were to be seen on every hand wretched hovels, " dwelling- 
 places for human beings," dark suspicion-speaking bazaars, 
 crowded rookeries of cramped caravansaries, wide open 
 spaces, bleak and untenanted, chill and massive boyarin 
 palaces, weird and awesome temples ; and in the Kreml 
 itself " violent juxtaposition of the German Gothic style with 
 those of India, of Byzantium, of Italy — the same tangle of 
 edifices, packed one within another like a Chinese puzzle ; 
 the same strange wild orgy of decoration, of form, of colour ; 
 a delirium and fever, a veritable surfeit of plastic fancy. 
 Small rooms, surbased vaulted roofs, gloomy corridors,
 
 270 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, ix 
 
 lamps twinkling out of the darkness, on the walls the lurid 
 <.low of mingled ochres and vermilions, iron bars to every 
 window, armed men at every door ; a swarming population 
 of monks and warriors everywhere." ^ Such was the capital 
 of Russia in the last days of the Rurikovitch dynasty ; such 
 it remained throughout the seventeenth century. 
 
 1 K. Waliszevvski, Peter the Great. 
 
 SLOB 
 
 OF W'^ 
 
 at the close of the Sixteenth 
 
 1. Cathedral of Mikhail the Archangel. 
 
 2. Cathedral of the Assumption (Ouspefiskt). 
 
 3. Spasskie (Saviour) gate. 
 
 4. Nikolai gate. 
 
 5. Neglina gate. 
 
 6. Borovitzkie gate. 
 
 7. The Red Place. 
 
 8-8. Markets and Bazaars. 
 
 River gate. 
 Strietenskie gate. 
 Tverskie gate. 
 Nikolskie gate. 
 Arbatskie gate. 
 Tchertol'skie gale. 
 15. Swannery. 
 
 9- 
 10 
 II. 
 
 12- 
 
 13- 
 14
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PHANTOM TZAR 
 
 In all historical ages men have been found ready to believe 
 in the pretensions of the personators who seem to spring up 
 as the natural aftermath of a vanished dynasty or a quenched 
 idol ; pre-eminently prone to be deluded by such deceptions 
 were the Russians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 Inured by the exactions of their religion to an unquestion- 
 ing faith in the supernatural, incapable from their teaching, 
 as much as from their want of teaching, of forming a critical 
 opinion upon a matter which admitted of doubt, and isolated 
 from their own communities and from the sources of reliable 
 information by vast distances and bad roads, they afforded 
 a fit germinating bed for rumours and frauds of the flimsiest 
 nature. Without proof many of them had accepted the 
 theory that Boris Godounov was responsible for the murder 
 of Dimitri Ivanovitch ; equally without proof they were 
 ready to credit the reports which began to fly about the 
 country during the winter of 1603- 1604 to the effect that 
 the long-mourned Tzarevitch was alive and gathering an 
 army beyond the Lit'uanian border. The explanation which 
 accompanied this story was that Dimitri had been smuggled 
 away from his would-be assassins at Ouglitch and another 
 child had been killed in his stead. The fact that his mother 
 and nurse had shrieked and swooned over his corpse, and 
 that his relatives and the townsfolk who knew him well had 
 had ample opportunity to detect any substitution while the 
 body lay in state awaiting Shouyskie's inquest, does not seem 
 to have been taken into consideration. It was evident, from
 
 272 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 the accumulating reports that kept pouring in, that there 
 was someone in Lit'uania, a tangible being, who claimed to 
 be the veritable Dimitri, and it was also evident that the 
 King of Poland and numbers of the Russ-Lit'uanian princes 
 believed in his identity — or professed to. 
 
 The generally accepted theory among Russian historians 
 as to the true personality of this pretended Ivanovitch is 
 that he was one Grigorie Otrepiev, an enterprising monk, 
 who had thrown off his frock to live a life of liberty among 
 the western Kozaks, Amid the vicissitudes of a self-seeking 
 career, both before and after quitting the cloister, the idea of 
 impersonating the dead Tzarevitch seems to have cropped 
 up from time to time, and finally, having entered the service 
 of a Lit'uanian boyarin, the adventurer, on the pretence of 
 mortal sickness, announced to a priest his identity with 
 Dimitri. The chief evidence in support of his story was the 
 discovery of a jewelled cross on his person, a clue which 
 might have convicted him of sacrilegious pilfering as con- 
 vincingly as of royal parentage. His " discoverers," however, 
 needed little convincing ; the King of Poland, to whom he 
 was exhibited after a somewhat rapid recovery, welcomed 
 him as a useful weapon of offence against Boris ; the Jesuits 
 saw in him an instrument for the advancement of their 
 Church ; and the banished and disgraced Russians with whom 
 he came in contact hailed him as the possible means of 
 restoring them to the state from which they had fallen. 
 Kostomarov, in an exhaustive monograph on the subject, 
 throws doubt on the identity of the false Dimitri with the 
 somewhat nebulous monk Otrepiev, and inclines to the belief 
 that the pretender, whoever he was, was himself convinced 
 of his veritable tzarskie descent.^ 
 
 Whatever the origin and past career of this apparition, 
 he succeeded in the first duty of an impostor, which is to 
 impose. The personal resemblance which he bore to the 
 family to which he claimed to belong does not appear to 
 have been very striking ; the medals and coins afterwards 
 struck for him give his presentment as that of a coarse- 
 
 1 Kto btdl pervie Ljhedimitrie ? S. Petersburg, 1864.
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 273 
 
 featured thick-set man, with a heavy lower-jaw, recalling a 
 Habsburg rather than a Rurikovitch type.^ But with a 
 widely scattered population like that of Russia, rumour, 
 assertion, and hearsay information weighed more than actual 
 facts ; the bulk of the people may not have heen convinced, 
 but many of them were ready to give the Pretender the 
 benefit of the doubt. Besides the unofficial but more or 
 less open support which he received from the Poles, the 
 restless or uneasy spirits on the Russian side of the border 
 hastened to join his standard. The Don Kozaks, impatient 
 of the control of Boris's strong hand, sped gleefully to join 
 a leader in whose ranks were already gathered numbers of 
 their fellow-freebooters from the Dniepr. The Tzar dis- 
 played a calmness which perhaps he did not feel, and con- 
 tented himself at first with an expostulatory message to the 
 King of Poland, and an address, signed by the Patriarch and 
 all the bishops, to their fellow-clergy in Lit'uania, counselling 
 them to withhold their allegiance from the unfrocked monk 
 who was masquerading as a Tzarevitch. While a cross- 
 current of proclamations was being directed from Moskva 
 into Lit'uania and from the grand duchy into White Russia, 
 the adventurer was preparing for bolder measures. Though 
 Sigismund would not openly avow him, his cause had been 
 warmly taken up by Urii Mnishek, Palatine of Sendomir, 
 who supported him with men and money, and promised 
 him, moreover, the hand of his daughter Marina. Boris's 
 attitude of scornful indifference had left the border pro- 
 vince of Sieverski more or less open to an invasion, and 
 in October the " Ljhedimitri " (false-Dimitri) crossed with 1604 
 his little army into Moskovite territory. His audacity was 
 rewarded with a large measure of success. The frontier 
 town of Moravsk opened its gates to the Pretender, and 
 the ancient city of Tchernigov followed the example. 
 Novgorod Sieverski, held for Boris by Petr Basmanov (son 
 of that angel-faced Thedor who came to such a miserable 
 end in the days of Ivan), administered a timely check to the 
 
 ^ A. Karzinkina, medalyakh Tzarya Dimitriya loannovitcha {LJhedimitriya 
 I.) Moskva, 1889. 
 
 T
 
 274 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 invader's progress, but Poutivl and other neighbouring 
 towns went over to the impostor's cause. The Tzar set to 
 work in earnest to stamp out the treason which had gained 
 such an advantageous start, but the armed men who had 
 sprung up at his summons to combat the Tartar Khan did 
 not gather in such numbers to march against the soi-disant 
 Tzarevitch. Nor was the sovereign sure of the fidelity 
 either of the troops raised or of the voevodas who were to 
 command them. Gladly would he have seen Basmanov, the 
 man of his heart, who had already stood " among innumer- 
 able false, unmoved," at the head of the tzarskie forces, but 
 the exigencies of his statecraft required that he should 
 employ the old family chiefs on this critical service. 
 Accordingly kniaz Mstislavskie and kniaz Vasili Shouyskie 
 1604-5 were entrusted with the direction of a winter campaign in 
 the Sieverski Oukrain, which resulted in the Ljhedimitri 
 being driven out of the open field and obliged to take refuge 
 in Poutivl. Deserted by the Palatine of Sendomir and 
 most of the Poles, and unable to count even on the con- 
 tinued adherence of the Kozaks, the bold disputer of the 
 throne of Moskva was indeed in desperate circumstances. 
 But the very despair which animated his followers made 
 them formidable opponents to the Tzar's troops, whose 
 leaders were either incapable of following up their success 
 or unwilling to do so. Instead of making a determined 
 attack on Poutivl and securing the impostor's person, they 
 centred their efforts on the siege of Kromi, a gorodok held 
 by a small Kozak garrison. The satisfaction felt at Moskva 
 at the first successes of the tzarskie arms gradually 
 evaporated as the weeks dragged on without result, and men 
 began to speak significantly of the marvellous escapes and 
 invincible tenacity of the man who claimed to be Dimitri. 
 That the pretender had many adherents in the capital itself 
 was becoming evident, and Boris is credited by the 
 chroniclers with having cut off the tongues of some who 
 were indiscreet enough to voice their sentiments ; a proceed- 
 ing which, though out of keeping with the Tzar's general 
 methods, was too thoroughly akin to Moskovite traditions to
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 275 
 
 be unhesitatingly set down as fable. Boris was, however, 
 wise enough to see that he must stand or fall by Russian 
 disposition alone, and the loyal offer of assistance made him 
 by the Duke of Sudermanland, now King of Sweden, was 
 declined. In possession of the throne and the immense 
 treasure appertaining thereto, enjoying the support of the 
 Hierarchy, feared, if not loved, by the boyarins and voevodas, 
 and held in esteem by the Courts of Austria, England, and 
 Sweden, the Godounov Tzar might well have stood his 
 ground against the doubtful rival whom he had hemmed 
 into a corner of the Sieverski province. Every year that 
 he reigned made people more accustomed to the new 
 dynasty, made them look more naturally to his son Thedor 
 as their future sovereign. If the Ljhedimitri had secret 
 well-wishers at the Court, if there were within the Kreml's 
 precincts men who fancied Boris guilty of reaching the 
 throne by a hidden crime, it was by the same means that 
 they must vanquish him. That such a design existed would 
 not be much to say ; that it was ever put into practice there 
 is no proof History merely records that the Tzar, after 
 transacting business all the morning, dined in the " gilded 
 room " in his palace, and was suddenly stricken with a 
 mysterious malady, of which he died two hours later (13th 
 April 1605). So, working and ruling to the last, passed 
 away the great boyarm, who, with all his faults, gave 
 Russia one of the noblest of her Tzars. His great crime 
 in the eyes of the people who had chosen him to reign over 
 them was that he did not belong to the sacred House of 
 Rurikovitch, but for all his Tartar extraction he was more 
 western in his ideas than any of the sovereigns of Moskovy 
 who had gone before him, and the fifteen-year-old son whom 
 he had educated to succeed him gave promise of being an 
 enlightened and gracious ruler. Since the vaunted Dimitri 
 Donskoi, he was the first Gosoudar who had put himself at 
 the head of an army to meet a Tartar invasion, and Russia 
 was less troubled by Krim inroads during his reign than she 
 had been since the alliance of Ivan III. with Mengli-Girei. 
 As the sorrowing Patriarch escorted his dead friend
 
 276 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 across the Kreml square, awake with the young pulse-life 
 of an April day, into the chill shadows of the beautiful 
 Cathedral of the Archangel, he might know that he was 
 burying more than the corpse of a monarch. With Boris 
 had gone the peace of an empire. 
 
 In all the wide dominions of the gosoudarstvo three 
 centres of interest stood out with a marked prominence : 
 the capital, the camp before Kromi, and the phantom Court 
 at Poutivl. At Moskva, where the oath of allegiance to 
 Thedor Borisovitch was quietly taken, all the symptoms of 
 a minority or regency reasserted themselves. A Douma, 
 which included the old names and in one case a former 
 member, was beckoned into existence. Bogdan Bielskie, the 
 twice-banished, recurred again in the state council, where he 
 should have been able to give valuable information as to the 
 outlying parts of the tzarstvo. Mstislavskie and Vasili and 
 Dimitri Shouyskie were summoned from their commands at 
 Kromi, less perhaps on account of any counsel they might 
 impart to the Tzaritza and her son, than because their 
 withdrawal smoothed the way for Basmanov to take over 
 the command of the army. The latter brought down to the 
 camp the authentic news of the death of Boris, and exacted 
 from the troops an oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. 
 The court at Moskva felt relieved when the voevoda whom 
 Boris had loved, and who had given proof both of his fidelity 
 and ability in the defence of Novgorod-Sieverski, went down 
 to take command of the army of the Oukrain, and they 
 expected to hear of some decisive blow struck at the 
 impostor, some victory which should open the new reign 
 with brilliancy. Instead of which they learned, from the 
 mouths of two fugitive voevodas, that Basmanov, in con- 
 junction with the princes Golitzuin and Saltuikov, had pro- 
 claimed the Ljhedimitri Tzar of Moskovy. How far this 
 was a contemplated move, how far it was a sudden decision, 
 born of a discovery of widespread defection among the 
 troops, it is impossible to say. The effect was enormous, 
 and revolutionised the whole struggle. The long besieged 
 Kozak troop in Kromi found themselves suddenly hailed as
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 277 
 
 allies by the men who had for months been working to en- 
 compass their destruction, and the bold adventurer of Poutivl 
 was able to come out of his retreat, and put himself at the 
 head of the army that was to conduct him in triumph to 
 Moskva. The news of these events had stirred all classes 
 in the white-built city ; the people left their occupations to 
 gather in agitated crowds on the great square between the 
 Kitai-gorod and the Kreml, and everywhere was heard the 
 name Dimitri. The man who wore that name was march- 
 ing with the tzarskie army, led by the ablest voevodas of 
 the state, under the banner of the two-headed eagle and 
 St. George the Conqueror. His proclamations were daily 
 smuggled into the city and daily the popular voice turned 
 in his favour. The strielitz and body-guard were becoming 
 less and less in evidence around the Kreml, the members of 
 the Douma were coldly received, the Patriarch dared not 
 show himself, even in the sacred vestments of his office, and 
 could only shed tears of bitter mortification in the shelter of 
 his palace. With the first day of June came the fore- 
 runners 'of the claimant Tzar to the Krasno selo (red, or 
 beautiful village), where dwelt the rich merchants and trades- 
 men, a class which had never been well affected towards the 
 Godounov interest ; the Pretender was enthusiastically pro- 
 claimed, and his adherents streamed into unguarded Moskva, 
 shouting the magic name of Dimitri Ivanovitch. The 
 multitude of the city rose in response to the cry, and 
 clamouring crowds, giving vent to their restrained feelings, 
 burst armed and angry and thousand -throated into the 
 undefended Kreml. Boris had asked his subjects to bring 
 him the Ljhedimitri alive or dead. They were bringing him 
 in alive. 
 
 The first acts of the aroused Moskvitchi were com- 
 paratively moderate. The Tzaritza - mother, the young 
 Thedor, and his sister were removed from the palace and 
 held prisoners in the private mansion of the Godounovs, and 
 a clean sweep was made of the relatives and adherents of 
 the fallen House, who were imprisoned or carried off to 
 distant parts of the gosoudarstvo. For the rest, the people
 
 278 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 celebrated the upheaval by getting universally intoxicated, 
 and to the wild fury of the day succeeded a night of 
 stupefied repose. The revolution, however, was yet to claim 
 its victims ; while the new sovereign was still halting at 
 Toula his enemies were forcibly removed from his path. 
 The Patriarch was dragged from before the altar of the 
 Cathedral of the Assumption and dispoiled of his robes and 
 office, and a few days later a report was circulated that 
 Thedor and his mother had poisoned themselves. Their 
 bodies, exposed to the public view, bore traces of violence, 
 and it was said that they had been strangled by some 
 strielitz at the command of the voevoda Golitzuin.^ What 
 hand, if any, the Pretender had in the matter there is 
 nothing to show. Thus ended a dynasty which eight weeks 
 previously had seemed in assured possession of the throne. 
 On the 20th of June, amid the resounding of myriad bells 
 and the hoarse shouting of the people who lined streets, and 
 roofs, and campaniles, the Phantom rode into the city of his 
 endeavours, with a crashing of trumpets and kettle-drums, 
 with a glittering retinue of Polish cavalry, German guards, 
 Kozaks and strielitz. The long lost Dimitri, as his subjects 
 fondly imagined him, made solemn obeisance at the tomb 
 where the dread Ivan slept, and incidentally ordered the 
 remains of the usurper Boris to be removed to a less 
 hallowed resting-place. A cross-current of coffins and 
 persons journeyed to and from the centre-point of Moskovite 
 life ; Nagois and Romanovs, living and defunct, came in 
 from their monasteries or lonely graves to dwell or decom- 
 pose in the favoured places of the Kreml, while the 
 Godounov connections and Vremenszhiki went, literally, out 
 into the cold ; that is to say, to Perm and Sibiria. Vasili 
 Shouyskie, the man who had conducted the inquest on the 
 murdered Tzarevitch, had the indiscretion to recall this 
 circumstance to the minds of a people gone wild with 
 enthusiasm. His reminiscences were not interesting to the 
 Tzar, who had him promptly arrested. He was interrogated, 
 probably with the accompaniment of torture, and condemned, 
 
 ^ S. Solov'ev, Karamzin.
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 279 
 
 by a council of boyarins and citizens, to death. While his 
 head was actually awaiting the axe-stroke a dramatically 
 timed reprieve stopped the execution of the sentence, which 
 was commuted to one of banishment. The people, with 
 whom the Shouyskie family were more or less popular, 
 might appreciate the sovereign's clemency, but it did not 
 strengthen their conviction that he was the son of the 
 terrible Ivan. A new Patriarch was elected, Ignacie, a 
 Greek, once Archbishop of Cyprus, from which see he had 
 been driven by the Turks, since Archbishop of Riazan ; he 
 had been one of the first of the Vladuikas to recognise the 
 adventurer as Tzar. There remained one more step towards 
 establishing his identity, which, though of slight historical 
 value, it was important that the Pretender should take. 
 Mariya Nagoi, seventh wife of Ivan IV., was still living, and 
 her testimony was naturally called for as to the authenticity 
 of the person who posed as her son. In the middle of July 
 the ex-Tzaritza was summoned from the convent that had 
 been her prison for so many years, and was met at Tayninsk, 
 a village near Moskva, by the man who claimed her as 
 mother ; whom, after a private interview, she publicly 
 acknowledged as the true Dimitri. After thirty years of 
 banishment and disgrace, half of which had been spent in 
 cloistered seclusion, the relict might well have considered 
 that it was a wise mother that knew her own child in the 
 person of a reigning and popular sovereign. The very fact 
 that his imposture had overturned her hated enemies, the 
 Godounovs, would have gone far to soothe any possible 
 scruples. It is significant that after her testimony the 
 " Otrepiev " theory, first put forward by the Patriarch in the 
 reign of Boris, began to gain ground in the capital. The 
 people who had feared to oppose a forlorn and desperate 
 pretender, from an idea that he might be the genuine heir of 
 the Rurikovitches, were not comfortable at seeing him on 
 the sacred throne of Monomachus, from a suspicion that he 
 might not be. 
 
 Firmly established at the Kreml, after a campaign of 
 almost unexampled good fortune, the new Sovereign com-
 
 28o THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 menced to display characteristics disconcerting alike to his 
 subjects and to future students of his personality. His 
 idiosyncrasies were not those of the House whose scion he 
 professed to be, but neither were they those of a partially- 
 educated adventurer. The boyarins of the leading families 
 of Moskva, encased in the complacent conceit of ignorance, 
 were aghast at being told by this newly-appeared Gosoudar 
 that their great need was schooling. Boris had talked of 
 colleges as a desirability ; Dimitri spoke of them as urgent 
 necessities. For their part the boyarins were of opinion that 
 the Tzar himself had much to learn in the way of conform- 
 ing with the manners and customs of the Moskovites. His 
 behaviour was a growing source of scandal to his Orthodox 
 subjects ; his hair was not dressed in the Russian fashion ; 
 he never slept after dinner ; he sat down to dine to the 
 sound of music instead of prayer ; and he ate veal. He 
 drilled his soldiers himself — a thing which no Moskovite 
 sovereign had ever done — and he slew bears with his own 
 hand instead of seeing them killed from a safe distance. 
 The precedent of David, King of Israel, might have been 
 quoted in extenuation of this unbecoming hardihood, but 
 nothing could excuse the erection of a statue of Cerberus in 
 front of the Tzar's pleasure-house in the Kreml, a locality 
 hitherto graced only with the representations of Bogoro- 
 ditzas, or at most a saint-mastered dragon. The clergy 
 were offended by the scant consideration with which they 
 were treated, by the toleration shown to Catholics and 
 Lutherans, and above all by a disposition which Dimitri 
 showed to divert some of the hoarded wealth of the monas- 
 teries to the public treasury. The strielitz were piqued by 
 the open acknowledgment which the Tzar made of the 
 superior merits of the foreign soldiery, the boyarins resented 
 the subordinate part they were compelled to play at the 
 Court of this man of new and unpalatable ideas. All this 
 gives a glimpse of a strong personality, an enlightened mind, 
 healthily contemptuous of the foibles and superstitions with 
 which it came in contact, and a vigorous faculty for reform 
 and organisation. A rare character in the long list of
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 281 
 
 Moskovite sovereigns. Such a one recurs some ninety years 
 later and creates a new Russia. The Ljhedimitri, himself a 
 man of straw, appears to have tried to cram into a few 
 months the patient efforts of a lifetime. Probably the fact 
 was that the extraordinary^ facility with which his enterprise 
 had been carried to a triumphant conclusion gave him a 
 false idea of his own powers and of the dispositions of the 
 Russians. In one respect only do his transactions approach, 
 at one and the same time, to the childish arrogance of the 
 legitimate Moskovite Sovereigns and the petulant vanity 
 which might be expected of a mushroom monarch , not 
 only did he demand from the Pope and the King of Poland 
 the acknowledgment of the old disputed title of Tzar, but 
 he further stipulated for the style of Caesar (Kesar), an 
 innovation of his own devising. It is possible that this 
 solemn trifle, which threatened to interrupt his good under- 
 standing with Rome and the Holy See, was really intro- 
 duced for that purpose, in order to get rid of allies who 
 were likely, now that he had attained his ambitious object, 
 to become inconvenient. That he had, from conviction or 
 policy, privately entered the Catholic Church during the 
 days of his pretendership seems fairly evident ; that it was 
 not expedient to carry the matter farther will be readily 
 comprehended. The Jesuit Father, Pierling, in an historical 
 disquisition on the subject, combats the assertion of the 
 Russian writers that the Ljhedimitri was " invented " or first 
 brought forward by the Society of Jesus, the Nuncio in 
 Poland, or any agent of the Pope.^ Certainly there is no 
 evidence on which to rest such a charge, which probabh- had 
 its origin in inter-Christian jealousy. The fairest and most 
 reasonable conclusion is that the Jesuits, Ragoni, and the 
 Holy See, allowed themselves to be somewhat easily per- 
 suaded of the legitimacy of the claims of a pretender who 
 might render splendid services to their Church. Rome had 
 ever been dazzled with the hope of bringing the Russian 
 Communion into her maternal embrace, and the prospect 
 was the more alluring now that her spiritual dominion had 
 
 1 Le pere Pierling, Rome et Demetrius.
 
 282 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 been shorn and abbreviated by the Protestant heresy in the 
 north of Europe, and by the Mohametan encroachments in 
 the south-east. At the same time it should be borne in 
 mind that the evidence on which the Cathohcs and Poles 
 grounded their ostensible faith in the Ljhedimitri was sub- 
 stantially the same as that which imposed upon the whole 
 of Russia. The zeal of a convert — and a pensioner — showed 
 a considerable abatement when the adventurer was safely 
 transformed into Tzar, and Dimitri evinced no disinclination 
 to continuing bowing down in the house of Rimmon for the 
 rest of his life. The Poles who still hung about his person 
 were permitted to worship freely after their own fashion, and 
 to penetrate into the sacred places of Moskovite Orthodoxy ; 
 but when sounded on the subject of establishing the Latin 
 faith the Tzar talked evasively of educating his subjects and 
 of initiating a war against the Sultan, objects nearer his 
 heart than a revolution of dogmas. If a contemptuous 
 clemency could have inspired the Moskvitchi with affection 
 for a veal-eating sovereign, the False Dimitri would not have 
 lacked popularity. Vasili Shouyskie and his two brothers 
 were recalled from their disgrace and banishment, and the 
 former was admitted into the Council of the Tzar. The 
 axe and the gibbet had a long rest, and the monarch hunted 
 bears instead of boyarins. Dimitri might have strengthened 
 his position and gained time to live down the prejudices of 
 his subjects by effecting a prudent marriage ; by allying 
 himself with the Romanov or even the Shouyskie family he 
 would have created a party for himself among the nobles 
 and have secured an incontestable link with the line of 
 Rurik, either by remote descent or recent connection. For 
 some reason of his own he was bent on fulfilling his be- 
 trothal vow to Marina Mnishek, and such was his impatience 
 to see his bride at Moskva, sharing his throne, that the 
 Palatine, her father, was able to exact considerable sums of 
 money and concessions on the question of the future 
 May 1606 Tzaritza's religious liberty (she was a Catholic), before 
 escorting her to her expectant husband. The arrival at the 
 capital of the Polish maiden, attended by her father and a
 
 THE PHANTOM TZAR 283 
 
 following of some 2000 persons, together with an embassy 
 from King Sigismund, did not inspire the citizens with any 
 greater affection for their monarch, already tainted in their 
 eyes with partiality for foreign customs and alien faiths. 
 The bride made her state entry in a carriage decorated with 
 silver eagles and drawn by ten pied horses. The tzarskie 
 troops, in red coats with white cross-belts, were drawn up to 
 receive her ; cannon, bells, drums and trumpets, sounded a 
 welcome ; only the people kept an ominous silence. It was 
 noted with disapproval that as she entered the Kreml 
 through the Saviour Gate, a portal usually crossed with deep 
 obeisance, the Polish band crashed out their national air, 
 " For ever in weal as in woe." The wedding and coronation 
 festivities were carried on with a lavish display and open- 
 handed conviviality seldom seen before in Moskva, but they 
 were not preceded by the elaborate religious ceremonials by 
 which the Grand Princes of yore had been wont to " purify " 
 any consort they took from un- Orthodox lands. The 
 woman who now shared the throne of INIonomachus was a 
 Pole and a Latin ; as for the Tzar, no one knew what or 
 who he was — except perhaps Mariya Nogai. The popular 
 discontent had found a rallying-point in the Shouyskie 
 zamok ; 'Dimitri had pardoned Vasili Shouyskie, the latter 
 had never forgiven 'Dimitri. Before the arrival of the 
 bridal foreigners the boyarin had set in movement the con- 
 spiracy which was intended to hurl the impostor from his 
 mis-gotten throne. The plot was a wide-reaching one and 
 could scarcely be kept from the Tzar's knowledge, but the 
 newly-wedded monarch, strong in contemptuous security 
 and engrossed in feasting and music, paid scant notice to 
 the warnings which he received from spies or the croaking 
 of his guests as to the temper of the people. The 1 8th of 
 May he had fixed for a sham battle around a specially con- 
 structed wooden fortress; in the early hours of the 17th 
 his subjects gave him a display of a less make-believe 
 nature. Besides the accumulated dislike for the Tzar and 
 all his ways, the Poles who had flocked in such numbers to 
 the marriage festival of Marina Mnishek gave bitter offence
 
 284 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 to the Moskvitchi by their haughty and irreverent bearing. 
 It was the old history of Kiev repeating itself. The 
 Russians chafed to see the Kreml of their cherished capital, 
 the Holy of Holies of the Moskovite nation, overrun by 
 swaggering Poles and lawless Kozaks, and the hour of 
 vengeance was eagerly awaited by all classes. On the night 
 of the 1 6th the strangers and the Tzar's household, weary 
 with wine and revelry, sought unsuspectingly their ac- 
 customed couches ; otherwise " no one slept that night in 
 Moskva." As the sun's first rays touched on the gilded 
 cupolas an alarm bell clanged out from a church ; another 
 and another took up the signal, till all over the watching 
 city the warnings resounded. The noise penetrated into the 
 Kreml and roused the Tzar from his bed ; the body-guard 
 hazarded the explanation that a fire had broken out, and 
 the Ljhedimitri returned to his chamber. But soon above 
 the clanging was heard the angry yelling of a blood-seeking 
 multitude, and Basmanov, who since his celebrated desertion 
 of the Godounovs had remained true to his adopted master, 
 burst in upon the startled Tzar and warned him to fly. 
 The voevoda himself faced the clamouring crowd on the 
 palace staircase and sank beneath a shower of murderous 
 blows. The Ljhedimitri, hunted through his apartments, 
 jumped or was thrown from an upper window and lay 
 broken and senseless in a courtyard. His bleeding corpse, 
 seized by some strielitz, was borne into a chamber where 
 his principal boyarin enemies gathered round ; for a few 
 short moments he returned to a consciousness of agony from 
 broken limbs, saw pitiless scowling faces around him, heard 
 taunts and abuse from angry throats ; then bullets and 
 sword -thrusts closed his last audience. His body was 
 dragged with ropes out through the Saviour Gate, to the 
 striking of the same bells that had welcomed his state entry 
 eleven months ago, and haled to the convent of the Ascen- 
 sion, where dwelt the pseudo-mother Mariya. The corpse 
 might well have been beyond recognition, but to the insist- 
 ence of the boyarins the old Tzaritza declared that the 
 Ljhedimitri was not her son — a recantation as worthy of
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 285 
 
 belief as the former avowal, and nothing more. The carrion 
 that yesterday had been Tzar of all the Russias was dragged 
 back to the Red Place, where, naked and with a ribald mask 
 on its face, it was exposed for three days. At its broken 
 feet lay the corpse of the voevoda who had been faithful to 
 the death. " They loved each other in life ; let them be 
 together now." So passed the Phantom Tzar from the 
 throne he had so strangely haunted ; phantom still, even 
 when his dishonoured body had been flung into an un- 
 hallowed grave beyond the city walls, in " the house of the 
 wretched," a waste-land where outcasts were buried. Here, 
 it was rumoured, mysterious fires were seen at night. The 
 boyarins wished to be troubled with no further resurrections ; 
 the corpse was dug up and burned, and the ashes, mingled 
 with gunpowder, blown to the winds from a cannon.^ But 
 not thus even could they get rid of the spirit of the impostor 
 whom they had crowned and anointed. Already, before his 
 downfall, new spectres had started up in various quarters, 
 following on the same lines. From Poland had come a 
 fable that Boris had deluded the Moskvitchi with a sham 
 death and interment and had fled to England disguised as a 
 merchant. A more substantial fraud was that of a false 
 Petr, a supposed son of Thedor Ivanovitch, who was actually 
 carrying on a war of petty depredation at the head of some 
 Volga Kozaks. With a people so easily deluded the ghost 
 of the " child of Ouglitch " would not be easily laid. 
 
 Kostomarov's question, " Who was the first false Dimitri ?" 
 is one of those problems of history that seem to become 
 more tangled and unsolvable the more light is brought to 
 bear on them. A careful study of the circumstances and 
 nature of his career, while leading to a strong conviction that 
 he was not Dimitri Ivanovitch, equally disturbs the theory 
 that he was Grigorie Otrepiev. The man who showed him- 
 self alike indifferent to the Greek and Latin cults, w^ho would 
 not cross himself before the adored ikons — the real Dimitri 
 would have prostrated himself before them, if heredity and 
 early education go for anything — who, moreover, was 
 ^ S. Solov'ev ; Kostomarov ; Le pere Pierling ; V. N., Iz Istorie Moskvui.
 
 286 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 earnestly concerned for the education and welfare of his 
 people ; who strove by personal effort to raise the fighting 
 value of the deplorably slack Moskovite army, and who 
 restored the old boast of Monomachus, never to leave to 
 subordinates what might be done by himself, above the effete 
 Byzantine-borrowed etiquette of the later Russian Gosoudars ; 
 who, in the midst of feasting and rejoicing was steadily pre- 
 paring for an attack on the Sultan, and who treated his 
 private enemies with clemency and even distinction ; the 
 man who displayed all these qualities in the course of a few 
 months was assuredly not a Rurikovitch, nor was he an 
 adventurer who had received his education only in a Mosko- 
 vite monastery, who had seen life only in a Kozak camp. 
 That he was really an instrument in the hands of the Jesuits, 
 nursed and educated for the purpose which he was afterwards 
 called upon to fulfil, necessitates not only a much greater 
 intimacy with Russian affairs than that body are known to 
 have possessed, but also a foreknowledge on their part of the 
 course those affairs were likely to take under the Godounov 
 dynasty. Such pretenders are not made in a day. Each 
 supposition takes the inquiry no farther than the starting- 
 point — who was the first false Dimitri ? And here it must 
 be left. Russian historians of the Orthodox Faith at least 
 are able to say with absolute conviction that the Tzar of 
 1605-6 was not the real Dimitri, for the latter was beatified 
 by the Church, and many miracles were performed at his 
 reputed tomb. If the supposed impostor were proved to be 
 identical with the veritable Ivanovitch, a new and embarrass- 
 ing dilemma would arise. The history of the career of the 
 Ljhedimitri is instructive as to the slender evidence on which 
 whole peoples will base their implicit belief in a resuscitation, 
 or even in a resurrection. Such beliefs have lived again and 
 again in human history ; some are living yet. Ljhedimitries, 
 false Pucelles, Perkin Warbecks, missing Archdukes, and 
 others that need not be mentioned, have their perennial 
 Easter in the credulity of mankind. 
 
 The catastrophe which had overtaken the impostor-Tzar 
 included in its scope the foreign guests who were partly
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 287 
 
 responsible for the outbreak. The massacre commenced 
 with Dimitri's musicians and servants in the Kreml and 
 extended to the lodgings of the Poles and Lit'uanians in the 
 Kitai- and Biel-gorod. For seven hours the church-bells 
 dinned out their vibrating war-music, and tumultuous crowds 
 of citizens and strielitz put to death such of the foreigners 
 as were unable to defend themselves. Well to the fore in 
 the work of butchery were the priests and monks, who turned 
 the occasion of the Marina marriage into a S. Bartholomew 
 of their own, hunting down with zealous rage the " enemies 
 of their religion." ^ The houses of the Palatine and of some 
 of the other Polish nobles were vigorously defended by their 
 retainers, who fired from the windows upon their assailants. 
 Vasili Shouyskie (who had led the first rush into the Kreml, 
 crucifix in one hand, sword in another), and other boyarins 
 rode about the streets endeavouring to calm the tempest they 
 had raised, and were able to save Mnishek, the Tzaritza, the 
 ambassadors, and those of the Poles who had been successful 
 in defending their thresholds. The bells were quieted, and 
 the people dispersed to their homes, or vented their smould- 
 ering rage in mutilating the figure on the Red Place. 
 
 With the disappearance of the Ljhedimitri the Moskovites 
 were again confronted with an interregnum, and on this 
 occasion there was no one very obviously marked out to fill 
 the vacant throne. By a process of exhaustion they fixed 
 on the Rurik-descended kniaz who had offered the most deter- 
 mined opposition to the impostor, and who had engineered 
 the revolution which had brought about his overthrow. 
 Vasili Ivanovitch Shouyskie, a man of mediocre talents, 
 widowed and past his prime, was scarcely a promising per- 
 sonality with whom to start a new dynasty, and the election 
 of a sovereign of such an obviously stop-gap nature almost 
 invited new intrigues and new apparitions. Prudence sug- 
 gested at least a recourse to a national assembly, such as 
 that which had elected Boris, but Shouyskie preferred to take 
 the tide of his fortune at its flood, and was content to receive 
 the crown of all the Russias from the hands of the boyarins, 
 
 1 Karamzin.
 
 2g8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 clergy, and merchants of Moskva. Nor was this the only 
 error he committed in the impatience for power to which old 
 men are especially liable. The trail of Polish influence made 
 itself visible even in the electoral gathering of the nobles and 
 citizens who had just entered a blood-drenched protest against 
 all that pertained to the West-Slavonic state. An oath was 
 exacted from Vasili to the effect that he would swear to 
 govern in consultation with the boyarins, and to put no one 
 to death without their consent ; that he would listen to no 
 false denunciators ; and that he would not confiscate the 
 lands, goods, shops or houses, of the relatives of condemned 
 offenders.^ This concession, the first step towards the Pacta 
 conventa of Poland, was an innovation which shook men's 
 ideas of the sacred nature of the sovereign, and reduced the 
 new Tzar more than ever to the position of a make-shift 
 ruler, the mere head of a boyarin douma. Without waiting 
 for the consecration of a new Patriarch (the Russian Primates 
 regularly toppled over and disappeared in the political earth- 
 quakes which engulfed their temporal masters), Vasili's 
 coronation was solemnised on the 1st of June, the earliest 
 date by which the corpses of the victims of the late massacre 
 could be cleared out of the city. The first act of the new 
 reign w-as one of nervous ostentation ; the remains of the 
 genuine Dimitri were solemnly transported from Ouglitch to 
 the Kreml of Moskva, where they were reinterred in the 
 Cathedral of the Archangel. Here, in this sacred environ- 
 ment, under the eye of the Tzar, it was hoped that this 
 troublesome Ivanovitch would sleep in peace and cease to 
 haunt the throne which should have been his heritage. The 
 revolution was completed by the election of Hermogen, 
 Metropolitan of Kazan, to the Patriarchate, the new head of 
 the Church being a bitter opponent of all that savoured of 
 foreign heresy. Surrounded by courtiers who had not had 
 time to develop disaffection, by complaisant priests and 
 heavily-armed strielitz, encompassed on all sides by the 
 stately and sanctified buildings of the Kreml, and breathing 
 an atmosphere laden with the exhalations of centuries of 
 
 1 Kostomarov.
 
 THE PHANTOM TZAR 289 
 
 accumulated homage rendered to saints and sovereigns, 
 Vasili may have fancied himself, in fact as well as title. Tzar 
 of all the wide Russias. But throughout the hot days of 
 July and August, when the sun blazed on the white and gold 
 cupolas, and the dogs slunk about with lolling tongues in the 
 shady bazaars of the Kitai-gorod, and frogs croaked dismally 
 from the steamy marshes of the Neglina, dust-coated mes- 
 sengers kept pouring in to the Tzar's paradise, by the Saviour 
 and Nikolai Gates, with tidings of trouble and unrest through- 
 out the land. From the Sieverski country, from Toula, 
 Kalouga, from the camp at Eletz, from the Volga valley, and 
 from far Astrakhan came reports of sedition and open rebellion, 
 and the burden of each report was the magic name Dimitri. 
 It almost seemed as if, in scattering the ashes of the impostor 
 to the winds, his undertakers had sown a crop of phantoms 
 which was now springing up in all directions. The most per- 
 sistent rumour was that Dimitri had escaped once again from 
 the hands of his would-be murderers and had fled into Poland, 
 another man having been killed in his stead ; the Moskvitchi 
 instantly recalled the fact that the face of the corpse so 
 ostentatiously exposed on the Red Place had been covered 
 by a mask. Another widely-circulated version invented a 
 new Dimitri who had only just emerged from the obscurity 
 of his exile and claimed the throne as the real child of 
 Ouglitch. Nowhere at the outset was there even the 
 foundation of a pretender round whom these legends might 
 crystallise ; he existed as yet only in the popular imagina- 
 tion. The first impostor had created the belief in a romantic- 
 ally restored Dimitri; the belief now called for another 
 impostor. Several princes and boyarins of the lesser rank 
 (styled dieti-boyarins, literally " children-boyarins ") took up 
 arms in support of what was more than ever a phantom, but 
 the most formidable of the war-brands which blazed out at 
 this time was remarkable for belonging to a class which had 
 supplied few men of note to Russian history. Bolotnikov, 
 who claimed to have seen the real Dimitri in Poland and to 
 have been appointed his lieutenant, was a serf who had been 
 carried off in one of the Tartar raids by which South Russia 
 
 u
 
 290 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE cha?: 
 
 was periodically drained of her already sparse population, 
 and had continued his life of toil in a Turkish galley. 
 Obtaining his liberty, he had wandered back to his native 
 country, to reappear, like a trouble-scenting beast of prey, in 
 the hour of mischief and calamity. His real purpose, which 
 underlay the Dimitri agitation, was to inaugurate a peasant 
 rebellion, and if an apprenticeship of hardship and suffering 
 were any qualification for the championship of a down-trodden 
 class, the enterprise was in good hands. The sedition of 
 the voevodas and their military followings, the loosening 
 of the central authority over the provincial kniazes and 
 boyarins, and the open door which the general dislocation 
 offered to the free-lances and Kozaks of the borders, swelled 
 the insurrection to alarming dimensions. As in the long 
 struggle of the Fronde which distressed France in the same 
 century, it was difficult to say what each particular band-in- 
 arms was fighting for. The very vagueness of the threatened 
 danger added to its alarm, and the waning of the year, 
 instead of dispersing the insurgent army which had gathered 
 round Bolotnikov, impelled it towards Moskva. Towns and 
 gorodoks surrendered to the ex-serf as they had done before 
 to the reputed ex-priest, and the rebels reached the village 
 of Kolomensk on the 2nd December. But the ambitious 
 nobles who had thrown in their lot with the peasant leader 
 saw no prospect of seizing or holding the capital on the 
 strength of an empty name, the shadow of a shadow, nor 
 did they propose to install a serf and sometime galley-slave 
 on the throne of Monomachus. Several flitted away from 
 the insurgent camp, and the young voevoda Mikhail Skopin- 
 Shouyskie defeated and dispersed the diminished company 
 of rebels, whose leader fled to Kalouga. Relieved from the 
 onslaught which had threatened to overturn his throne, 
 1607 Vasili was able to celebrate Christmas in his capital, and the 
 New Year was marked by another of the coffin-movings 
 which accompanied every change in the dynasty, and were 
 characteristic of a period when the dead seemed to share the 
 restlessness of the living. This time it was the remains of 
 Boris, his wife, and Thedor II. which were conducted to the
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 291 
 
 Troitza monastery, possibly as a guarantee against inconven- 
 ient reappearances — a precaution certainly not uncalled for. 
 Bolotnikov meanwhile had gathered fresh adherents and 
 joined his forces to those of the pretended Tzarevitch Petr, 
 who brought a large following of Don and Volga Kozaks. 
 The Tzar marched against this new rival in person, at the 
 head of an army of 100,000 men, and drove the rebels into 
 Toula. Bolotnikov, seeing the hopelessness of the struggle 
 under existing circumstances, sent a courier to the Palatine 
 of Sendomir, urging the immediate production of a flesh- 
 and- blood Dimitri, without whom all was lost.^ The pre- 
 cedent of Kromi, however, was not repeated, and in October 
 the besieged leaders of the revolt, Bolotnikov, the " Ljhepetr," 
 and two or three boyarins who had continued staunch to 
 the movement, surrendered the fortress on the condition 
 that their lives should be spared. The holy and Orthodox 
 Tzar crowned his victory by inflicting a signal chastisement 
 on his too confiding enemies. Bolotnikov had his eyes 
 struck out and was then drowned, a fit climax to his career ; 
 the pretended Tzarevitch was hung, and hundreds of his 
 followers flung into the river. The boyarins escaped with 
 lesser punishments. Vasili returned to Moskva " in triumph." 
 But the demolition of one pretender seemed to make way 
 for a whole crop of dragon-heads ; on all sides sprang up 
 self-styled heirs of the vanished line of Moskva. One was 
 a pretended son of Ivan Groznie, another of the murdered 
 Ivan Ivanovitch, while in the Oukrain alone no fewer than 
 eight apparitions disputed the parentage of the saintly 
 Thedor Ivanovitch.^ It was as though a whole baby-farm 
 of tzarskie foundlings and unacknowledged offspring had 
 suddenly come to maturity and public notice. But more 
 formidable than any of these shadowy claimants, there ap- 
 peared in the spring of 1608, in the Sieverski land, the long- 
 demanded Dimitri — Ljhedimitri 11. of Russian historians. 
 Who this man was is as deep a mystery as the origin of his 
 forerunner, but his claims received almost as ready a recog- 
 nition. His following of Dniepr Kozaks and Polish adven- 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev. 2 Kostomarov.
 
 292 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 turers was swelled daily by desertions from the Moskovite 
 soldiery, and town after town proclaimed him. He ad- 
 vanced as far as Toushin, a village twelve verstas from the 
 capital, where he pitched his camp, which instantly became 
 a rallying -point for all the disaffected and intractable 
 elements which the period of troubles had called forth. 
 Among other birds of sinister omen who made their appear- 
 ance at the impostor's improvised Court were the Palatine 
 Mnishek and his daughter, widow of the first Ljhedimitri, 
 and though there was little outward resemblance between the 
 two men, the new pretender was publicly " recognised " by 
 Marina as her husband. 
 
 The Moskovites by this time had lost their first en- 
 thusiasm for romantically restored Tzarevitches and took 
 their revolutions more soberly. The tide of success carried 
 the Ljhedimitri no farther than Toushin ; in Moskva itself 
 there was no popular upheaval such as that which swept 
 the first pretender into the Kreml over the ruins of the 
 Godounov dynasty. On the other hand there was as little 
 enthusiasm for the cause of the Tzar, who inspired none of 
 the reverence and affection which the people had been wont 
 to lavish on their legitimate hereditary sovereigns. The 
 mutual weakness of the rivals led to an extraordinary 
 situation ; the Tzar of Moskva dared not march against the 
 " thief of Toushin," and the pretended Dimitri dared not 
 march against the " usurper." Russia was divided by two 
 Gosoudars whose antagonistic Courts were pitched within a 
 few miles of each other. Many of the Moskovite upper 
 class, hovering in their allegiance, flitted to and fro between 
 Toushin and the Kreml, paying their respects to both Tzars 
 and gathering favours and presents from both masters — a 
 course of action which earned for them the designation of 
 " per61eti " (birds of passage). The merchant folk of the 
 capital pursued a similar policy, and finding a better market 
 for their goods among the free-spending camp-dwellers at 
 Toushin, almost depleted the city of its necessary supplies, 
 a state of things further aggravated by the fact that the 
 rebels held the roads to the rich corn-province of Riazan.
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 293 
 
 Beyond the fiat meadows of the Moskva valley the contest 
 was waged more briskly ; despite Sigismund's solemn assur- 
 ances of a strictly enforced neutrality, numbers of Poles 
 flocked to the adventurer's service, among them the voevoda 
 Sapieha, already distinguished by his military exploits in 
 Transylvania and Sweden. The rapidly moving Kozak and 
 Polish troops of the Pretender's army outmatched in activity 
 the heavily-armed and, for the most part, slackly-led forces 
 of Vasili. In the north-eastern province town after town 
 fell into the hands of the " Toushinists " ; Souzdal, Vladimir, 
 and Per6yaslavl opened their gates or were captured after 
 a perfunctory resistance ; Rostov, where resided Filarete 
 Romanov, raised to the dignity of Metropolitan of that town 
 by the first 'Dimitri, made a bolder stand against the 
 conquerors. Defeated in battle outside the walls, the 
 garrison and citizens defended their ramparts for three hours, 
 and when finally overpowered took refuge with Romanov 
 in the cathedral. The town submitted to the impostor's 
 voevodas, and the Metropolitan was dragged from his 
 sanctuary and conducted with indignity to Toushin, where 
 not martyrdom but preferment awaited him. Out of con- 
 sideration for Filarete's kinship with his " late half-brother " 
 (the Tzar Thedor I.), the 'Dimitri proclaimed his captive 
 Patriarch of Moskva and of all Russia.^ 
 
 Unable to attempt a direct attack upon the capital, the 
 pretender endeavoured to possess himself of the Troitza 
 lavra. The accumulated wealth of this famous monastery, 
 which had risen like a celestial city on the site of the lonely 
 cell from which S. Sergie had watched the beavers playing, 
 necessitated safe keeping. High walls and strongly fortified 
 towers and gates peeped out from amid the thickly growing 
 trees, and spoke defiance to Tartar raiders and plundering 
 bands of freebooters. They were now called upon to with- 
 stand an organised siege from the batteries of the False 
 Dimitri. In anticipation of the threatened attack two 
 voevodas and a detachment of soldiers were dispatched from 
 Moskva to the assistance of the monks, who numbered 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev.
 
 294 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 scarcely more than 300 brothers ; the monastery servants 
 and peasants from the neighbouring villages brought the 
 effective of the defenders to 2500. At the end of September 
 1608 a force of 30,000 men, Poles, Russians, Tartars, 
 Kozaks, and Tcherkesses, led by Sapieha and Lisovski, 
 invested this secluded haven of peace and piety, which was 
 suddenly transformed into a beleaguered fortress. The balls 
 from ninety heavy cannon crashed incessantly against the 
 walls and towers, which " shivered, but did not fall " ; mines 
 and assaults alike were fruitless, and the siege dragged on 
 month after month. The monks fought as vigorously as 
 the soldiers, and during the lulls in the attack paraded their 
 venerated ikons on the ramparts.^ Meanwhile the tide of 
 the Ljhedimitri's success had begun to ebb. The com- 
 position of his following bore within itself the elements of 
 defeat. The Poles, Kozaks, and Russian outlaws, who 
 formed the most active contingents of his adherents, drove 
 from his cause, by their licentiousness and indiscriminate 
 marauding, the people whom they had previously won over 
 by their energy and the renown of their arms. Wherever 
 the opportunity offered, the towns which had acknowledged 
 the pretender renounced his sovereignty and recognised that 
 of Vasili. The reaction was further hastened by the victori- 
 ous campaign of Skopin-Shouyskie and his Swedish allies. 
 Vasili, less prudent than Boris, had accepted the renewed 
 offer of assistance which King Karl held out, and, at the 
 price of yielding up the town of Keksholm and district of 
 Korelia, had obtained the services of 5000 Swedes, led by 
 Jacob de la Gardie, son of the famous general. With this 
 reinforcement Skopin-Shouyskie proceeded to strike at the 
 northern strongholds of the Toushinists, and the two young 
 captains (Mikhail was twenty -three, de la Gardie twenty- 
 1609 seven) swept all before them. A victory over the rebels in 
 May was followed by the capture of Toropetz, Kholm, 
 Velikie-Louki, and other places. In July the army of the 
 False Dimitri was driven out of Tver after hard fighting. 
 Temporarily deserted by the Swedes, whose demands he 
 
 1 Istoritcheskoe Opisanie sviatotroitzkiya Sergievui Lavrui.
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 295 
 
 was unable to satisfy, Skopin continued to organise victory ; 
 his exhausted war-chest was replenished by patriotic dis- 
 bursements from several monasteries, while the Stroganovs 
 sent him valuable aid in men and money from Perm. The 
 young voevoda " whom the people loved " had the art of 
 opening purse-strings as well as of forcing strongholds. In 
 August a force detached from the siege of the stubbornly 
 defended Troitza was met and repulsed with loss on the 
 banks of a Volga tributary stream, and in October Skopin, 
 rejoined by the Swedes, drove his enemies successively out 
 of Pereyaslavl and the Aleksandrovski sloboda. The loss 
 of the latter place threatened the blockade which the Ljhe- 
 dimitri's voevodas had drawn round Moskva, and Sapieha 
 made a determined effort to beat back the indomitable pilot 
 of the reaction. Around the horror-haunted village where 
 the Terrible had amused himself with his bears and gibbets 
 and services, a bloody battle was fought between the armies 
 of the rival Tzars ; Shouyskie's Moskovite and Permskie 
 troops and the Swedish allies crowned their campaign by 
 another victory, and the followers of the Thief straggled 
 away from a scene of defeat and slaughter. Wearily back 
 they made their way to the doleful camp at Toushin or to 
 the monastery whose battered walls still held them at bay, 
 while the ravens and hooded corbies came barking and 
 croaking out of the darkening woods to interest themselves 
 in the corpses stiffening in the snow ; and from afar, perhaps 
 from the distant Valdai mountains, the vultures swooped 
 down on the same errand. 
 
 The cause of the phantom was fading ; on the 1 2th 1610 
 January the defenders of the Troitza, worn with sixteen 
 months of siege and wasted with want and disease, saw their 
 foiled enemies withdraw sullenly from their dismantled 
 trenches and vanish from the landscape they had so long 
 disfigured. In February the impostor withdrew southward 
 to Kalouga, and by March the famous camp of Toushin 
 was deserted. But the decline of the Ljhedimitri's fortunes 
 was not followed by a corresponding improvement in those 
 of Vasili. Sigismund, who had secretly abetted the cause
 
 296 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 of the second pretender, prepared to play a bolder game now 
 that the insurrection seemed on the wane. The calling in 
 of the Swedes, the " interference " of the rival branch of the 
 House of Vasa, gave him a diplomatic excuse for displaying 
 open hostility towards the Tzar, and the confusion which 
 reigned throughout Russia furnished him with an opportunity 
 for intervening with specious solicitude in the eddying course 
 of the troubles. In September he crossed the border with 
 a not very numerous army, and invited the burghers of 
 Smolensk to admit him as a friend who wished only to stay 
 the shedding of Russian blood. A similar declaration was 
 forwarded to Moskva. Shein, the governor of Smolensk, 
 refused to be cajoled by the benevolent overtures of the 
 honey-lipped King, and the city was blockaded. Sapieha 
 and the Poles and West-Russian Kozaks were summoned 
 from the pretender's service to join the royal camp, and 
 many of the Moskovite adherents of the Ljhedimitri went 
 with them. Thus a new danger trod on the heels of the 
 old one, and Vasili once again beheld his Sysiphus stone of 
 subjugation and pacification roll back from the almost-gained 
 summit. A catastrophe which was suspiciously like a crime 
 deprived him at once of the services of his ablest voevoda 
 and of the lingering affections of the Moskvitchi. Skopin- 
 Shouyskie and de la Gardie had wintered their troops at 
 Aleksandrov; in March 1610 they made their entry into 
 the capital, where the young Mikhail was received with a 
 public enthusiasm such as had probably never been so 
 spontaneously exhibited since the triumph of the victor of 
 Koulikovo. Far out into the slobodas and meadows the 
 populace streamed to welcome their hero, falling prostrate 
 as he rode by with his companion-in-arms, and calling him 
 their saviour ; some were said to have hailed him as their 
 Tzar. This demonstration could scarcely fail to be dis- 
 pleasing to Vasili ; it was the old story of a consciously 
 feeble monarch and a victorious and idolised warrior. Still 
 more would it jar upon the Tzar's brother and natural heir, 
 Dimitri Shouyskie, whose chances of succession were 
 undoubtedly threatened by the popularity of his nephew.
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 297 
 
 At a christening feast given by the Tzar's brother-in-law, 
 Ivan Vorotuinskie, on the 23 rd April, the young hope of 
 the Moskovites was seized with a deadly illness, and expired 
 as soon as he had been carried to his own house. His 
 friend and fellow-in-arms, de la Gardie, forced himself into 
 the death -chamber, and, gazing wofully on his stricken 
 comrade, exclaimed, " People of Moskva, not only in your 
 Russia, but in the lands of my sovereign, I shall not see 
 again such another man." The heart -wail of the young 
 soldier was echoed by the people, who mingled with their 
 lamentations bitter and not unreasonable accusations of foul 
 play against the Shouyskies. Ekaterina, wife of Dimitri 
 Shouyskie, of the " viper brood " of Skouratov (she was 
 daughter of Maluta), was generally credited with having 
 administered poison to the unsuspecting Mikhail. To crown 
 the universal resentment, Dimitri Shouyskie was given the 
 vacant command of the tzarskie troops. 
 
 While the muttering roll of disaffection sounded louder 
 every day on the Red Place and in the markets of the 
 Kitai-gorod, in the west the Polish invaders (who had put 
 forward Vladislav, son of Sigismund, as candidate for the 
 throne of Moskva) were making themselves masters of the 
 Russian border towns. Starodoub, Potchep, and Tchernigov 
 were taken by assault, Novgorod -Sieverski and Roslavl 
 " kissed the cross " to Vladislav. Against these advancing 
 enemies it was necessary to oppose such force as could be 
 rallied on behoof of the disliked and despised Tzar. An 
 army of 40,000 Russians and 8000 Swedes, under the 
 supreme command of the incompetent Dimitri Shouyskie, 
 moved west towards Smolensk. They did not get far. 
 Near Mojhaysk they were attacked by the royal hetman 
 Jholkiewsko on the morning of the 23rd June and com- 
 pletely defeated, the Moskovite cavalry breaking at the first 
 shock.i The German troops in de la Gardie's following 
 deserted to the enemy early in the battle ; " the Poles 
 advanced to their regiments crying, Kum ! Kum ! and the 
 Germans came flying like birds to a call."^ The tzarskie 
 
 1 Kostomarov. ^ S. Solov'ev,
 
 298 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 voevodas, Shouyskie, Golitzuin, and Mezentzkie, galloped 
 away into the forest, the first-named leaving his baggage, 
 money, staff of command, and his furs in the hands of the 
 victors. De la Gardie, regretting more than ever his lost 
 comrade, surrendered to Jholkievvsko, and was permitted to 
 return with his diminished battalions to the north. As a 
 result of this decisive encounter Voloko-Lamsk, the losif 
 monastery, and other places were forced to submit to the 
 Polish commander. In the capital the effect was to hasten 
 the downfall of the Shouyskie dynasty. The brothers 
 Prokopie and Zakhar Liapounov, Rurik-descended nobles 
 possessing immense influence in the province of Riazin, 
 stirred up the Moskvitchi to depose Vasili on the ground 
 that his rule had not restored peace to the land nor checked 
 the spilling of Christian blood. The city was in a ferment ; 
 on the 17th of July the ferment came to a head. The 
 kolokols clanged out from their bell-towers the curfew of the 
 reign of Vasili Shouyskie, as they had sounded the death- 
 knell of the first Ljhedimitri. The people, Liapounov led, 
 surged in angry crowds from one point to another ; gathering 
 first beyond the Arbatskie gate, thence to the Kreml, where 
 the Tzar vainly endeavoured to recall them to their fealty, 
 back through the Red Place, they finally swarmed outside 
 the Serpoukhovskie gate. There the assembled citizens — 
 boyarins, clergy, traders, and lesser folk — decreed that the 
 stop-gap Tzar must go. Vasili bowed before the storm and 
 departed from the tzarskie palace to his hereditary mansion. 
 To prevent the possibility of a reaction in his favour (he 
 was known to be distributing money among the Strielitz) 
 he was seized by Zakhar Liapounov two days later and 
 forced to undergo tonsure and frocking in the monastery of 
 the Ascension. Thus ignominiously disappeared the last 
 Tzar of the line of S. Vladimir. The government of the 
 city devolved upon a council of boyarins with Thedor 
 Mstislavskie at their head ; this was naturally only a pro- 
 visional arrangement, and the most urgent business of the 
 new Douma was to take steps to give the Moskovite empire 
 the ruler necessary for its cohesion and administration. The
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 299 
 
 choice lay practically between two evils ; on the one hand 
 was the exploited and discredited " Dimitri," with his follow- 
 ing of Don Kozaks and bandits, on the other the foreign 
 Prince Vladislav, connected by birth and association with 
 Russia's two historically hostile neighbours. The common 
 folk and peasants were ready to accept the former and shut 
 their eyes to the gaps in the evidence connecting him with 
 the child of Ouglitch ; the boyarins and upper classes — the 
 same aristocracy that had rebelled with pious horror against 
 the Polish and Catholic taint of the first Ljhedimitri — turned 
 their thoughts and inclinations more and more towards the 
 son of Sigismund, 
 
 Undoubtedly the near neighbourhood of the pretender 
 (he was then at Kolomensk) and the disposition of the 
 people in his favour forced the hands of the boyarins, who 
 feared that if they did not come speedily to terms with 
 Vladislav the bestowal of the crown would be rudely diverted 
 from their disposal. Their anxiety on this score 
 smoothed the way for Jholkiewsko, who entered into 
 negotiations from his camp at Mojhaysk on behalf of the 
 Polish candidature. He was empowered to give solemn 
 assurances for the upholding of the Orthodox religion, and 
 to promise a share of the administration to the Douma, 
 besides guaranteeing fair trial for all political offenders. In 
 the teeth of the opposition of the Patriarch, and without 
 recourse to the counsel of the citizens in general, still less 
 with regard to the voices of the people as a whole, a small 
 group of the Douma boyarins, Mstislavskie, Golitzuin, and 
 Mezentzkie, and two secretaries of council, signed the treaty 
 which placed the throne of Moskovy conditionally at the 
 disposal of a Polish prince (17th August). Four years 
 previously the Poles had been hunted down like wolves in 
 the Kitai-gorod and Kreml, now the guardians of the State, 
 fearing a popular outburst in favour of "the thief," were 
 only anxious to see the Polish hetman installed with his 
 troops in the capital. As a precaution against another 
 possible revolution, which might restore Vasili from his 
 cloister-prison to the throne, the persons of the deposed
 
 300 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 Tzar and his brothers were handed over to Jholkiewsko and 
 by him transmitted to Poland. On the 27th of August, on 
 the road half-way between Moskva and the Polish camp, 
 the oath of allegiance to Vladislav was sworn by a large 
 number of the citizens and boyarins, and the example of the 
 capital was followed by the provincial towns of Souzdal, 
 Vladimir, Rostov, and others. A lingering hope on the 
 part of the Russians that the new Tzar would adopt the 
 Orthodox religion caused a hitch in the progress of the 
 negotiations, and a large embassy, at the head of which was 
 the Rostov Metroplitan, Filarete Romanov, and the kniaz 
 Golitzuin, set out to wait upon Sigismund at his camp 
 before Smolensk, which city still held out against his attack. 
 The anxiety of the leading boyarins to complete a political 
 manoeuvre with which they had already gone too far to draw 
 back, led them to take a step which left them no power to 
 enforce their demands. The doubtful proposals of the Polish 
 king, who began to covet the Russian crown for himself, had 
 aroused strong symptoms of patriotic sedition in the capital, 
 and the Douma, having for the moment appeased the 
 irritated citizens, invited Jholkiewsko to bring his troops into 
 Moskva. On the night of the 20th September the stroke was 
 effected, and the people awoke next morning to find the Poles 
 quietly established in the Kreml, Kitai-gorod, and White-town. 
 With a garrison at Moskva and others in some of the 
 provincial towns, Sigismund felt certain of securing the 
 crown of Monomachus, which it was now his object to obtain 
 for himself. The voevoda and citizens of Smolensk, though 
 ready to kiss the cross to Vladislav, still stubbornly defended 
 their walls against the King, who had announced his intention 
 of annexing the town to Poland. The Moskovite am- 
 bassadors stoutly refused to agree to this projected dismember- 
 ment, but in the extraordinary state of affairs they were 
 unable to make any show of relieving the place. Since the 
 days of the Mongol servitude Russia had not been in such 
 a humiliating position. In the north a new trouble arose?; 
 the King of Sweden, seeing his ally Vasili deposed and 
 Vladislav of Poland elected in his place, changed his good
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 301 
 
 relations with the gosoudarstvo into open hostility, and sent 
 an invading force into Russian territory. The northern 
 voevodas, divided in their allegiance between the pretender 
 and the Pole, offered an ineffective resistance to the Swedes, 
 and Ladoga and Ivangorod fell into their hands. Meanwhile 
 the weeks dragged on in lengthened negotiations, and the 
 royal camp before Smolensk was the scene of as many 
 intrigues and self-seeking subserviencies as had distinguished 
 the impostor's Court at Toushin. An unlooked-for event 
 towards the close of the year rid Sigismund of a rival 
 and the Moskovites of an embarrassment. The false 
 Dimitri, decoyed out hare-hunting on to the steppes by a 
 Tartar who nursed against him a private enmity, was nth Dec. 
 murdered on the lonely plain ; his death broke up the camp 
 at Kalouga, despite the efforts of the twice-widowed Marina 
 to form a party on behalf of her infant son Ivan. For the 
 most part the malcontents gave in their adhesion to the 
 elected Tzar Vladislav. Sigismund had now no further 
 excuse for prolonging the uncertainties and anxieties of an 
 interregnum in a country already suffering from the effects 
 of a long period of anarchy and revolution ; his object 
 seemed to be, however, to weary the Moskovites into an 
 unconditional acceptance of his rule. From the beginning 
 of the troubles he had played an ungenerous part and 
 sown a fresh crop of bitter animosities between the two Slav 
 nations — a crop which was to yield a rueful harvest to 
 Poland. Threatened with a hostile league between Moskovy 
 and Sweden, it was but natural that he should view with 
 satisfaction the dawning of internal troubles in the former 
 State, natural perhaps that he should give underhand support 
 to the two successive impostors ; natural also that he should 
 attempt to secure for his son or himself the eastern Slav 
 sovereignty. But the double-dealing and hypocrisy which 
 marked his policy towards the Russian nation, before whom 
 he posed as a friend and deliverer, while seeking to filch 
 from its weakness an important frontier city, was scarcely 
 worthy of the great House of Vasa, which was about to 
 present to Europe so splendid a warrior.
 
 302 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 In long-suffering Moskva murmurs began to be heard 
 against the Poles and against the Jesuits, and hints of 
 armed opposition to Vladislav were wafted about the 
 country. The Patriarch Hermogen, irritated by the sound 
 of Latin chants in the high places of Orthodoxy, sedulously 
 fanned the smouldering spirit of revolt and became so out- 
 spoken in his exhortations that he was seized by the Poles 
 in the Cathedral of the Assumption and placed in confine- 
 ment. Released on Palm Sunday in order to take his place 
 astride an ass in the customary procession, he was soon 
 afterwards sent back to his captivity and displaced from the 
 Patriarchal throne, which was filled by the counter-Patriarch 
 Ignasie ; the third, counting Filarete Romanov, who disputed 
 that office. If the State was without a head, the Church 
 enjoyed in that respect a Cerberus-like superfluity. This 
 persecution of their Vladuika did not dispose the people 
 more favourably towards the Poles ; Liapounov began to 
 collect troops in the Riazan country, and in the capital an 
 outbreak between the citizens and foreign garrison was only 
 1611 a matter of opportunity. In Passion week the tension be- 
 tween the two elements found vent in a massacre, but on 
 this occasion it was the Poles who set on foot the butchery. 
 Mistaking an accidental brawl for a preconcerted rising, the 
 hetman's troops, including the Germans serving under him, 
 attacked the defenceless inhabitants of the Kreml and Kitai- 
 gorod and slew, by all accounts, some 7000 men. The 
 alarm spread into the Biel-gorod, where the people, under 
 the direction of Kniaz Pojharskie, prepared to resist the 
 foreigners. The streets were hastily barricaded with timber 
 and furniture, and furious fighting went on round the several 
 gates of the Kitai-gorod, while flames broke forth in various 
 quarters. The city was soon a blazing mass, and amid the 
 roar and crash of conflagration the Poles were driven back 
 on all sides into the Kitai-gorod and Kreml. Pojharskie, 
 wounded in the fray, was carried to the Troitza monastery, 
 which became a base of operations for the Russians, who 
 held the Biel-gorod and all the approaches to the city. The 
 situation of the garrison during the Dis-like night which
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 303 
 
 succeeded the furious day has been vividly pictured by the 
 historian of Moskva. " Darkly gazed the Poles from the 
 walls of the Kreml and Kitai-gorod on the burnt ashes of 
 Moskva, awaiting the arming people and listening through 
 the night to the howling of dogs, that gnawed human 
 bones." ^ For days the city blazed, and within their 
 quarters the foreign soldiery plundered and ransacked the 
 houses of boyarins and merchants. Outside, the Moskvitchi, 
 swarming like burnt -out bees, were reinforced by drafts 
 of Liapounov's Riazan levies. The arrival of the chief 
 Zaroutzkie with a following of Don Kozaks was a source of 
 weakness rather than strength, and the quarrels of the ill- 
 disciplined children of the steppes with the Riazan troops 
 served to inflame the jealousy existing between their 
 respective leaders. While the wardens of Polish occupation 
 were being hemmed within the walls of the Russian citadel, 
 Sigismund was steadily discharging his cannon against the 
 battered bulwarks of Smolensk. On the 3rd of June a 
 breach was effected and the city won. The voevoda Shein 
 defended himself with a small body of men in a tower, and 
 only surrendered on a promise of the King's mercy. The 
 mercy of Sigismund Vasa might be likened to the " gentle 
 dew from Heaven " only in the sense of a tendency to rapid 
 evaporation, and neither his sense of honour nor a regard for 
 brave constancy came to the rescue ; the man who had held 
 his forces so long at bay was put to the torture and after- 
 wards dispatched in fetters to a Lit'uanian prison. This 
 besmirched victory was celebrated by a triumphant entry 
 into Warszawa, graced by the presence, in the King's train, 
 of the befrocked and discrowned Tzar, Vasili Shouyskie. 
 According to the Russian historians, who see the trail of 
 Jesuit intrigue throughout the duration of the Troubles, this 
 success of the Poles had the significance of a Papal triumph. 
 " The success of Poland over Russia brought joy to all the 
 Catholic world. In Rome festival succeeded festival." - 
 Rome was thankful for small mercies in those days. The 
 King found it easier to celebrate his victory than to follow it 
 
 1 Iz htorie Moskvui. - Kostomarov.
 
 304 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 up by any vigorous action against the Russians who were in 
 armed opposition to his son's pretensions to the throne. 
 The gosoudarstvo at this moment was in a state of bewilder- 
 ing chaos, and nowhere could be seen the elements of re- 
 organisation. Around the Pole-held inner city of Moskva 
 was quartered an army of some 100,000 men, strielitz, 
 dieti-boyarins and their followings, and Don Kozaks, the 
 whole under the separate leadership of three voevodas, 
 Prokope Liapounov, Dimitri Troubetzkoi, and Zaroutzkie. 
 Besides the personal jealousy which existed between the 
 leaders, it was impossible to say what common cause, except 
 the negative one of opposition to Vladislav, brought and 
 held their forces together. There was not even a phantom 
 to set against the claim of the Polish prince. It almost 
 seems as if, like the Germans who nursed the legend that 
 their Red King still slept in his Untersberg and would come 
 forth with all his knights in the hour of his country's greatest 
 need, the Moskovites persistently hoped that the real 5 
 
 Dimitri would at last emerge from his obscurity and give 
 Russia once more an Orthodox sovereign. Beyond the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the capital, confusion and 
 uncertainty were naturally intensified ; no town knew whom 
 to acknowledge and could at most only defend itself against 
 the attacks of the plundering bands which swarmed every- 
 where. The inhabitants of Vclikie-Novgorod, in the midst 
 of their indecision, were suddenly startled by the arrival 
 before their gates of a Swedish army under de la Gardie, 
 who demanded their allegiance to Karl, his king. The old 
 spirit of the Novgorodskie answered defiance to their old 
 enemies, and the Swedes were held awhile in check ; on the 
 1611 night of the i6th July, however, de la Gardie was admitted 
 by treachery into the town, and effected his entrance so 
 stealthily that the citizens first learned of the unexpected 
 stroke by seeing the Swedish guards patrolling the walls. 
 After a faint attempt at resistance the city submitted with 
 as good grace as was possible to the Swedish occupation, 
 and swore fealty to Karl-Filip, the King's second son, as 
 their sovereign. Meanwhile the army around Moskva
 
 X THE PHANTOM TZAR 305 
 
 showed serious signs of breaking up in confusion. A forged 
 letter, supposed to have been concocted by the Poles, calling 
 upon the Moskovites to destroy the Kozaks and signed with 
 the name of Liapounov, was found in Zaroutzkie's camp. 
 Despite his denial of the authorship, the enraged Kozaks 
 hewed the voevoda down with their sabres, a deed which 
 increased the ill-feeling and distrust with which the country 
 people and citizens regarded them. 
 
 In this deplorable condition did the waning of the year 
 find the Russian land ; the capital in the hands of the 
 Polish enemy, its outskirts and slobodas infested with 
 scarcely more welcome Kozaks ; Smolensk and the towns of 
 the Sieverski country held by Poles ; bands of Poles and 
 Dniepr Kozaks ravaging and slaying in the western villages ; 
 Great Novgorod, Ladoga, and the cities of the Finnish Gulf 
 in Swedish thrall ; freebooters and robber gangs everywhere. 
 To crown all, there descended on the stricken inhabitants a 
 winter of frightful severity, and many of the homeless out- 
 casts died of cold and hunger in the roads and fields. 
 
 S. Solov'ev ; Kostomarov ; Iz htorie Moskviii ; Pierling.
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " THIS SIDE THE HILL 
 
 )> 
 
 In the midst of Russia's direst despondency, when the 
 throne of Monomachus was empty and the lawful Patriarch 
 starving in prison, and when the tombs and temples of 
 Moskva's sacred past were profaned by the unhallowed 
 presence of strangers and heretics, within the scarred walls 
 of the Troitza the lamp of Orthodoxy and national inde- 
 pendence was kept steadily burning. The hegumen Dionosie. 
 as bitter a foe of Catholicism as any of the Reformers who 
 were convulsing Western Europe in their struggle with Rome, 
 ceased not to call to his fellow-Russians to unite against the 
 foreign enemy, and save alike the true religion and the 
 empire. Like the cry of the figurative pelican re-echoing 
 through the wilderness, the warlike summons from the 
 Troitza passed along the wasted land ; and met at length 
 with response. The city of Nijhnie- Novgorod, advan- 
 tageously situated at the confluence of the Volga with 
 the Oka, had, since the reduction of Kazan and the decline 
 of the Tartar power, advanced greatly in prosperity and 
 importance. At a moment when Moskva, Velikie-Novgorod, 
 and Novgorod-Sieverski were in alien hands the eastern city 
 stood forth with enhanced prominence as the rallying-point 
 of Russian freedom, and it was here that the exhortations 
 and entreaties of the Troitza hegumen were most effective. 
 As was usual in times of popular commotion, visions and 
 portents were not wanting, and the religious enthusiasm of 
 the people was wrought up to a high pitch. The anger of 
 heaven, it was said, as the noise of these apparitions was
 
 CHAP. XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL 307 
 
 spread from town to town and from monastery to monastery, 
 had been visited on the land on account of the sins of its 
 inhabitants ; the Russian people had lightly sworn allegiance 
 to successive sovereigns, and had as lightly shed their blood or 
 driven them from the throne. Impious hands had been raised 
 against the Lord's anointed — hence these afflictions. It 
 was decreed that before the work of liberation could be 
 begun the people should purge themselves of their iniquities 
 by a solemn and universal fast ; for three days every one was 
 to abstain from food, even the infants at the breast, though 
 what measure of political responsibility could be brought 
 home to the latter for the intrigues and revolutions of the 
 past five years it would be difficult to say. The ideal of a 
 God is usually that of a being who derives some not very 
 comprehensible satisfaction from the contemplation of self- 
 inflicted sacrifice or suffering of some sort, and it was quite 
 in keeping with accepted ideas that the only remedy for 
 the misery of a nation was — more suffering. At Nijhnie- 
 Novgorod the patriotic upheaval produced more than 
 unstable visions of the night, it brought to the surface of 
 political action a man ; princes and boyarins there were as 
 usual, and some among them doubtless men of ability, but 
 the most remarkable figure in the group of Nijhniegorodskie 
 regenerators was one of humbler extraction, torn by the 
 circumstances of the time from his normal rank in life, like 
 a low-growing ocean-weed uprooted by the action of some 
 violent pelagic disturbance. Kozma Minin - Soukhorouk, 
 who arose as the apostle of the movement which had started 
 into being in response to the beacon blaze from the Troitza, 
 was a provincial starosta,^ and by trade a cattle-dealer or, 
 according to some accounts, a butcher. Like the peasant- 
 girl of Domremy, his certificate for assuming the direction 
 of affairs usually yielded to those of higher station was a 
 supernatural " call " ; S. Sergie had appeared to him and 
 entrusted him with the task of arousing the slumbering 
 consciences and national ardour of the Russian folk. Having 
 
 1 Answering to the Saxon reeve ; in towns mayor or baillie, of lesser import- 
 ance than a posadnik.
 
 3o8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 convinced his fellow -men of the sacredness of the cause, 
 Minin proceeded to convert their enthusiasm into practical 
 support of its furtherance. " Give " was the cry, give every- 
 one, and give to depletion ; goods, money, service, were 
 asked of all, and those who had restricted ideas on the 
 subject were brought into line by forced contributions. The 
 emerged cattle-dealer, though good enough as an awakening 
 influence, was scarcely fitted to conduct a campaign against 
 the war-seasoned Polish troops, and the soldiery clamoured 
 for a voevoda in whom they might have confidence. Such 
 a one was forthcoming in Kniaz Dimitri Pojharskie, still 
 weak from the wound he had received in the fight around 
 Moskva, and under his command an army was formed which 
 only delayed taking the field till it should have received 
 sufficient support in men and money from the neighbouring 
 1612 lands. Not till the end of April were the equipped forces 
 ready to march, and by that time new dangers had begun 
 to crop up like noxious weeds on a land that had too long 
 lain fallow of settled government. The Kozaks around 
 Moskva had begun to talk of Marina's infant as the rightful 
 heir to the throne, while at Ivangorod had arisen another 
 phantom Dimitri, Ljhedimitri III., who had established 
 himself at Pskov. It was time for the army of regeneration 
 to be moving, though what it " carried in its stomach " was 
 difficult to foreshadow. With the melting of the snows 
 Pojharskie unfurled his standard, blazoned with a swarthy 
 eastern Christ and thickly bestrewn with inscriptions, and led 
 his troops towards Moskva. Vague as his political objective 
 was, his crusade attracted adherents. At Kostroma, which 
 a Russian kniaz held in the name of Vladislav, the people 
 had arisen and declared themselves for Pojharskie. At 
 Yaroslavl the citizens came forth to welcome the approaching 
 army, with ikons and provisions and gifts for the voevoda in 
 command. It seemed probable that a Dimitri might yet 
 mount the throne of Monomachus. Here, however, the 
 onward movement came to a sudden halt ; Pojharskie was 
 unwilling to lead his men direct upon Moskva, where 
 Zaroutzkie and his Kozaks were encamped, lest they should
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 
 
 309 
 
 be seduced, from sheer lack of alternative, to give in their 
 allegiance to the adventuress Marina and her child, on whose 
 behalf the Kozak leader was working. Pojharskie in fact, 
 in the helplessness of a negative undertaking, was waiting 
 upon Providence, and was not loth to receive the proposals 
 which came from Velikie- Novgorod for the election of the 
 King of Sweden's brother to the tzarstvo. (Karl IX. had 
 died in the winter, and was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 Gustav-Adolf, brother of Karl-Filip.) But here again the 
 double-edged difficulty arose which confronted every 
 attempted solution of the succession problem ; the House 
 of Moskva, since the extinction of the independent Russian 
 principalities and the disappearance of the Paleologi, was 
 the only reigning family in Europe which professed the 
 Greek faith, and with the dying out of the Ivanovitch line 
 the supply of Orthodox Princes of the Blood came to an end. 
 Hence the Russians must either submit to the elevation of 
 a Tzar from the boyarin ranks, or persuade some foreign 
 prince to adopt the indispensable dogmas. Pojharskie met 
 the proposals of the Novgorodskie and Swedish agents with 
 an inquiry on this matter of religion, and professed himself 
 willing, if satisfied in this respect, to accept Karl-Filip's 
 candidature. It was doubtful, however, if the Lutheran 
 Vasa would be more open to embrace Orthodoxy than his 
 Catholic cousin had shown himself, and meanwhile, from the 
 Troitza and the capital, kept coming urgent expostulations 
 as to the dangerous stagnation on the part of the Russian 
 vanguard. In July Pojharskie at last put his troops in 
 motion and moved slowly towards Moskva, but turned aside 
 from the army at Rostov to make a pilgrimage to the 
 Souzdalskie monastery of the Saviour, where reposed the 
 bones of his ancestors. The campaign was suddenly 
 quickened out of its irresolute lethargy by the news that the 
 hetman Khodkievitch was approaching Moskva with a relief 
 force and the much-needed supplies for the Polish garrison. 
 The Russian voevoda, still holding aloof from the Kozak 
 encampment, threw his forces into the western end of the 
 Biel-gorod, leaving to Zaroutzkie the eastern quarter con-
 
 3IO THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 fronting the walls of the Kitai-gorod. On the 22 nd August 
 the Lit'uanian army appeared on the western approaches of 
 thecity,and a wild scrambling engagement ensued, Pojharskie's 
 soldiery and the strielitz defending their lines from the 
 attacks of the relieving force on the one hand, and the sorties 
 of the Polish garrison on the other, while the Kozaks re- 
 mained for the most part inactive. Along the banks of the 
 Moskva on the south, at the Tverskie gate on the north- 
 west, under the ramparts of the Kreml, and beneath the 
 western walls of the Biel-gorod the combat was hotly waged, 
 and evening found the Russians still interposed between the 
 besieged and their succours. After a lull of a day's duration 
 the fighting was resumed at daybreak on the 24th ; the 
 hetman's forces came into collision with Zaroutzkie's Kozaks, 
 and the freebooters of the Dniepr found themselves opposed 
 by their fellows of the Don. The Russians, if fighting with- 
 out cohesion, had the advantage of numbers and position, 
 and the Poles were hampered by the baggage train which it 
 was their object to convoy through the enemy's lines into 
 the Kreml. At mid-day, after having suffered enormously 
 in his repeated attempts to force a passage through the 
 Biel-gorod, Khodkievitch drew off his discomfited forces and 
 retired to the Vorob'ev mountains, leaving his baggage and 
 provision train in the hands of the enemy. Four days later 
 he retreated towards Lit'uania. The effect of this national 
 victory was to infuse more spirit into the measures taken to 
 dislodge the Poles from the citadel ; ill-feeling and suspicion 
 still existed between the various elements composing the 
 blockading army, but the leaders were at least able to 
 arrange a concerted plan of action against the beleaguered 
 garrison. The latter, who had seen with sinking hearts the 
 Polish standards fade away down the Moskva valley, held 
 out for some time against the assaults and summonses of 
 their attackers, notwithstanding the sufferings they endured 
 from lack of sufficient provisions. The stories recounted of 
 parents feeding on the flesh of their children were probably 
 exaggerations, and the starving to death of the hapless 
 Patriarch Hermogen early in the year was a measure of
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL 311 
 
 severity rather than necessity, but the defenders and their 
 Russian prisoners were undoubtedly in sore straits, and their 
 surrender, unless relieved, a mere matter of time. In 
 October the Kozaks under Troubetzkoi stormed the Kitai- 
 gorod and drove the hunger-weakened Poles into the Kreml. 
 Two days later (24th October) the garrison let down a 
 bridge over the Neglina stream and disgorged a crowd of 
 prisoners, among them Thedor Mstislavskie, Ivan Voro- 
 tuinskie, and the young Mikhail Thedorovitch Romanov. 
 The unruly Kozaks rushed to plunder the outcasts, and were 
 with difficulty held back by the country regiments of 
 Pojharskie. On the 25 th the Polish eagle was lowered from 
 the towers of the Kreml, the gates were thrown open, and 
 the Russians marched with triumph into their long-sealed 
 citadel. Their Patriarch was dead and there was none 
 whom they could call Tzar, but with pathetic eagerness they 
 ran to prostrate themselves before their restored Bogoroditza 
 of Vladimir. For the most part the lives of the Poles were 
 respected, according to the terms of the surrender, but many 
 of those who were unfortunate enough to fall into the hands 
 of the Kozaks were butchered by those fierce irregulars, who, 
 now that the binding tie of a common military task was 
 loosened, were more than ever a thorn in the side of the 
 Moskovites. Helping themselves to plunder and demanding 
 pay, they threatened to turn their weapons against the 
 citizens and country troops, and the capital seemed likely to 
 become the scene of renewed bloodshed. In the midst of 
 these feuds and disorders Moskva was suddenly agitated by 
 the intelligence that the King of Poland in person was 
 marching against it with a large army. This was only half 
 a truth ; Sigismund had indeed made a tardy movement 
 towards the succour of his Polish outpost in the Russian 
 capital, but neither Poland nor Lit'uania had furnished him 
 with the necessary forces. Valuable time was lost at Vilna 
 and at Smolensk without any resulting increase in the King's 
 army, and in October he was obliged to move forward with 
 only 3000 German troops, of whom 2000 were infantry. 
 A junction effected with the retreating remnant of Khod-
 
 312 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 kievitch's forces did not materially strengthen his following, 
 and the news of the surrender of the Kreml put a finishing 
 touch to the hopes of the expedition. An ineffectual assault 
 on Voloko-Lamsk completed the Polish monarch's discom- 
 fiture, and soon after the Moskvitchi learned that their enemy 
 had withdrawn across the border. The Russian land was 
 free from the invader, and the Russian people had liberty 
 and leisure to set about the important task of electing a new 
 sovereign, and evolving a new dynasty from the chaos and 
 wreckage which had attended the disappearance of the old 
 one. In the dark winter days which followed the capture of 
 the Kreml, when anger and fear and suspicion, rumour-bred 
 or founded on past experiences of trouble, had sharpened 
 the minds of the citizens, an idea had sprung up which 
 seemed to be flavoured at least with hope. As a door had 
 suddenly opened in the Kreml wall and given egress for a 
 crowd of eagerly -escaping hostages, so, from that very 
 circumstance, a way seemed opened as an outlet for Russian 
 perplexities and troubles. Among the throng who had 
 pressed across the gangway over the Neglina was the 
 sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov, son of the Metropolitan 
 " Filarete," and grandson of Nikita Romanovitch, whose sister 
 Anastasie had been the first wife of Ivan the Terrible. 
 Here was a representative of a family which furnished a link 
 with the vanished dynasty, and which at the same time had 
 no untoward reminiscences in its past history to cloud the 
 affections of the people. If the Romanovs had rendered no 
 striking services to the country, at least there were no 
 skeletons of Ouglitch, no records of extortion and faction - 
 mongering to reproach them with. Standing near the 
 throne, they had never seemed to scheme for its possession, 
 and if the citizens and country-folk alike turned their 
 thoughts towards young Mikhail it was a spontaneous 
 movement, innocent of the influences by means of which 
 Boris Godounov and Vasili Shouyskie had engineered their 
 elections. Nor was the young boyarin devoid of recom- 
 mendatory qualities, though these were naturally of a 
 negative order ; but lately a prisoner in the hands of the
 
 \ 
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 313 
 
 Poles, as his father was still (Thedor Romanov had visited 
 the cradle of his race under inauspicious circumstances, 
 having been seized and carried as a prisoner to Marienburg 
 at the outbreak of hostilities), he was scarcely likely to have 
 leanings towards Polish and Catholic ideas. His connection 
 with the elder family branch of Ivan IV. precluded him 
 from sympathy with the Nagois and the brood of impostors 
 which sprang up in mock relationship with them, and equally 
 he was free from any taint of political association with 
 Zaroutzkie and the partisans of Marina. The people saw 
 in his parentage a relic of the old reigning family, in his 
 youth perhaps a reminiscence of his namesake, their beloved 
 Skopin-Shouyskie, and they forgave him the fact that the 
 blood of Rurik did not flow in his veins. As the dieti- 
 boyarins and starostas, the archimandrites of monasteries 
 and other church dignitaries, and all the various country 
 representatives came flocking into Moskva to the national 
 electoral sobor, one name was heard on every side ; and 
 when, in " Orthodox Week " of the great Lent, the Arch- 1613 
 bishop of Riazan, attended by the archimandrite of the 
 Novo-Spasskie, the cellarer of the Troitza, and the boyarin 
 Morozov, proceeded to the high place of execution and put 
 the question of the choice to the assemblage crowded in the 
 Red Square, one name was thundered back from a gaping 
 chorus of throats. " Mikhail Thedorovitch Romanov." The 
 Time of the Troubles had ended. 
 
 Hymns of jubilation arose in the temples, the kolokols 
 sounded from one end of Moskva to the other, and the 
 great city and its influx of country-folk rejoiced at having 
 once more a holy and Orthodox sovereign. But much 
 remained to be done ere the new state of things was settled 
 on a firm footing ; Zaroutzkie and his Kozaks, driven out of 
 the capital, plundered and ravaged in the south-east ; the 
 Poles and Swedes threatened the west and north-west, free- 
 booters, unattached to any party, rode in marauding troops 
 everywhere. The situation was alarming enough to deter 
 any but the most adventurous from challenging its outcome, 
 and when the ambassadors from the sobor came, with the
 
 314 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 news of Mikhail's election, to the Ipat'evskie monastery at 
 Kostroma, whither the young boyarin had retired with his 
 mother, they found the latter reluctant to sanction her son's 
 acceptance of the offer. Her husband was a prisoner in the 
 hands of the Poles, and her boy was now called upon to 
 brave the fate which had brought to a violent end the 
 younger Godounov, and perhaps his father, had lured on 
 and destroyed both the False Dimitris, and had sent Vasili 
 Shouyskie to a dishonoured captivity. When she at length 
 yielded to their insistence other difficulties stood, literally, 
 in the way. The Tzar-elect was constrained to halt for 
 several weeks at Yaroslavl, on his journey to Moskva, by 
 reason of the swarming bands of Kozaks and Polish adherents 
 which infested the roads, and made travelling unsafe for any 
 party smaller than an army. At length on the 2nd of May 
 the long-looked-for cavalcade arrived, and the young Mikhail 
 was triumphantly conducted into the Kreml which he had 
 left under such different circumstances. Nine weeks later 
 (iith July) the ceremony of the coronation took place in 
 the Ouspienskie Cathedral with the customary pomp and 
 time-honoured usages. The revered ikons of the Mother-of- 
 God of Vladimir and the Mother-of-God of Kazan duly 
 made their appearance on the scene, like the " male and 
 female phoenix, entering with solemn gambollings," which 
 formed an auspicious feature in the festivals of Chinese 
 Court mythology. But the throes of revolution had left the 
 tzarstvo weak and the treasury depleted, and the young 
 Gosoudar had to begin his reign by appealing for substantial 
 support to a country already drained by contributions and 
 forced distraints. The dieti-boyarins and small landowners, 
 on whom the State depended for military service against the 
 many enemies that threatened it, were unable to obtain the 
 necessary sustenance from their deserted estates, and there 
 were no means of supplying the wants of their retainers 
 from the empty public coffers. A letter, signed by the 
 Tzar, was sent to the administrators of the Perm and 
 Sibirian provinces, the loyal and trusty Stroganovs, request- 
 ing the prompt payment of all outlying debts and taxes and
 
 XI 
 
 " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 315 
 
 further soliciting, " in the name of Christian peace and rest," 
 an immediate loan of money, corn, fish, salt, cloth, and all 
 kinds of goods for the payment and support of the soldiery. 
 Similar letters were sent to the principal towns and districts 
 of the gosoudarstvo. Russian convalescence demanded 
 feeding and strengthening against the possibility of a relapse. 
 Dark and anxious for the Moskvitchi was the winter 
 following the tzarskie election ; sullen and ill -fed troops 
 quartered within the capital, and without bands of Kozaks 
 prowling like wolves about the country ; no supplies coming 
 into Moskva, only rumours of warlike invasion from Lit'uania. 
 The thaws of spring might bring with them Sigismund and 
 his hetmans, and the swallow tribes returning to their nests 
 on the Kreml ramparts might once again be greeted with 
 the singing of the Latins in the holy places of Orthodoxy. 
 The forebodings of Polish invasion passed away, however, 
 with the winter snows, and the Tzar's counsellors were able 
 to devote their attention to a campaign of extermination 
 against Zaroutzkie and his wild horsemen. The kniaz Ivan 
 Odoevskie was dispatched with a Moskovite army in search 
 of the Kozak chief, and after a series of marchings and 
 counter-marchings fell in with him not far from Toula ; 1614 
 according to the voevoda's report, Zaroutzkie was completely 
 defeated after two days' continuous fighting, and forced to 
 fly across the Don to Medvieditz with a few followers, 
 leaving his baggage train, standards, and many prisoners in 
 the victor's hands. The chronicles give a somewhat different 
 account of the matter, and relate that the rebel leader 
 repulsed the tzarskie troops and retired in good order to 
 Astrakhan, leaving a devastated country behind him. What- 
 ever the actual result of the fighting, the disturbing element 
 was at least removed from the heart of the empire, and the 
 authorities at Moskva were able to open up negotiations 
 with the Kozaks of the Don and Volga for the purpose of 
 detachincr them from the cause of Zaroutzkie and Marina 
 and enlisting their services against the Lit'uanian enemy. 
 The Tzar sent them messengers with his flag and exhorta- 
 tions to withdraw their allegiance from heretics and traitors ;
 
 3l6 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 more to the purpose, he was able to send them supplies of 
 cloth, provisions, saltpetre, and lead. The Kozaks greeted 
 the Tzar's name with a display of loyalty, and accepted his 
 presents, but they did not show a readiness to enroll them- 
 selves under his flag ; there seemed indeed a possibility that 
 Zaroutzkie would succeed in gathering under his leadership 
 the Volga and Don freebooters and the Tartars of Kazan, 
 and thus shut in the struggling tzarstvo between his forces 
 on the east and those of Poland on the west. Letter after 
 letter was sent from Moskva to the men of the steppe, and 
 appeals were made to their patriotism, their religion, and 
 their cupidity. The downfall of Zaroutzkie and his party 
 was brought about, however, by other agency ; in dusty 
 Astrakhan, where Marina and her third consort held their 
 rebel Court, the townsfolk, resentful of the violence of the 
 Volga Kozaks who were quartered on them, rose in rebellion. 
 Zaroutzkie was driven into the stone town, and, on the 
 approach of a body of Moskovite strielitz, the Astrakhanese 
 kissed the cross and beat the forehead to the Tzar Mikhail. 
 The desperate adventurers escaped from the toils which 
 were gathering round them, and fled with a small number of 
 adherents along the wooded banks of the Volga. Odoevskie 
 had arrived on the scene with fresh forces, and a hot pursuit 
 was kept up on the track of the fugitives. At the end of 
 June the enemies of Russia's peace — Zaroutzkie, the ambition- 
 borne Marina, and her four-year-old son — fell into the hands 
 of their pursuers, and were brought back in triumph to 
 Astrakhan. The bold and stubborn Kozak kniaz ended his 
 wild career by the horrible death of impalement, and the 
 Polish ex-Tzaritza was torn from her child and sent in 
 chains to Moskva, closing her chequered course in a dungeon 
 of the city which she had entered as a monarch's bride. 
 Her luckless infant, the last and fittest victim of the 
 catastrophe of Ouglitch, swung on a gibbet on the road that 
 runs towards Serpoukhov, a tender and pitiful morsel of 
 gallows-fruit for the Volga daws to peck at. The fate of 
 Zaroutzkie and the extinction of the last pale ghostling of 
 a race of spectres did not immediately deter the wild spirits
 
 XI 
 
 " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 317 
 
 of the Steppes from struggling against the elements of order, 
 so long absent from the land. Bands of Kozaks, swelled 
 into an army by drafts of Russian freebooters and fugitive 
 serfs, border raiders and Tcherkesses, raised anew the flag of 
 rebellion and discord, and were not dispersed till an over- 
 bold rush towards Moskva brought upon them a decisive 
 defeat on the banks of the Loujha (September 16 14). At 
 the same time Lisovskie kept alive the cause of the Polish 
 prince and made the Sieverskie land the base of operations 
 for his light and seasoned troops. Nor was the outlook 
 more hopeful in the north ; besides Great Novgorod and the 
 Water-ward (one of the five districts appertaining to that 
 city), the Swedes held Keksholm, Ivangorod, Yam, Kopor'e, 
 Ladoga, and Staraia Rousa. The Novgorodskie, who had 
 handed themselves over to the Swedish prince on the 
 supposition that he would be chosen Tzar of Russia, found 
 themselves, by the election of Mikhail, confronted with the 
 alternative of revolt against their accepted sovereign or 
 separation from Moskovy. The citizens would willingly 
 have chosen the former course, but the Swedes were in 
 forcible possession, and, like the porcupine of the fable, were 
 in no way disposed to quit the quarters into which they had 
 been admitted. Faced with the necessity of increasing their 
 field forces to cope with the enemies who threatened them 
 on every side, the Russian executive were obliged to make 
 further calls upon the resources of the gosoudarstvo ; the 
 north-eastern province, the youngest of all the Russian 
 territories, responded manfully to the Tzar's requisitions, 
 but for the most part the other taxing grounds yielded poor 
 returns. Equally unproductive was the experiment in 
 liquor dealing, by which the Government sought to augment 
 their revenue by monopolising the distilling and sale of 
 wines and spirits. In another direction they were more 
 successful in seeking for assistance ; shortly after Mikhail's 
 coronation the young Tzar's counsellors, recalling the terms 
 of friendship which had existed aforetime between the rulers 
 of Moskovy and the Tudor sovereigns of England, dispatched 
 an embassy to the Stewart prince who had stepped into the
 
 3i8 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 inheritance of the latter dynasty. King James was appealed 
 to by his brother monarch for urgently needed supplies of 
 gunpowder, money, lead, sulphur, and other munitions with 
 which to carry on the war of self-defence, and also for the 
 exertion of his good services for the arrangement of an 
 accommodation with Sweden. It was characteristic of the 
 British negotiators that they instinctively sought to obtain 
 concessions for their merchants to trade through Russian 
 waterways direct with Persia, India, and China, characteristic 
 perhaps of the Moskovites that they temporised, raised 
 obstacles, and finally granted nothing. It was also an 
 honourable episode in the not too satisfactory foreign dealings 
 of the Stewarts that the refusal did not alienate the good 
 offices which were put forward on behalf of the Tzar. In 
 August 1614 John Merrick, a recently knighted merchant 
 who was well acquainted with Moskva, came to that city 
 with full powers from the King of Great Britain for opening 
 negotiations between Sweden and Russia. Holland had also 
 been approached on the same subject, and Merrick was 
 joined at Novgorod by the Dutch ambassador van Brederode. 
 At the same time that the Russian Government was seeking 
 the intervention and aid of the northern sea powers, its 
 agents were casting about among the military states of 
 south-eastern Europe with a similar object. So far had the 
 dream of a crusade against the Crescent faded away from 
 Moskovite imagination before the nightmare of present woes, 
 that the young Tzar and his counsellors were anxious to 
 leag-ue their forces with those of the Sultan and the Tartar 
 Khan against the King of Poland, and negotiations were set 
 on foot at Constantinople for that purpose. The Emperor, 
 who was appealed to with the view of obtaining by diplomacy 
 what the Turks did not seem likely to effect by war, accepted 
 the post of mediator, and a meeting of the Russian and 
 1615 Polish ambassadors was held at Smolensk, under the presi- 
 dency of the imperial representative, Erasmus Handelius. 
 As the Poles began by demanding that Vladislav should be 
 recognised as Tzar of Russia, the negotiations did not 
 proceed very far, and the German returned to his master
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 
 
 319 
 
 with the report that " you might so well try to reconcile fire 
 and water." An irregular warfare of an extraordinary 
 character preluded the opening of a more serious campaign 
 between the two hate -hounded States. The firebrand 
 Lisovskie kindled the blaze of strife and devastation once 
 more in the Sieverskie country, and with his light horse- 
 men, innured to fatigue and rapid marches, flitted like 
 a will-o'-the-wisp before the pursuing troops of Dimitri 
 Pojharskie. Hunted out of the Sieverski border, he passed 
 swiftly northward by Smolensk and Viasma, harried the 
 slobodas of Rjhev, turned towards Ouglitch, and subsequently 
 burst through between Yaroslavl and Kostroma and laid 
 Souzdal in ashes ; from thence he hied into the Riazan 
 province, beat off the attacks of the Moskovite voevodas, and 
 dashed back into Lit'uania by way of Toula and Serpoukhov. 
 In the north meanwhile the walls of Pskov had once more 
 proved a bulwark against the tide of Russia's misfortunes, 
 and the military talents which the young Gustav-Adolf had 
 already commenced to display were unable to bring about 
 the reduction of that stronghold. This check, together with 
 the Polish and Danish wars in which Sweden was involved, 
 inclined the King to be more favourably disposed towards 
 a reasonable accommodation than his cousin of Poland had 
 shown himself, and the peace negotiations which the English 
 and Dutch representatives set afoot were more hopeful of 
 result than those of Smolensk. The foreign envoys saw in 
 the miserable desolation of the border districts throueh 
 which they travelled evidence of the distress with which 
 Moskovy was still afflicted. Save bands of Kozaks skulking 
 in the woods, the country-side was devoid of human habitants; 
 of the native population only unburied corpses remained, 
 and at night the howling of congregated wolves and other 
 beasts of prey resounded on all sides. The once thriving 
 town of Staraia Rousa was a heap of ruined houses 
 and churches, haunted by an under-fed remnant of scarcely 
 100 men. Such were the scenes amid which the ambassadors 
 of the two contending nations and their mediators commenced 
 their attempts at mutual accommodation. The cool-headed
 
 320 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, 
 
 and business-like qualities of the British representative were 
 perhaps the deciding factor in the protracted negotiations, 
 and towards the end of 1616 Merrick was able to bring the 
 opposing elements together in the village of Stolbova to 
 1617 discuss the final terms of peace. In February the following 
 year the treaty of Stolbova was signed, its principal provisions 
 being : that Sweden yielded back to Russia Great Novgorod 
 and district, Ladoga, Staraia Rousa, and some smaller places, 
 but retained Ivangorod, Yam, Kopor'e, Keksholm and the 
 province of Korelia, and in addition received a sum of 20,000 
 roubles ; that free commercial intercourse should obtain 
 between the two reconciled countries ; and that immigrants 
 from the west should have free access to the Tzar's dominions 
 through Swedish territory.^ Merrick, who had done his 
 utmost to secure tolerable terms for the Russians, further 
 assisted them by paying down the money demanded by 
 Sweden. 
 
 The peace of Stolbova was as favourable an accommo- 
 dation as the Tzar could reasonably have expected to 
 secure. The surrender of a hopeless pretension to the last 
 shred of Baltic coast still further checked the struggle for 
 an outlet seawards which had been pursued for the last 
 half-hundred years with such discouraging result ; but 
 Moskovy got back some of the places which had been wrung 
 from her weakness, and above all gained breathing time 
 to concentrate her energies on the strife with the arch- 
 enemy Poland. 
 
 Both parties had made preparation for pushing the 
 quarrel to the uttermost. The Korolovitch '" Vladislav had, 
 with the insistence of youth, induced the Poles to support 
 him in enforcing his election to the throne of all the Russias, 
 a sovereignty stretching away over a vast expanse of 
 tributary lands till it was almost lost on the horizon of 
 western politics. On the other hand, Mikhail and the 
 Moskovites were braced to fight for their faith, their father- 
 
 1 S. Solov'ev, Kostomarov. 
 
 '•^ King's son, a convenient designation scarcely reproduced in English by the 
 somewhat vague "Prince"; "Crown Prince," with reference to an elective 
 monarchy, being of course inadmissible.
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL " 
 
 321 
 
 land, for very existence. Vladislav's enterprise had received 
 the cautious sanction of the Senate and the more unrestrained 
 blessing of the Archbishop of Warszawa, and in a schismatic- 1616 
 Greek church in the old Volhynian capital, Vladimir, a 
 standard bearing the arms of Moskva had been consecrated ; 
 a standard which would, it was hoped, draw the Russians 
 over to the cause of the Polish pretender. In the autumn 
 of 1 6 16 a detachment under the hetman Gonsievskie, con- 
 sisting of a small but capable force, moved out of Smolensk 
 towards Dorogoboujh and camped at the gorodok of 
 Tverdilitz. Instantly the Tzar ordered his voevodas to 
 make a dash upon Smolensk, thus cutting off Gonsievskie's 
 line of communication and striking at the enemy on their 
 own ground. The move was well conceived and swiftly 
 executed, but its success stopped short at the outworks of 
 Smolensk. The Russians were not well versed in the art 
 of taking a city by sudden assault, and their leader, 
 Boutourlin, remained helpless in his intrenchments for the 
 rest of the year, his troops exposed to attacks from the 
 besieged on one side and Gonsievskie's skirmishers on the 
 other, and reduced to feed on horse-flesh for want of other 
 provisions. The new year witnessed vigorous action on 
 both sides ; a Polish force was routed by a Russian detach- 1617 
 ment near Dorogoboujh, an event which caused much 
 rejoicing at Moskva, while in May Gonsievskie drove 
 Boutourlin from before the walls of Smolensk. The same 
 month another Polish attack on Dorogoboujh was repulsed, 
 and the Russians hoped at least to maintain an effective 
 defensive resistance to the invaders, but the turn of the year 
 brought with it worse tidings. In July the hetman's troops 
 made themselves masters of Staritza, Torjhok, and other 
 places, and pushed their advance guard into the Bielozero 
 district, and at the same time came news that the Korolo- 
 vitch himself was marching with a fresh army upon Moskva. 
 At the end of August Vladislav effected a junction with the 
 Malo-Russian hetman Khodkievitch, and two months later 
 Dorogoboujh and Viasma had both been occupied by the 
 conquering Vasa. Mikhail saw the fate of his forerunners 
 
 Y
 
 322 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP. 
 
 looming large upon him, and already perhaps heard the 
 bells of Moskva knelling his overthrow or the crowds of 
 Krakow jeering at his misfortunes. But the winter season 
 brought with it a respite ; the Poles were beaten back from 
 attacks on Tver and Mojhaysk, and in December Vladislav 
 retreated to quarters in Viasma. From here he put forward 
 proposals for peace negotiations, hoping perhaps to gain 
 over the boyarins and people to his side without recourse to 
 further fighting. The Moskovites, however, answered the 
 Korolovitch boldly, and seemed as little disposed to yield an 
 inch of territory as he was to abate a jot of his pretensions. 
 1618 The first six months of the ensuing year were spent in fruit- 
 less discussions, during which time hostilities were as far as 
 possible suspended. On the 29th of June the Poles resumed 
 the offensive by an assault on Mojhaysk, which was defended 
 with spirit against this and several subsequent attacks. 
 Seeing, however, the hopelessness of prolonging the defence 
 of this place against the determined efforts of the Korolo- 
 vitch's army, the Russian voevodas withdrew their force on 
 the dark and wet night of the first of August, and retired 
 upon Moskva. Masters of Mojhaysk, the Poles now prepared 
 to clinch their successes by an attack on the capital itself, 
 and Mikhail saw himself threatened in his last stronghold. 
 With the memory of Vasili Shouyskie and Thedor Godounov 
 before his mind the young Tzar may well have distrusted 
 the loyalty which was nevertheless all that remained for him 
 to trust to, and it was not without reason that he sought, 
 by a solemn assembly of the sobor, to confirm and invigorate 
 the staunchness of his subjects. To all appearance the city 
 was lost. On one side advanced the Korolovitch with his 
 victorious army as far as the village of Toushin, of evil 
 memory ; on the other, by way of Kolomna, bore down the 
 Malo-Russian hetman, Sagaydatchnuiy,^ with 20,000 Kozaks. 
 The Moskovite voevodas stood by in helpless inactivity 
 while the hetman joined his forces with those of Vladislav, 
 and terror settled down on the capital. The religious 
 fanaticism of the people was countered by their super- 
 ^ Or Saygadatchnuiy ; Solov'ev uses both spellings.
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL 
 
 323 
 
 stition-soaked imaginings, and the appearance of a comet 
 some millions of miles above them in the skies, " over 
 against the town," intensified the alarm felt at the more 
 immediate neighbourhood of the Polish armies. A demand 
 for submission sent in by the Korolovitch restored the 
 defiant humour of the Moskvitchi ; this overture was more 
 or less a blind, as the Poles were meditating a sudden 
 assault, but their designs became known by some means to 
 the citizens, and when, on the night of the ist of October, 
 the attack was made, the Russians were ready for it. The 
 Arbatskie gate was stoutly defended, and at red dawn the 
 Poles were driven back from that point ; along the wall 
 from thence to the Nikitskie gate the efforts of the assail- 
 ants were directed with no better result, and at the Tverskie 
 gate the onslaught failed by reason of the scaling ladders 
 being too short for their purpose. Nowhere could the 
 enemy force an entrance, and the Polish hetmans had to 
 draw off their discomfited troops from the neighbourhood of 
 the capital. The spell which had hung round the Korolo- 
 vitch's advance was broken, and he found himself at the 
 commencement of winter in the heart of a hostile country, 
 whose inhabitants only needed the heartening effect of a 
 success to rouse them on all sides against him. Under 
 these circumstances Vladislav gave permission to his 
 advisers to open fresh negotiations with the Moskovite 
 boyarins of state, and Lev Sapieha, Adam Novodvorskie 
 (Bishop of Kaminiec), and three other notables were em- 
 powered to treat for the arrangement of a peace. But not- 
 withstanding the difficulty of keeping together a discouraged 
 and ill-paid army and the instructions which came from 
 Sigismund to bring the war to a speedy conclusion, the 
 Polish prince was loth to relinquish the sovereignty which 
 had seemed so nearly within his grasp, and placed the terms 
 of compensation too high for Russian acceptance. The 
 negotiations which had been opened near Moskva on the 
 bank of the Priesna were broken off, and the Korolovitch 
 once more assumed the offensive. Neither the capital nor 
 the walls of the Troitza offered a very promising point of
 
 324 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap. 
 
 attack, and a retreating detachment of Poles was overtaken 
 and defeated near Bielozero, but the ravages of the Dniepr 
 Kozaks, who were undeterred in their rangings by the bitter 
 winter weather, disposed the Moskovites to renew the pro- 
 posals for a peaceable settlement. At length, in the village 
 of Deoulino, three verstas from the Troitza monastery, a 
 truce of fourteen years and six months was agreed upon. 
 Vladislav left Mikhail in possession of the throne of Moskva, 
 but retained the empty consolation of styling himself Tzar ; 
 on the other hand Russia yielded up to Poland a long list 
 of towns, most of which had been snatched from her during 
 the fatal " Time of the Troubles," and which she was now 
 too weak to recover. Smolensk, Tchernigov, Roslavl, 
 Novgorod-Sieverskie and district, Starodoub, Dorogoboujh, 
 Serpeysk, Nevl, and some lesser places were the price the 
 gosoudarstvo had to pay for the peace which had been so 
 long absent from the land ; Viasma, Mojhaysk, and some 
 other Pole-held towns were given back to the tzarstvo, and 
 an exchange of prisoners was concerted, by virtue of which 
 Filarete Romanov and the voevoda Shein were restored to 
 their country. (Vasili Shouyskie had died in captivity at 
 Warszawa some years previously.) The ikon of S. Nikolai 
 of Mojhaysk, venerated by the Russians as a living being, 
 and seized by the Poles as a spoil of war, was also included 
 in the stipulated restitutions.^ On the ist of December 
 1618 the Truce of Deoulino was signed, and with the 
 opening of the new year Mikhail saw the waters of 
 destruction recede from around his long-menaced throne. 
 As the Polish eagles went winging homeward the land 
 settled down, almost for the first time in the century, to a 
 period of peace and security, and the figurative " voice of 
 the turtle " arose once more in the forests and fields of 
 Moskovy. In June 1619 the inhabitants of the capital 
 went out with their ubiquitous ikons and crosses to receive 
 the restored Filarete, who had been elected to the vacant 
 Patriarchate, and as the bells rang out their welcome to the 
 returning Vladuika Mikhail hailed with joy a father and a 
 
 * S. Solov'ev ; De Koch and Schoell, Histoire aMgie des Traitis de Paix.
 
 XI " THIS SIDE THE HILL 
 
 325 
 
 counsellor, the Church obtained a head, and the gosoudarstvo 
 an able administrator. State and Church emerged together 
 from the maelstrom which had swept over them both, and in 
 the persons of Thedor and Mikhail Romanov the Russian 
 Empire had found the dynasty which was to nurture it to a 
 giant growth and guide it forward on the path of power. 
 The conclusion of the treaties of Stolbova and DeouHno 
 drove deep wedges into the territory of the tzarstvo and 
 thrust Moskovy back yet farther from the Baltic and from 
 Western Europe ; but all the elements of survival and 
 absorption were present in the momentarily weakened state. 
 While Sweden, devoid of natural resources, was manuring a 
 fitful crop of laurels and grafted possessions with the blood 
 of magnificently disciplined armies, the wealth of Perm and 
 Sibiria and the trade of Makar'ev and Azov was pouring 
 into Russia the life-spring of recuperation, the wherewithal 
 to wring victory from defeat, and weary down less enduring 
 opponents. And while the Poles were opening wider and 
 wider the doors of their Constitution to every species of 
 privileged obstruction and respectable anarchy, the Mosko- 
 vites, warned by past experiences, and constrained by the 
 grim spectre of the scaffold on the Red Place — which was 
 not always a mere spectre — were " beating the forehead " to 
 the sovereign authority as unreservedly as they had done in 
 the days of the fearsome Ivan. With the firm establishment 
 of the first Romanov on the throne the Russian Empire 
 became an accomplished fact, and the ground was prepared 
 for the work of his famous grandson. This was the turning- 
 point of the long struggle for existence, and from thence- 
 forth the two-headed eagle, blazoned with S. George the 
 Conqueror, soars ever more prominently in the eastern 
 heavens. With the consecration of the Patriarch Filarete in 
 the Ouspienskie Cathedral, in the presence of the Tzar and 
 the high boyarins, prelates, and councillors, nobles, clergy, 
 and people, with the historic jewel-wrought Bogoroditza of 
 Vladimir shedding its sacred lustre on the assembled throng, 
 and the crown of Monomachus sparkling in the light of the 
 illuminating tapers, closes the last scene of the grounding of
 
 ;26 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE chap, xi 
 
 the Russian Empire ; and here naay be fitly quoted, from 
 the old Slavonic saga, " Oh, men of the Russian land, 
 already are you this side the hill." 
 
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 GLOSSARY 
 
 OF RUSSIAN WORDS EMPLOYED WITHOUT EXPLANATION IN TEXT 
 
 Baba yaga 
 
 
 
 witch in Slavonic myth 
 
 Bogoroditza 
 
 
 
 Mother-of-God 
 
 gorod . 
 
 
 
 town 
 
 gosoudarstvo . 
 
 
 
 realm, sovereignty 
 
 ikon 
 
 
 
 picture of a saint in relief 
 
 kolokol . 
 
 
 
 church bell 
 
 lavra 
 
 
 
 monastery of superior grade 
 
 ohlast 
 
 
 
 district, region 
 
 posadnik 
 
 
 
 mayor of free city 
 
 sobor 
 
 
 
 national council or Parliament ; cathedral 
 
 Spasskie 
 
 
 
 of-the-Saviour 
 
 Strielitz 
 
 
 
 body-guard, originally archers 
 
 velikie . 
 
 
 
 great, grand 
 
 vetchi . 
 
 
 
 town or communal council 
 
 voevoda . 
 
 
 
 military commander 
 
 zamok . 
 
 
 
 castle
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aleksandr Nevskie, 96, 100 
 Aleksis, Metropolitan and Saint, 126 
 Anastasie Romanov, 201 
 Andrei, Prince of Souzdal, 62 
 
 death of, 65 
 Astrakhan, khanate of, 149 
 
 annexed by Moskovy, 207 
 
 Baltic trade, 60 
 
 Batory (Stefan), 241 
 
 Batu, 89 
 
 Bela III., King of Hungary, 70 
 
 Bela IV., King of Hungary, 88, 94 
 
 Boris Sviatoslavitch, 44 
 
 Boris Godounov, 253 
 
 elected Tzar, 265 
 Bulgaria (Balkan principality), 8, 28 
 Bulgaria (Volga principality), 9, 36, 83. 89 
 
 Calendar, reform of, not adopted in 
 
 Russia, 255 
 Christianity, introduction of, in Russia, 38 
 
 40 
 Constantinople, 8 
 
 Russian expeditions against, 16. 20, 
 
 23. 50 
 Latin conquest of, 74 
 taken by the Turks, 146 
 Moskovite relations with, 161 
 
 Daniel Romanovitch, 87 
 
 " King of Galitz," 99 
 
 death of, 106 
 Dimitri Donskoi, 127 
 
 defeats Mongols, 131 
 Dimitri — Tzarevitch, 249 
 
 death of, 260 
 Dimitri (False), see Ljhedimitri 
 Dorpat, founded, 47 
 
 Elizabeth Queen of England, corre- 
 spondence with Ivan IV., 222 
 England, Moskovite intercourse with, 208 
 Mediation of, between Russia and 
 Sweden, 318 
 
 Gardie, de la, Swedish General, 245 
 
 Jacob, 294, 297 
 Gedimin, Duke of Lifuania, 115 
 
 death of, 120 
 German artillerists in Moskovite service, 
 
 187 
 Glieb Sviatoslavitch, 44 
 Glinski, Mikhail, 175, 180, 196 
 Godounov dynasty established, 265 
 
 overturned, 277 
 Greek artists at Moskva, 146 
 Grodno, founded, 103 
 
 Habsburgh, candidate for Polish Crown. 
 236, 241 
 despoiled by Ivan III., 163 
 Hanse League, factory at Novgorod. 
 
 Towns, Treaty with Novgorod, 139 
 Henri de Valois, elected King of Poland, 
 
 =39 . o ■ 
 
 Hungary, intervention m west Russian 
 
 affairs, 70, 87 
 
 invaded by Mongols, 94 
 
 contested succession to throne, 160 
 
 Igor, Prince of Kiev, 17 
 
 death of, 26 
 Igor, "Song of," 67-69 
 Isiaslav I. , Prince of Kiev. 53 
 Ivan Kalita, Grand-Prince, 114 
 Ivan Ivanovitch, Grand-Prince, 126 
 Ivan III., 149 
 
 marriage with Sophie Paleologus, 
 
 quarrels with Lit uania, 164 
 
 death, 173 
 Ivan IV., 19s 
 
 coronation, 201 
 
 marriages, 201, 234, 235, 244 
 
 wars with Poland and Sword Order, 
 208. 243 
 
 death, 249 
 Ivan Ivanovitch, Tzarevitch, 207 
 
 killed by his father, 246
 
 INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 Kalka. battle of, 84 
 
 Kazan, khanate of, 144, 149 
 
 annexed to Moskovy, 205 
 Khazars, 9, 28 
 Kiev, first mention of, 15 
 
 becomes capital of Russian State, 18 
 
 increased importance of, 51 
 
 stormed by Souzdalian force, 63 
 
 decline of fortunes, 62 
 
 stormed by Mongols, 92 
 
 lost to Russia, 124 
 Krim Tartars, 149, 165, 179, 186, 198, 
 
 232, 262 
 Kozaks, origin of, 192 
 
 western, in Polish service, 260, 296, 310 
 
 of the Don, 248, 273, 291. 303, 315 
 
 Lit'uania, 6, 70 
 
 first historical Duke of, loi 
 
 aggrandisement of, 115 
 
 Conversion to Christianity, 134 
 
 Moskovite campaigns against, 128, 165 
 
 Union with Poland, 224 
 Li viand, 6 
 
 military conversion of, 74, 77 
 
 campaigns in, 168, 208, 240, 244 
 Ljhedimitri, appearance of, 272 
 
 success of his enterprise, 277 
 
 overthrow, 284 
 
 speculations as to his origin, 285 
 Ljhedimitri IL , 291 
 
 death of, 301 
 Lubetch, " carpet-council " at, 55 
 
 Makar'ev, fair of, 190 
 
 Marina Mnishek, 273, 282, 292, 301, 
 
 316 
 Martha of Novgorod, 150, 155 
 Mengli-Girei, 156, 182 
 Mikhail Romanov, 312 
 Money, early form of, 51 
 Mongols, 81 
 
 invade Russia, 83 
 
 invade Poland, 93 
 
 invade Hungary, 94 
 
 Russian subjection to, 97 
 
 defeated at Koulikovo, 131 
 
 sack Moskva, 132 
 
 bloodless overthrow, 157 
 Moskva, founding of, 62 
 
 resists Lit'uanians, 128 
 
 becomes Metropolitan city, 118 
 
 stormed by Mongols, 132 
 
 growing supremacy of, 147 
 
 description of, 177 
 
 Court Life at, 183 
 
 terrorised by Ivan IV., 229 
 
 burnt by Tartars, 233 
 
 occupied by Poles, 300 
 
 Mother-of-God of Vladimir, 62, 137, 
 
 266, 311, 314 
 Mstislav (of Tmoutorokan), 46 
 Mstislav (of Toropetz), 75, 81, 87 
 
 Novgorod the Great, 10, 27, 30 
 
 foreign trade with, 60 
 
 internal affairs of, 61, 103 
 
 victory over Souzdal, 64 
 
 quarrels with Moskva, 139, 151 
 
 humiliated by Ivan III., 155 
 
 punished by Ivan IV., 225 
 
 taken by Swedes, 304 
 
 restored to Moskovy, 320 
 Novgorod (Nijhnie-) 306 
 Novgorod-Sieverski, 273, 324 
 
 Oleg, Prince of Kiev, 17 
 Olga, 19, 26 
 
 Conversion to Christianity, 27 
 Olgerd, Grand Duke of Lit'uania, 124 
 Opritchniki, instituted, 218 
 
 abolished, 239 
 Orsha, battle of, 181 
 
 Orthodox Church, quarrels with the 
 Roman Catholic Church, 73, 153. 
 
 and Council of Florence, 142 
 
 fast observances, 122 
 
 in harmony with State, 122 
 
 crusade against foreign influences, 306 
 
 Papacy, dealings with Russia, 74, 99, 
 
 152, 171 
 
 and Gedimin, 116 
 
 and the False Dimitri, 281 
 
 and Daniel of Galitz, 99 
 Perm, evangelisation of, 134 
 Peroun, Slavonic Deity, 4 
 
 worship overthrown, 40 
 Petchenigs, 19, 22, 29, 34, 42, 48 
 Pojharskie, Prince, 302, 308 
 Poland, 9, 48 
 
 wars with, 45, 179, 243 
 
 election to throne of, 236, 241, 256 
 
 intervention in Russian troubles, 296 
 
 Pacta Conventa, 239 
 Polotzk (Prince of), 55 
 
 siege of, 214 
 Polovtzi, 54, 67, 70, 72, 81 
 Pskov, 27, 76, 104, 107, 119, 168, 176, 
 
 24s 
 
 Riga, 78, 167 
 
 Roman (Prince of Novgorod), 64 
 
 becomes Prince of Galitz, 71 
 
 his death, 72 
 Romanov family, 201, 312 
 
 "Filarete," 269, 293, 313, 324
 
 334 
 
 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 
 
 Rurik, 14 
 
 Russia, physical conditions of, i 
 condition of, under early princes, 79 
 in the Time of the Troubles, 305 
 
 Sarai, 97 
 
 Serfs, 264 
 
 Sergie, Saint, 131 
 
 Sibiria, conquest of, 247 
 
 Simeon, Grand Prince, 121 
 
 Shouyskie, family, 181, 195, 197, 200, 
 
 253. 258 
 Shouyskie, Vasili, 261, 274, 278, 283 
 
 elected Tzar, 287 
 
 deposed, 298 
 Skopin-Shouyskie, 294, 297 
 Skouratov, Maluta, 213, 240 
 Slavs, distribution of, 2 
 
 customs of, 4 
 Smolensk, annexed to Lithuania, 136 
 
 captured by Moskovites, 180 
 Sobor (national Parliament), 223, 265, 
 
 313 
 Souzdal, 62, 63, 136 
 Stefan of Moldavia, 158 
 Stolbova, Treaty of, 320 
 Sviatopalk, Grand Prince of Kiev, 43, 46 
 Sviatoslav, Prince of Kiev, 26 
 
 expedition into Bulgaria, 29 
 
 defeated by Greeks, 33 
 
 destroyed by Petchenigs, 34 
 Sweden, Russian wars with, 163, 207, 
 
 239. 259, 304 
 Sword Brethren, instituted, 74 
 
 amalgamated with Teutonic Order, 89 
 
 Tannenberg, battle of, 140 
 Tchernigov, 46, 51, 53, 63, 68, 71, 92, 
 96, 273, 324 
 
 Teutonic Order, 77 
 
 wars with Poland, 140, 185 
 
 secularised into Duchy of Prussia, i^ 
 Troitza, monastery of, 131, 306 "^ 
 
 siege of, 293 
 Troops, Moskovite, equipment of, 165 
 
 liable to panic, 167 ^ 
 
 Turkey, Russian relations with, 161, 232 
 Tver, 109, 114, 133, 159 
 Tzar, meaning of title, 159 
 
 title first used at coroa^ion, 201 
 Thedor Ivanovitch, 253 ' 
 Thedor Godounov, 276 
 
 Urii (Prince of Souzdal), 62 
 
 Varangians, 12 
 
 Vasili (Grand Prince of Moskva), 135 
 Vasili " the Darkened," 141 
 Vasili III., 173 
 
 second marriage of, 190 
 
 death of, 192 
 Viatka, 139 
 
 Vitovt, Grand Duke of Lit'uania, 135 
 Vladimir the Holy, 30, 35 
 
 conversion to Christianity, 39 
 
 death of, 43 
 Vladimir " Monomachus," 54 
 
 becomes Prince of Kiev, 56 
 
 his testament, 56 
 Vladimir, town of, 62, 65, 90. 118 
 Vsevolod, Grand Prince of Souzdal, 66, 
 
 Yagiello, Grand Duke of Lit'uania, 129 
 elected to Polish Crown, 133 
 
 Yaroslav " the Great," 36, 46 
 his death, 51 
 
 Zaroutzkie, 303, 313, 316 
 
 THE END 
 
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