Mary Platt Parmele - A Short History of Russia

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Princes might come, and Princes might go, but an irrepressible spirit
of freedom "went on forever"; the reigns all too short and troubled to
disturb the ancient liberties and customs of the republic. No Grand
Prince was ever powerful enough to impose upon them a Prince they did
not want, and no Prince strong enough to oppose the will of the people;
every act of his requiring the sanction of their _posadnik_, a high
official--and every decision subject to reversal by the _Vetche_, the
popular assembly. The _Vetche_ was, in fact, the real sovereign of the
proud republic which styled itself, "My Lord Novgorod the Great." Such
was the remarkable state which played an important, and certainly the
most picturesque, part in the history of Russia.

The first thought of the new Grand Prince at Suzdal was to prevent the
possible rivalry of this arrogant principality in the North, by
conquering it and breaking its spirit. He was also resolved to break
thoroughly with the past, to destroy the system of Appanages, and had
conceived the idea of the modern undivided state. He removed his
capital from the old town of Suzdal, which had its _Vetche_ or popular
assembly, to Vladimir, which had had none of these things, assigning as
his reason, not that he intended to be sole master and free from all
ancient trammels--but that the Mother of God had come to him in a dream
and commanded him so to do! But an end came to all his dreams and
ambitions. He was assassinated in 1174 by his own _boyars_, who were
exasperated by his subversive policy and suspicions of his daring
reforms.

With the setting of the currents of Russian national life toward the
North, there was awakened in Europe a vague sense of danger. Not far
from Novgorod, on and about the shores of the Baltic, were various
tributary Slav tribes, mingled with pagan Finns. This was the only
point of actual contact, the only point without natural protection
between Russia and Europe, and it must be guarded. German merchants,
hand in hand with Latin missionaries, invaded a strip of disputed
territory, and, under the cloak of Christianity, commenced
a--_conquest_. A Latin Church became also a fortress; and the fortress
soon expanded into a German town, and these crept every year farther
and farther into the East. In order to quell the resistance of native
Finns and Slavs, there was created, and authorized by the Pope, an
order of knighthood, called the "Sword-Bearers," with the double
purpose of driving back the Slavonic tide which threatened Germany and
at the same time Christianizing it. These were the "Livonian Knights,"
who came from Saxony and Westphalia, armed _cap-a-pie_, with red
crosses embroidered upon the shoulder of their white mantles. Then
another order was created (1225), the "Teutonic Order," wearing black
crosses on their shoulders, which, after fraternizing with the Livonian
Knights, was going to absorb them--together with some other
things--into their own more powerful organization. Russia had no armed
warriors to meet these steel-clad Germans and Livonians. She had no
orders of chivalry, had taken no part in the Crusades, the far-off
echoes of which had fallen upon unheeding ears. The Russians could
defend with desperate courage their own flimsy fortifications of wood,
earth, and loose stones; but they could not pull down with ropes the
solid German fortresses of stone and cement, and their spears were
ineffectual upon the shining armor. Their conquest was inevitable; the
conquered territory being divided between the knights and the Latin
Church. So Koenigsberg and many other Russian towns were captured and
then Teutonized, by joining them to the cities of Lubeck, Bremen,
Hamburg, etc., in the "Hanseatic League."

This conquest was of less future importance to Russia than to Western
Europe. It contained the germ of much history. The territory thus
wrested from Russia became the German state of Prussia; and a future
master of the Teutonic order, a Hohenzollern, was in later years its
first King; and this was the beginning of the great German Empire which
confronts the Empire of the Czar to-day.

So the conquest by the German Orders was added to the other woes by
which Russia was rent and torn after the death of her Grand Prince at
Suzdal. To us it all seems like an unmeaning panorama of chaos and
disorder. But to them it was only the vicissitudes naturally occurring
in the life of a great nation. They were proud of their nationality,
which had existed nearly as long as from Columbus to our own day. They
gloried in their splendid background of great deeds and their long line
of heroes reaching back to Rurik. Their Princes were proud and
powerful--their followers (the _Drujiniki_)--noble and fearless--who
could stand before them? They would have exchanged their glories for
those of no nation upon the earth, except perhaps that waning empire of
the Caesars at Constantinople!

Such was the sentiment of Russian nationality at the time when its
overwhelming humiliation suddenly came, a degrading subjection to
Asiatic Mongols, which lasted 250 years.

In the year 1224 there appeared in the Southeast a strange host who
claimed the land of the Polovtsui, a Tatar clan which had been for
centuries encamped about the Sea of Azof. The Russian chronicler
naively says: "There came upon us for our sins unknown nations. God
alone knew who they were, or where they came from--God, and perhaps
wise men, learned in books"--which it is evident the chronicler was
not! The invaders were Mongols--that branch of the human family from
which had come the Tatars and the Huns, already familiar to Russia.
But these Mongols were the vanguard of a vast army which had streamed
like a torrent through the heart of Asia, conquering as it came;
gathering one after another the Asiatic kingdoms into an empire ruled
by Genghis Khan, a sovereign who in forty years had made himself master
of China and the greater part of Asia--saying: "As there is only one
Sun in Heaven, so there should be only one Emperor on the Earth"; and
when he died, in 1227, he left the largest empire that had ever
existed, and one which he was preparing to extend into Western Europe.

It was the court of this great sovereign which, in 1275, was visited by
the Venetian traveler Marco Polo. This was the far-off Cathay,
descriptions of which fired the imagination of Europe, and awoke a
consuming desire to get access to its fabulous riches, and which two
centuries later filled the mind of Columbus with dreams of reaching
that land of wonders by way of the West.

The Polovtsui appealed to the nearest principalities for help, offering
to adopt their religion and to become their subjects, in return for
aid. When several Princes came with their armies to the rescue, the
Mongols sent messengers saying: "We have no quarrel with you; we have
come to destroy the accursed Polovtsui." The Princes replied by
promptly putting the ambassadors all to death. This sealed the fate of
Russia. There could be no compromise after that. Upon that first
battlefield, on the steppes near the sea of Azof, there were left six
Princes, seventy chief _boyars_, and all but one-tenth of the Russian
army.

After this thunderbolt had fallen an ominous quiet reigned for thirteen
years. Nothing more was heard of the Mongols--but a comet blazing in
the sky awoke vague fears. Suddenly an army of five hundred thousand
Asiatics returned, led by Batui, nephew of the Great Khan of Khans.

It was the defective political structure of Russia, its division into
principalities, which made it an easy prey. The Mongols, moving as one
man, took one principality at a time, its nobles and citizens alone
bearing arms, the peasants, by far the greater part, being utterly
defenseless. After wrecking and devastating that, they passed on to
the next, which, however desperately defended, met the same fate. The
Grand Principality was a ruin; its fourteen towns were burned, and
when, in the absence of its Grand Prince, Vladimir the capital city
fell, the Princesses and all the families of the nobles took refuge in
the cathedral and perished in the general conflagration (1238). Two
years later Kief also fell, with its white walls and towers embellished
by Byzantine art, its cupolas of gold and silver. All was laid in the
dust, and only a few fragments in museums now remain to tell of its
glory. The annalist describes the bellowings of the buffaloes, the
cries of the camels, the neighing of the horses, and howlings of the
Tatars while the ancient and beautiful city was being laid low.

Before 1240 the work was complete. There was a Mongol empire where had
been a Russian. Then the tide began to set toward Western Europe.
Isolated from the other European states by her religion, Russia had
suffered alone. No Europe sprang to her defense as to the defense of
Spain from the Saracens. Not until Poland and Hungary were threatened
and invaded did the Western Kingdoms give any sign of interest. Then
the Pope, in alarm, appealed to the Christian states. Frederick II. of
Germany responded, and Louis IX. of France (Saint-Louis) prepared to
lead a crusade. But the storm had spent its fury upon the Slavonic
people, and was content to pause upon those plains which to the Asiatic
seemed not unlike his own home.

CHAPTER VII

UNDER MONGOL YOKE

Amid the wreck of principalities there was one state remaining erect.
Novgorod was defended by its remoteness and its uninviting climate.
The Mongols had not thought it worth while to attempt the reduction of
the warlike state, so the stalwart Republic stood alone amid the
general ruin. All the rest were under the Tatar yoke. Of Princes
there were none. All had either been slaughtered or fled. Proud
_boyars_ saw their wives and daughters the slaves of barbarians.
Delicate women who had always lived in luxury were grinding corn and
preparing coarse food for their terrible masters.

After the conquest was completed the Mongol sovereign exacted only
three things from the prostrate state--homage, tribute, and a military
contingent when required. They might retain their land and their
customs, might worship any god in any way; their Princes might dispute
for the thrones as before; but no Prince--not the Grand Prince
himself--could ascend a throne until he had permission from the Great
Khan, to whom also every dispute between royal claimants must be
deferred. Then when finally the messenger came from the sovereign with
the _yarlik_, or royal sanction, the Prince must listen kneeling, with
his head in the dust. And if then he was invited (?) to the Mongol
court to pay homage, he must go, even though it required (as Marco Polo
tells us) four years to make the journey across the plains and the
mountains and rivers and the Great Desert of Gobi!

When Yaroslaf II., third Grand Prince of Suzdal, succeeded to the
Principality, he was _invited_ to pay this visit. After reaching
there, and after all the degrading ceremonies to which he was
subjected--kissing the stirrup of his Suzerain, and licking up the
drops which fell from his cup as he drank--then this Prince of the
family of Rurik perished from exhaustion in the Desert of Gobi on his
return journey. But this was not all. The yoke was a heavy as well as
a degrading one. Each Prince with his _Drujina_ must be always ready
to lead an army in defense of the Mongol cause if required; and, last
of all, the poll-tax bore with intolerable weight upon everyone, rich
or poor, excepting only the ecclesiastics and the property of the Greek
Church, which with a singular clemency they exempted.

What sort of a despotism was it, and what sort of a being, that could
wield such a power from such a distance! that, across a continent it
took four years to traverse, could compel such obedience; could by a
word or a nod bring proud Princes with rage and rebellion in their
hearts to his court--not to be honored and enriched, but degraded and
insulted; then in shame to turn back with their _boyars_ and
retinues,--if indeed they were permitted to go back at all,--one-half
of whom would perish from exhaustion by the way. What was the secret
of such a power? Even with all the modern appliances for conveying the
will of a sovereign to-day, with railroads to carry his messengers and
telegraph wires to convey his will, would it be conceivable to exert
such an authority?

And--listen to the language of a proud Russian Prince at the Court of
the Great Khan: "Lord--all-powerful Tsar, if I have done aught against
you, I come hither to receive life or death. I am ready for either.
Do with me as God inspires you." Or still another: "My Lord and
master, by thy mercy hold I my principality--with no title but thy
protection and investiture--thy _yarlik_; while my uncle claims it not
by your favor but by right!" It was such pleading as this that
succeeded; so it is easy to see how Princes at last vied with each
other in being abject. In this particular case the presumptuous uncle
was ordered to lead his victorious nephew's horse by the bridle, on his
way to his coronation at Moscow. So the path to success was through
the dust, and it was the wily Princes of Moscow that most patiently
traveled that road with important results to Russia.

Novgorod, as we have said, had alone escaped from these degradations.
Her Prince Alexander was son of Yaroslaf, the Grand Prince who perished
in the desert on his way home. At the time of the invasion Alexander
was leading an army against the Swedes and the Livonian Knights in
defense of his Baltic provinces. It was Latin Christianity _versus_
Greek, and by a great victory upon the banks of the Neva he earned
undying fame and the surname of _Nevski_. Alexander Nevski is
remembered as the hero of the Neva and of the North; yet even he was
finally compelled to grovel at the feet of the barbarians. Novgorod
alone had stood erect, had paid no tribute and offered no homage to the
Khan. At last, when its destruction was at hand, thirty-six years
after the invasion, Nevski had the heroism to submit to the inevitable.
He advised a surrender. It needed a soul of iron to brave the
indignation of the republic. "He offers us servitude!" they cried.
The _Posadnik_ who conveyed the counsel to the _Vetche_ was murdered on
the spot. But Alexander persisted, and he prevailed. His own son
refused to share his father's disgrace, and left the state. Again and
again the people withdrew the consent they had given. Better might
Novgorod perish! But finally, when Alexander Nevski declared that he
would go, that he would leave them to their fate, they yielded, and the
Mongols came into a silent city, passing from house to house making
lists of the inhabitants who must pay tribute.

Then the unhappy Prince went to prostrate himself before the Khan at
Sarai. But his heart had broken with his spirit. He had saved his
state, but the task had been too heavy for him. He died from
exhaustion on his journey home (1260).

On account of internal convulsions in the Great Tatar Empire, now
united by Kublai-Khan, the fourth in succession from Genghis-Khan, the
Golden-Horde had separated from the parent state, and its Khan was
absolute ruler of Russia. So from this time the ceremony of
investiture was performed at Sarai; and the humiliating pilgrimages of
the Princes were made to that city.

The religion of the Mongols at the time of the invasion was a paganism
founded upon sorcery and magic; but they soon thereafter adopted
Islamism, and became ardent followers of the Prophet (1272). Although
they never attempted to Tatarize Russia, 250 years of occupation could
not fail to leave indelible traces upon a civilization which was even
more than before Orientalized. The dress of the upper classes became
more Eastern--the flowing caftan replaced the tunic, the blood of the
races mingled to some extent; even the Princes and _boyars_ contracting
marriages with Mongol women, so that in some of the future sovereigns
the blood of the Tatar was to be mingled with that of Rurik.

A weaker nation would have been crushed and disheartened by such
calamities as have been described. But Russia was not weak. She had a
tremendous store of vigor for good or for evil. Life had always been a
terrible conflict, with nature and with man, and when there had been no
other barbarians to fight, they had fought each other. Every muscle
and every sinew had always been in the highest state of activity, and
was toughened and strong, with an inextinguishable vitality. Such
nations do not waste time in sentimental regrets. Their wounds, like
those of animals, heal quickly, and they are urged on by a sort of
instinct to wear out the chains they cannot break. By the time
Novgorod came under the Tatar yoke the entire state had adjusted itself
to its condition of servitude. Its internal economy was
re-established, the peasants, in their _Mirs_ or communes, sowed and
reaped, and the people bought and sold, only a little more patient and
submissive than before. The burden had grown heavier, but it must be
borne and the tribute paid. The Princes, with wits sharpened by
conflict, fought as they always had, with uncles, cousins, and brothers
for the thrones; and then governed with a severity as nearly as
possible like the one imposed upon themselves by their own master--the
Great Khan.

The germ of future Russia was there; a strong, patient, toiling people
firmly held by a despotic power which they did not comprehend, and
uncomplainingly and as a matter of course giving nearly one-half of the
fruit of their toil for the privilege of living in their own land!
When her sovereigns had Tatar blood in their veins and Tatar ideals in
their hearts, Russia was on the road to absolutism. All things were
tending toward a centralized unity of an iron and inexorable type--a
type entirely foreign to the natural free instincts of the Slavonic
people themselves.

CHAPTER VIII

RUSSIA BECOMES MUSCOVITE

The tumultuous forces in Russia, never at rest, were preparing to
revolve about a new center. Whether this would be in the East or West
was long in doubt, and only decided after a prolonged struggle.
Western Russia grouped itself about the state of the Lithuanians on the
Baltic, and Eastern Russia about that of Muscovy.

The Lithuanians had never been Christianized; they still adored Perun
and their pagan deities; and the only bond uniting them with Russia was
the tribute they had for years reluctantly paid. They were ripe for
rebellion; and when after long years of conflict with the Livonian and
Teutonic Orders, Latin Christianity obtained some foothold in their
land, they began to gravitate toward Catholic Poland instead of Greek
Russia; and when a marriage was suggested which should unite Poland and
Lithuania under their Prince Iagello, who should reign over both at
Cracow, and at the same time give them their own Grand Prince, they
consented. The forces instigating this movement had their source at
Rome, where the Pope was unceasingly striving, through Germany and
Poland, to carry the Latin cross into Russia. Again and again had the
Greek Church repulsed the offers of reconciliation and union made by
Rome. So, much was hoped from the proselyting of the German Orders,
and of Catholic Poland, and from the union effected by the marriage of
the Lithuanian Prince Iagello with the Polish Queen Hedwig.

The threads composing this network of policies in the West were
altogether ecclesiastical, until Lithuania began to feel strong enough
to wash off her Christian baptism and to indulge in ambitious designs
of her own: to struggle away from Poland, and to commence an
independent and aggressive movement against Russia.

There was an immense vigor in this movement. The power in the West,
sometimes Catholic and at heart always pagan, absorbed first towns and
cities and then principalities. It began to be a Lithuanian conquest,
and overshadowed even Mongol oppression. The Mongol wanted tribute;
while Lithuania wanted Russia! But one of the gravest dangers brought
by this war between the East and the West was the standing opportunity
it offered to conspirators. An army of disaffected uncles and nephews
and brothers, with their followers, could always find a refuge, and
were always plotting and intriguing and negotiating with Lithuania and
Poland, ready even to compromise their faith, if only they might ruin
the existing powers.

Such, in brief, was the great conflict between the East and West,
during which Moscow came into being as the supreme head, the living
center and germ of Russian autocracy.

It seems to have been the extraordinary vitality of one family which
twice changed the currents of national life: first drawing them from
Kief to Suzdal, then from Suzdal toward Moscow, and there establishing
a center of growth which has expanded into Russia as it exists to-day.
This was the family of _Dolgoruki_. Monomakh and his son George
Dolgoruki, the last Grand Prince of Kief, were both men of commanding
character and abilities; and it will be remembered that it was Andrew
Bogoliubski, the son of George (or Yuri), who effected the revolution
which transferred the Grand Principality from Kief to Suzdal in the
bleak North. Alexander Nevski, the hero of the Neva and of Novgorod,
was the descendant of this Andrew (of Suzdal), and it was the son of
Nevski who was the first Prince of Moscow and who there established a
line of Princes which has come unbroken down to Nicholas II. Contrary
to all the traditions of their state this dominating family was going
to establish a _dynasty_, and again to remove the national life to a
new center, in a Grand Principality toward which all of Russia was
gradually but inevitably to gravitate until it became _Muscovite_.

The city which was to exert such an influence upon Russia was founded
in 1147 by George (or Yuri) Dolgoruki, the last Grand Prince of Kief.
The story is that upon arriving once at the domain of a _boyar_ named
Kutchko, he caused him for some offense to be put to death; then, as he
looked out upon the river Moskwa from the height where now stands the
Kremlin, so pleased was he with the outlook that he then and there
planted the nucleus of a town. Whether the death of the _boyar_ or the
purpose of appropriating the domain came first, is not stated; but upon
the soil freshly sprinkled with human blood arose _Moscow_.

The town was of so little importance that its destruction by the Tatars
in 1238 was unobserved. In 1260, when Alexander Nevski died, Moscow,
with a few villages, was given as a small appanage or portion to his
son Daniel. Nevski, it must be remembered, was a direct descendant of
Monomakh, and of George Dolgoruki, the founder of Moscow. So the first
Prince of Moscow was of this illustrious line, a line which has
remained unbroken until the present time.

When Daniel commenced to reign over what was probably the most obscure
and insignificant principality in all Russia, it was surrounded by old
and powerful states, in perpetual struggle with each other. The
Lithuanian conquest was pressing in from the West and assuming large
proportions; while embracing the whole agitated surface was the odious
enslavement to the Mongols and their oft-recurring invasions to enforce
their insolent demands.

The building of the Russian Empire was not a dainty task! It was not
to be performed by delicate instruments and gentle hands. It needed
brutal measures and unpitying hearts. Nor could brute force and
cruelty do it alone; it required the subtler forces of mind--cold,
calculating policies, patience, and craft of a subtle sort. The
Princes of Russia had long been observant pupils, first at
Constantinople, and later at the feet of the Khans. They could meet
cruelty with cruelty, cunning with cunning. But it was the Princes of
Moscow who proved themselves masters in these Oriental arts. Their
cunning was not of the vulgar sort which works for ends that are near;
it was the cunning which could wait, could patiently cringe and feign
loyalty and devotion, with the steady purpose of tearing in pieces.
Added to this, they had the intelligence to divine the secret of power.
Certain ends they kept steadily in view. The old law of succession to
eldest collateral heir they set aside from the outset; the principality
being invariably divided among the sons of the deceased Prince. Then
they gradually established the habit of giving to the eldest son
Moscow, and only insignificant portions to the rest. So
_primogeniture_ lay at the root of the policy of the new state--and
they had created a dynasty.

Then their invariable method was by cunning arts to embroil neighboring
Princes in quarrels, and so to ingratiate themselves with their master
the Khan, that when they appeared before him at Sarai--as they
must--for his decision, while one unfortunate Prince (unless perchance
he was beheaded and did not come away at all) came away without his
throne, the faithful Prince of Moscow returned with a new state added
to his territory and a new title to his name! Was he not always ready,
not only to obey himself, but to enforce the obedience of others? Did
he not stand ready to march against Novgorod, or any proud, refractory
state which failed in tribute or homage to his master the Khan? No
gloomier, no darker chapter is written in history than that which
records the transition of Russia into _Muscovy_. It was rooted in a
tragedy, it was nourished by human blood at every step of its growth.
It was by base servility to the Khans, by perfidy to their peers, by
treachery and by prudent but pitiless policy, that Moscow rose from
obscurity to the supreme headship--and the name of _Muscovy_ was
attained.

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