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THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
PUBLISHER'S ANNOUNCEMENT
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With two coloured maps and ten
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RUSSIA IN ASIA
A RECORD AND A STUDY
1558-1899
BY
ALEXIS KRAUSSE
A uthor of ' ' China in Decay "
SPECTATOR. " It is well that the vague
alarm generally inspired in the average Eng-
lishman by the thought of Russian successes in
Asia should be replaced by exact knowledge.
Books without number have already been
written upon the several phases of the Russian
advance, but Mr. Krausse's volume is, we
think, the first concise presentation in English
of its entire history."
LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
under the
EARLY RURIKOVITCH PRINCES
50 100 ZOO 300 44O
Names of tftt Varangian Period
printed thus Ladoga
THE RISE
OF
THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
BY
HECTOR H. MUNRO
" On se flatterait en vain de connaitre la Russia actuelle, si Ton ne
remontait plus haut dans son histoire." LE PERE PIERLING.
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
i 900
1
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
Vlll 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.
HECTOR H. MUNRO,
1899.
WORKS CONSULTED
KARAMZIN Histoire de 1'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. RAMBAUD 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 Sieverno Rousskiya Narodopraystva. 1886.
SIR H. H. HOWORTH History of the Mongols.
ANONYMOUS Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen. 1879.
VON HAMMER-PURGSTALL Geschichte der goldenen Horde. 1840.
Histoire de 1'Empire Ottoman. (French
translation.)
E. A. FREEMAN Ottoman Power in Europe. 1877.
J. W. ZINKEISEN Geschichte des osmanischen Reich in Europa.
GENNAD KARPOV Istoriya Bor'bui Moskovskago Gosoudarstvo s
Pol'sko-Litovskim, 1462-1508. 1867.
"V. N." Iz Istorie Moskvui, 1147-1703. 1896.
E. A. SOLOV'EV Ivan IV. Groznie. 1893.
N. A. POLEVOI Tzarstvovanie loanna Groznago. 1859.
LE PERE PIERLING La Russie et 1'Orient. 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 SZALAY 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 Gene'alogie, et de Chrono-
logic, etc. 1889.
BAR. SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN Rerum Moscoviticorum com-
mentarii. 1851. (English translation by R. H. Major.)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY . i
CHAPTER II
THE COMING OF THE VARANGIANS AND THE BUILDING OF
KIEVIAN RUSSIA . .... 14
CHAPTER III
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
PAGE
IVAN GROZNIE . . . . . .195
CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT BOYARIN . . . . -253
CHAPTER X
THE PHANTOM TZAR . . . . . 271
CHAPTER XI
"THIS SIDE THE HILL" . . . 306
I. TABLE OF RUSSIAN PRINCES OF THE LINE OF RURIK,
FROM SVIATOSLAV I. . . . .327
II. HOUSE OF MSTISLAV VLADIMIROVITCH . . 328
III. HOUSE OF SOUZDAL- VLADIMIR AND SUB- HOUSES OF
MOSKVA AND TVER ..... 329
IV. GRAND PRINCES AND TZARS OF MOSKOVY . 330
GLOSSARY . 33 J
INDEX . 332
LIST OF MAPS
RUSSIA ...... Frontispiece
GRAND PRINCIPALITY OF 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
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
B
2 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 east, 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 speaking, 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 are, 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 Servia, Dalmatia,
Croatia, and Slavonia, they appear to have been gathered in
a fairly compact though decentralised mass in what may be
I THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 3
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 mir, 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. 1 The development of agricultural pursuits necessarily
gave a greater measure of stability to village life, and the
1 The gathering of honey and wax from the combs of wild bees formed an
important industry among the Polish and Russian Slavs.
4 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 extraneous
and exceptional circumstances. While Teutonic peoples
were raising unto themselves burgs and cities, and banding
themselves in guilds and kindred municipal 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, existed 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, wind, 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 Peroun, 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 Begetter 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 25th
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 grief. 1
Thickly mingled with the Slav homesteads in the lake
regions of Peipus, Ladoga, and the forest country stretching
1 S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie.
6 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. 1
In the lands lying to the south and south-east, where
the forests gave way bit by bit to the open wolds of the
steppe country, the Slavs had for neighbours various tribes
of nomads, for the most part of Turko-Finnish 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
1 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 Prankish 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
8 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 neigh-
bours the Bulgarians of the Volga, an elder branch of the
io 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 l 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,
1 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" 1 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
1 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
1 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. 1
1 S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie. Karamzin, Histoire de Rtissie. Chronique
de Nestor. Schiemann, Russland, Polen, ttnd Livland. N. P. Barsov,
Otcherke Rotisskoy 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, 1 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,
1 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 territory, and, above all,
hindered free intercourse with Byzantium and the south.
To the sea-rovers, reared among the rude and penurious
C
1 8 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 trie 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
ii 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
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. 1 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
1 Chronicle of Nestor.
22 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
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 Prankish 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
Ulitches, 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. 1 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, tind 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 Romanos,
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 sufficient 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 droujhiniki? 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,
1 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
resentment bred by this stretching of the sovereign claims,
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, 1 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 Kniaz, Prince ; velikie-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, 1 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 Viatitches, the last Slavonic tribe who
paid tribute to the Khazars. This was only preliminary to
an attack on that people 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 possessions 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
longer 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 Petchenigs. Sviatoslav was himself to experience
the disastrous results of this mistake.
8 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 Emperor, 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, Peryaslavetz, 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 Bulgaria. 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. Pe"re"yaslavetz 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
971 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 Pereyaslavetz " 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. 1 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
1 Solov'ev.
n THE 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 Dniepr, 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
ii THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN 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 RISE 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." 1 The recital of
these splendours inclined the Prince to a favourable con-
sideration of the Greek faith, if indeed he had not previously
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 :
1 Karamzin.
ii THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN 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 KIEVIAN RUSSIA 41
this point she had been travelling in the same direction as
the growing 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 very 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, 1 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 2
doing all deeds of war." It was four years before Vladimir
1 Old Ladoga. 2 Old Skandinavian name for Russia.
II THE BUILDING OF KIEVIAN 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 1011, was confronted in 1014 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 canonisation. 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. From 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 of his 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 established 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 banks 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 country, 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. 1 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 Tauride 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
1 See genealogical table.
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
1 Chronique 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 Kievians 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 Ehrenfrid, Pfalzgraf 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 KIEV! AN 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,
1 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.
50 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, Pe"reyaslavl, Smolensk,
and Volhynia. Polotzk was still held by the other branch
of the family. Yaroslav died at Voutchigorod on the 1 9th
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, n
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. 1 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, 1 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-
1 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 1 (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
1 The affix vitch signifies son of: Sviatoslavitch son of Sviatoslav.
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 55
Prince of Polotzk, 1 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." 2 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
1 Vseslav Briatcheslavitch.
2 "The Song of the Expedition of Igor."
56 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN 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 intermeddling, 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, 1 " 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 Velikie Kniaz gave Kiev for the time being greater im-
portance as the sovereign State, since the lands of Pere"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 countrymen, 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
1 Georg Pray.
in 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
times 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 following 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
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 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,
60 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
Novgorodskie, since the middle of the twelfth century,
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 flax 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 Wisby 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. 1
1 N. G. Riesenkampff, Der Deutsche Hof zu Novgorod.
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 61
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 of 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 1138 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 with 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 Tchernigov, at times on the side of its enemies.
The citizens had a quaint and effective way of dealing with
a troublesome minority in carrying 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," l 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 way " 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."
With the onward march of days and deeds in the stormy
times of the twelfth century two facts, indeed, begin to stand
1 Rambaud, History of Russia.
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 I 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.
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RUR1K 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 VI L, 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 kneeling 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.
in 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 region 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. 1 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.
in 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 war-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 with 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) l 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.
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK
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. 1
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 von 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
political 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 ^l
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. 1 " To eat a drop of
honey in peace, one must first kill the bees," was his ex-
planation of this seventy. 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
1 Kadlubek, Origine et rebus gestis Polonortim.
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." 1
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 1 4th April 1212 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
1 S. Solov'ev.
in THE FEUDS OF THE HOUSE OF RURIK 73
connection it is interesting to note that the scheme of policy
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 1183, 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 Nicaea, 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
1201 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 well 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-
in 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. Konstantin, 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.
in 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 (1219), 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
in 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, in
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
1 Karamzin ; S. Solov'ev ; Schiemann ; Kostomarov, Sieverno Rousskiya
Narodopravstva, Chronique de Nestor.
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 limits 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 steppe-land 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 century,
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 1175, to the Mongol Khanate, of Temudjin, known
later under the world-famous name of 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 1211 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," l 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. 2 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 3ist 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
Howorth 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
1 Riesenkampff, De r 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 Magyar 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 Belz, 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 slippery 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, ^36
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 II., 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 Pereyaslavl 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 II. 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. 1 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. 2 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
Sajo, 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
1 Both Von Hammer- Purgstall (Geschichte der Goldcnen Horde) and Ho worth
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 1253.
2 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." 1 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." 2 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. 3
1 Von Hammer- Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde.
2 Laszlo Szalay, Geschichte Ungarns.
3 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
Novgorodskie, 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. 1 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 by
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
1 A. M. H. J. Stockvis, Manuel d'kistoirc, de genealogie y etc.
2 Colonel Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo.
v " 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 rilled 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. 1 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.
ioo 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. 1 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 efforts 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" 101
northern province on to the Mongol chain, Daniel had been
making tentative experiments in the direction of freedom,
which brought 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." 3 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. 2 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
1 N. P. Dashkevitch, Knazenie Daniela Galitznago.
2 E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe.
102 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 aggressive 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. 1
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 Stefanovitch, 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
1 S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossie.
" 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
io 4 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 l 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
Land master, 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. 1
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. 2 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 Geschichte 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 I264-I266." 1
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
chiefs daughter. Thus Galitz and the greater part of
Lit'uania became united under 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 brothers
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
I io 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.
1294 On the road to Volok died Dimitri Aleksandrovitch, and
Ivan his son reigned at Pereyaslavl 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 Pe>e"yaslavl 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 arid 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 l
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 Pere"yaslavl 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
H2 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 Schwerin, 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 Neuermiihlen, 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. 1
In 1300 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 Ostseeprovinzen.
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 1313, 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
u 4 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
v " 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 (1293-13 16). 1 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
1 V. B. Antonovitch, Olcherk istorie Velikago Kniajhestva Litovskago. Th.
Schiemann, Russland, Polen y u. Livland. A. Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire, etc.
u6 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. 1
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. 2 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
1 V. B. Antonovitch. 2 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
ch-urchmen 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 ; I 3 2 4
in return for which treachery, or elasticity of honour,
Gedimin sacked the town of Rositter and renounced the
creed of the Christmen. 1 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 (1316) 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,
1 Geschichtc der Ostsceprovinzen.
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. 1 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 I36i. 2 Even so, the Russian
lands owning the sovereignty of Gedimin Polotzk, Pinsk,
Tourov, Volhynia, Loutzk, and Vitebsk sufficiently justify
his title, rex Letwinorum et multorum Ruthenorum, 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. 2 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, like 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 (1338). 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 werried 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
I34 1 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
11 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
1 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 l 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
1 The firman issued by the Khans 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." l 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 Bauern-
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," 2 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.
2 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 cfetat 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. 1 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. 1 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 1 3 7 1 . 2
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.
2 Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzcn.
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.
I 353- I 359 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. 1
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. 2
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 u 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
1 S. Solov'ev. N. Kostomarov. 2 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, 1 is probably an
exaggeration, 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, 1365
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. 2 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. 2 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," l 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 " ; 2 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. 2 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. 1
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,
i 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, 1 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." 2 At the Golden Horde appeared one of
1 Monastery of the Trinity near Moskva.
2 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 young princes of Souzdal.
Dimitri took the prudent, if unheroic 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. 1 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. 2
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. 2 Karamzin.
vi THE GROWING OF THE GERM 13$
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. 1 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, 1 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 (i392), 2 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
Lithuania 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-
1 Histoire de POrdre Teutoniqtw.
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 ;
u 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." 3 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 l with
the towns of Lubeck, Wisby, Revel, Dorpat, and Riga, com-
pacted in the border burgh of Izborsk, where "ys gekomen
tier Johan Neibur van Lubeke, her Hynrik van Vlanderen
unde her Godeke Cur von Godlande, van overze? van Rige her
Tydeman van der Nienbrugge, van Darpte her Hermen Keg-
heller unde her Wynold Clychrode> van Revale her Gerd Witte"
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.
1 Reproduced by Schiemann from copy in Rath archives of Revel.
2 "From over the sea."
MO 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 (i5th
July 1410) 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. 1
The latter years of the reign of Vasili Dmitrievitch are
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,
1 Schiemann ; S. Solov'ev ; Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzcn ; Histoire de
fOrdre Teiitonique ; L. Ranke, Prcussische 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. 1
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.
i 4 2 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,
J 437 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. " Us 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 I448. 1
1 Karamzin.
H4 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 1 waves in the
J 453 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. 2
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.
2 Von Hammer- Purgstall, Histoire de r Empire Ottoman. J. W. Zinkeisen,
Geschicte des osmanischen Reich in Europa, E. A. Freeman, Ottoman Power in
Etiropf.
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
148 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 in Vasili's eyes had
not been opened even by being put out but Ivan was
emphatically Grand Prince of Moskva.
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 like princes " of gloomy and terrible mien, whose
foreheads were marked by the seal of destiny." 1 "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." 2 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. 2 Rosebery, Pitt.
ISO 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 1 had furnished an
illumination of a different nature, women had rarely mingled
in the national politics, and " cherchez la femme " 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, Tverskie,
and Tartar contingents converged on the lands of the
1 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 Nurnberg 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. 1 Reared amid the warm and stately
cities of Italy, with fond remembrance of the lost glories of
1 Le pere Pierling, La Russie et F Orient.
vii THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOG1 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. 1 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. 2 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. 2 S. 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. 1
1 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
vii THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOG1 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 147?
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, 1 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 effective 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. 1 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. 2
1 Gennad Karpov, Istoriya Bor*bui Moskovskago Gosoudarstva s 1 PoFsko-
Litovskim^ 1462-1508.
2 The title Tzar, formerly reproduced in West European spelling as Czar,
160 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 161
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
J I. 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 moriendum 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. 1
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, Rtissland, Polen^ u. Livland.
M
162 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. 1 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 were 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
J 495 himself by swooping down on the famous Hanse factory at
Novgorod, confiscating all the merchandise therein stored,
1 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. 1 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 Kaimar 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 dcr Ostseeprovinzen ; Sartorius, Geschichte des Hanscatischen
Bundes ; S. Solov'ev, Istoriya Rossic.
1 64 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 Gliebovitch, 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 Mengli,
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, 1 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 2 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
1 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.
1 66 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. 1 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
1501 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
1 Karpov, Istoriya Bor'bui, etc.
vii THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGJ 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 phoenix-
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. 1 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'" 2 Without straining a point it may be
1 A.E.I.O.U. Alles Erdreich 1st Oesterreich unterthan.
Austria est imperare orbi universe.
2 Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, Rerum Moscoviticorum commenlarii.
1 68 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP.
assumed that this liability to panic was in some measure
due to the superstitious coddling 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 sabacthani 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. 1
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
1 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.
vii THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI 169
on the east, was chased out of his dominions by the allied
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. 1
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 miserable 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
1 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 (i4th 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. 1
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 PALEOLOG1 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;2 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. 1 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. 2
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
1 S. Solov'ev. 2 Geschichte der Ostsecprovinzen.
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 (2 7th 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 (I5O5). 1 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 der 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 hostility
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
1 78 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 1 1 ) 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
i8o 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 1514 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. 1 Three month's later Vasili's
lieutenants at Novgorod concluded a treaty with the Hanse-
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. 2
The loss of this important place roused Sigismund to a
more aggressive 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. 2 S. Solov'ev ; Karamzin.
vii THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 181
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 l 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. 2 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 quantity 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 i8th September, in which he mentions the
battle as taking place on ' ' die natali beatissime virginis Marie, que erat VIII.
Septembris." 2 Act a 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 183
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. 1 In the Rerum Moscoviticarum Com-
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.
1 84 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 1519), 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 1519 broke "the long-
threatened wild war-storm over the Order-lands." 1 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
1 Johannes Voigt, Geschichte Preussens.
i86 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
(i5 T 9) 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 " Waffenstillstand " 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. 1 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." 1 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.
1 88 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 princes 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
vn THE FIRST OF THE AUTOCRATS 189
practice. 1 The fundamental stumbling-block to a composi-
tion with Poland was the question of homage insisted on by
Sigismund 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." 2 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.
z Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe.
IQO THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP.
revolution was effected, the knights of Livland retained their
organisation and temporal possessions. 1
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
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. 3 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. 3 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 1 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. 2 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
1 Herberstein ; Karamzin. 2 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." T 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, vn
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.
CRANO-DVCHY
LITUANIA. AND BALTIC PROVINCES
Stale, of Miles
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 Abb
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. 1 A more celebrated, if less
1 Schiemann.
I 9 6 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
vin IVAN GROZN1E 197
and the principal bazaars and trading stores) was surrounded
by walls and towers which added greatly to the security of
the capital. 1 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 seventies 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 Pskovskie 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 t 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 Mpskovites 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
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.
vni IVAN GROZNJE 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. 1 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. 2
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 feclusion 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 ? 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. 3 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 S. Solov'ev.
3 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. 1 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
1 Karamzin. Schiemann. Austen Pember, Ivan the Terrible.
vni 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. 1
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. 2 In the hallowed Ouspienskie Cathedral the Jan. 16,
Metropolitan crowned him with the title of Tzar, which
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 annos" 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.
2 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
vin 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. 1 The conscience-strickeri
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
1 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
vin IVAN GROZNIE 205
at the sight of so many Tartar corpses ; " they are not
Christians," he observed, " 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." l 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 hereditary and
collateral succession. The oath, whatever its value might
1 Rambaud.
206 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 nunc 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.
vin 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, 1 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."
208 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 Fiirstenberg 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
vin IVAN GROZNIE 209
four miles of Revel. 1 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. 2 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
I vangorod, 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. 2 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. Magnus 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
vin 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. 1 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 i$6$. 2 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
1 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.
(Aug. The death of Anastasia (who had erewhile presented her
" 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
viii 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 late 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. 2 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. Groznie.
2 N. A. Polevoi, Tzarstvowanie loanna Groznago.
2i 4 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). 1 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." 2 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-born." Karamzin
and Polevoi designate him Vasili.
2 A. N. Murav'ev, History of the Russian Church.
vin 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
216 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." l
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 GROZN1E 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 flitting 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
218 THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHAP.
sovereign wished to mete out justice to the guilty, the
Metropolitan 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." 1
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 IOOO 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
1 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. 1
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
1 Schiemann, Karamzin, E. A. Solov'ev, Polevoi.
vin 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
vin 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 1st 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
vin IVAN GROZNIE 225
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. 1 Why a letter intended for the King of Poland,
1 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." l 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. 2 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 E. A. Solov'ev, Polevoi, S. Solov'ev.
IVAN GROZNIE 227
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
dOjOOO. 1 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 EM PIKE CHAP.
Novgorodians." ] 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." 2 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 "
1 Karamzin.
2 Sir lerome Horsey* s Observations in seventeene yeeres travels and experience
in Rvssia, and other countries adioyning.
vin IVAN GROZNfE 229
Horsey gives evidence at first hand : " I saw this Impostor,
a foule creature ; hee went naked Winter and Summer. . . .
His Holinesse 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.Q.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. 1 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 scarcely a motive for wishing to overturn or undermine
his authority. 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
unreservedly 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
1 Karamzin, E. A. Solov'ev, Schiemann.
vni IVAN GROZNIE 231
into the Moskva river. Such a glut of corpses defied
expeditious or thorough burial, and for many days and
nights the inhabitants of that horror-haunted city witnessed
packs of dogs crunching and tearing human bones and
flesh in the dry 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. 1 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 Moskovy 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 tyrannies. 2 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 nobility, who numbered in their ranks
1 Horsey. 2 Schiemann, Karamzin.
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 
