Mary Platt Parmele - A Short History of Russia

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There was a line of eight Muscovite Princes from Daniel (1260) to the
death of Vasili (1462), but they moved as steadily toward one end as if
one man had been during those two centuries guiding the policy of the
state. The city of Moscow was made great. The Kremlin was built
(1300)--not as we see it now. It required many centuries to accumulate
all the treasures within that sacred inclosure of walls, crowned by
eighteen towers. But with each succeeding reign there arose new
buildings, more and more richly adorned by jewels and by Byzantine art.

Then the city became the ecclesiastical center of Russia, when the
Metropolitan, second only to the Great Patriarch at Constantinople, was
induced to remove to Moscow from Vladimir, capital of the Grand
Principality. This was an important advance; for in the train of the
great ecclesiastic came splendor of ritual, and wealth and culture and
art; and a cathedral and more palaces must be added to the Kremlin. In
1328 Ivan I., the Prince of Moscow, being the eldest descendant of
Rurik, fell heir by the old law of succession to the Grand
Principality. So now the Prince of Moscow was also Grand Prince of
Vladimir, or of Suzdal, which was the same thing; and as he continued
to dwell in his own capital, the Grand Principality was ruled from
Moscow. The first act of this Grand Prince was to claim sovereignty
over Novgorod. The people were deprived of their Vetche and their
_posadnik_, while one of his own _boyars_ represented his authority and
ruled as their Prince. Then the compliant Khan bestowed upon his
faithful vassal the triple crown of Vladimir, Moscow, and Novgorod, to
which were soon to be added many others.

The next step was to be the setting aside of the old Slavonic law of
inheritance, and claiming the throne of the Grand Principality for the
oldest son of the last reigning Grand Prince; making sure at the same
time that this Prince belonged to the Muscovite line. This was not
entirely accomplished until 1431, when Vasili carried his dispute to
the Horde for the Khan's decision. The other disputant, who was making
a desperate stand for his rights under the old system of seniority, was
the "presumptuous uncle" already mentioned, who was, it will be
remembered, commanded to lead by the bridle the horse of his triumphant
Muscovite nephew. The sons of the disappointed uncle, however,
conspired with success even after that; and finally, in a rage, Vasili
ordered that the eyes of one of his cousins be put out. But time
brings its revenges. Ten years later the Grand Prince, on an evil day,
fell into the hands of the remaining cousin,--brother of his
victim,--and had his own eyes put out. So he was thereafter known as
"Vasili the Blind." This wily Prince kept his oldest son Ivan close to
him; and, that there might be no doubt about his succession, so
familiarized him with his position and placed him so firmly in the
saddle that it would not be easy to unseat him when his own death
occurred.

Many things had been happening during these two centuries besides the
absorption of the Russian principalities by Moscow. The ambitious
designs of Lithuania, in which Poland and Hungary, and the German
Knights and Latin Christianity, were all involved, had been checked,
and the disappointed state of Lithuania was gravitating toward a union
with Poland. More important still, the Empire of the Khan was falling
into pieces. The process had been hastened by a tremendous victory
obtained by the Grand Prince Dmitri in 1378, on the banks of the Don.
In the same way that Alexander Nevski obtained the surname of Nevski by
the battle on the Neva, so Dmitri Donskoi won his upon the river Don.
Hitherto the Tatars had been resisted, but not attacked. It was the
first real outburst against the Mongol yoke, and it shook the
foundations of their authority. Then dissensions among themselves, and
the struggles of numerous claimants for the throne at Sarai broke the
Golden-Horde into five Khanates each claiming supremacy.

CHAPTER IX

PASSING OF BYZANTIUM--MONGOL YOKE BROKEN

Something else had been taking place during these two centuries:
something which involved the future, not alone of Russia, but of all
Europe. In 1250, just ten years before Daniel established the line of
Princes in Moscow, a little band of marauding Turks were encamped upon
a plain in Asia Minor. They were led by an adventurer named Etrogruhl.
For some service rendered to the ruler of the land Etrogruhl received a
strip of territory as his reward, and when he died his son Othman
displayed such ability in increasing his inheritance by absorbing the
lands of other people that he became the terror of his neighbors. He
had laid the foundation of the Ottoman empire and was the first of a
line of thirty-five sovereigns, extending down to the present time. It
is the descendant of Othman and of Etrogruhl the adventurer who sits
to-day at Constantinople blocking the path to the East and defying
Christendom. These Ottoman Turks were going to accomplish what Russian
Princes from the time of Rurik and Oleg had longed and failed to do.
They were going to break the power of the old empire in the East and
make the coveted city on the Bosphorus their own. In 1453, the
successor of Othman was in Constantinople.

The Pope, always hoping for a reconciliation, and always striving for
the headship of a united Christendom, had in 1439 made fresh overtures
to the Greek Church. The Emperor at Constantinople, three of the
Patriarchs, and seventeen of the Metropolitans--including the one at
Moscow--at last signed the Act of Union. But when the astonished
Russians heard the prayer for the Pope, and saw the Latin cross upon
their altars, their indignation knew no bounds. The Grand Prince
Vasili so overwhelmed the Metropolitan with insults that he could not
remain in Moscow, and the Union was abandoned. Its wisdom as a
political measure cannot be doubted. If the Emperor had had the
sympathy of the Pope, and the championship of Catholic Europe, the
Turks might not have entered Constantinople in 1453. But they had not
that sympathy, and the Turks did enter it; and no one event has ever
left so lasting an impress upon civilization as the overthrow of the
old Byzantine Empire, and the giving to the winds, to carry whither
they would, its hoarded treasures of ancient ideals. Byzantium had
been the heir to Greece, and now Russia claimed to be heir to
Byzantium; while the head of Russia was Moscow, and the head of Moscow
was Ivan III., who had just settled himself firmly on the seat left by
his father, "Vasili the Blind" (1462).

Christendom had never received such a blow. Where had been before a
rebellious and alienated brother, who might in time be reconciled,
there was now--and at the very Gate of Europe--the infidel Turk, the
bitterest and most dangerous foe to Christianity; bearing the same
hated emblem that Charles Martel had driven back over the Pyrenees (in
732), and which had enslaved the Spanish Peninsula for seven hundred
years; but, unlike the Saracen, bringing barbarism instead of
enlightenment in its train.

The Pope, in despair and grief, turned toward Russia. Its Metropolitan
had become a Patriarch now, and the headship of the Greek Church had
passed from Constantinople to Moscow. A niece of the last Greek
Emperor, John Paleologus, had taken refuge in Rome; and when the Pope
suggested the marriage of this Greek Princess Zoe with Ivan III., the
proposition was joyfully accepted by him. After changing her name from
Zoe to Sophia, and making a triumphal journey through Russia, this
daughter of the Emperors reached Moscow and became the bride of Ivan
III. Moscow had long been the ecclesiastical head of Russia; now she
was the spiritual head of the Church in the East, and her ruling family
was joined to that of the Caesars. Russia had certainly fallen heir to
all that was left of the wreck of the Empire, and her future sovereigns
might trace their lineage back to the Roman Caesars!

Moscow, by its natural position, was the distributing center of Russian
products. The wood from the North, the corn from the fertile lands,
and the food from the cattle region all poured into her lap, making her
the commercial as well as the spiritual and political center. Now
there flowed to that favored city another enriching stream. Following
in the train of Ivan's Greek wife, were scholars, statesmen,
diplomatists, artists. A host of Greek emigrants fleeing from the
Turks, took refuge in Moscow, bringing with them books, manuscripts,
and priceless treasures rescued from the ruined Empire. If this was a
period of _Renaissance_ for Western Europe, was it not rather a
_Naissance_ for Russia? What must have been the Russian _people_ when
her princes were still only barbarians? If Ivan valued these things,
it was because they had been worn by Byzantium, and to him they
symbolized power. There was plenty of rough work for him to do yet.
There were Novgorod and her sister-republic Pskof to be wiped out, and
Sweden and the Livonian Order on his borders to be looked after,
Bulgaria and other lands to be absorbed, and last and most important of
all, the Mongol yoke to be broken. And while he was planning for these
he had little time for Greek manuscripts; he was introducing the
_knout_,[1] until then a stranger to his Slavonic people; he was having
Princes and _boyars_ and even ecclesiastics whipped and tortured and
mutilated; and, it is said, roasted alive two Polish gentlemen in an
iron cage, for conspiracy. We hear that women fainted at his glance,
and _boyars_ trembled while he slept; that instead of "Ivan the Great"
he would be known as "Ivan the Terrible," had not his grandson Ivan IV.
so far outshone him. That he had his softer moods we know. For he
loved his Greek wife, and shed tears copiously over his brother's
death, even while he was appropriating all the territory which had
belonged to him. And so great was his grief over the death of his only
son, that he ordered the physicians who had attended him to be publicly
beheaded!

The art of healing seems to have been a dangerous calling at that time.
A learned German physician, named Anthony, in whom Ivan placed much
confidence, was sent by him to attend a Tatar Prince who was a visitor
at his court. When the Prince died after taking a decoction of herbs
prepared by the physician, Ivan gave him up to the Tatar relatives of
the deceased, to do with him as they liked. They took him down to the
river Moskwa under the bridge, where they cut him in pieces like a
sheep.

Ivan III. was not a warrior Prince like his great progenitors at Kief.
It was even suspected that he lacked personal courage. He rarely led
his armies to battle. His greatest triumphs were achieved sitting in
his palace in the Kremlin; and his weapons were found in a cunning and
far-reaching diplomacy. He swept away the system of appanages, and one
by one effaced the privileges and the old legal and judicial systems in
those Principalities which were not yet entirely absorbed. While
maintaining an outward respect for Mongol authority, and while
receiving its friendly aid in his attacks upon Novgorod and Lithuania,
he was carefully laying his plans for open defiance. He cunningly
refrained from paying tribute and homage on the pretense that he could
not decide which of the five was lawful Khan.

In 1478 an embassy arrived at Moscow to collect tribute, bringing as
the symbol of their authority an image of the Khan Akhmet. Ivan tore
off the mask of friendship. In a fury he trampled the image under his
feet and (it is said) put to death all except one whom he sent back
with his message to the Golden Horde. The astonished Khan sent word
that he would pardon him if he would come to Sarai and kiss his stirrup.

At last Ivan consented to lead his own army to meet that of the enraged
Khan. The two armies confronted each other on the banks of the Oka.
Then after a pause of several days, suddenly both were seized with a
panic and fled. And so in this inglorious fashion in 1480, after three
centuries of oppression and insult, Russia slipped from under the
Mongol yoke. There were many Mongol invasions after this. Many times
did they unite with Lithuanians and Poles and the enemies of Russia;
many times were they at the gates of Moscow, and twice did they burn
that city--excepting the Kremlin--to the ground. But never again was
there homage or tribute paid to the broken and demoralized Asiatic
power which long lingered about the Crimea. There are to-day two
millions of nomad Mongols encamped about the south-eastern steppes of
Russia, still living in tents, still raising and herding their flocks,
little changed in dress, habits, and character since the days of
Genghis Khan. While this is written a famine is said to be raging
among them. This is the last remnant of the great Mongol invasion.

In 1487 Ivan marched upon Kazan. The city was taken after a siege of
seven weeks. The Tsar of Kazan was a prisoner in Moscow and "Prince of
Bulgaria" was added to the titles of Ivan III.

[1] From the word knot.

CHAPTER X

GRAND PRINCE BECOMES TSAR

Vasili, who succeeded Ivan III. in 1505, continued his work on the same
lines of absorption and consolidation by unmerciful means. Pskof,--the
sister republic to Novgorod the Great,--which had guarded its liberties
with the same passionate devotion, was obliged to submit. The bell
which had always summoned their _Vetche_, and which symbolized their
liberty, was carried away. Their lament is as famous as that for the
Moorish city of Alhama, when taken by Ferdinand of Aragon. The poetic
annalist says: "Alas! glorious city of Pskof--why this weeping and
lamentation?" Pskof replies: "How can I but weep and lament? An eagle
with claws like a lion has swooped down upon me. He has captured my
beauty, my riches, my children. Our land is a desert! our city ruined.
Our brothers have been carried away to a place where our fathers never
dwelt--nor our grandfathers--nor our great-grandfathers!" In the whole
tragic story of Russia nothing is more pathetic and picturesque than
the destruction of the two republics--Novgorod and Pskof.

By 1523 the last state had yielded, and the Muscovite absorption was
complete. There was but one Russia; and the head of the consolidated
empire called himself not "Grand Prince of all the Russias," but
_Tsar_. When it is remembered that Tsar is only the Slavonic form for
_Caesar_, it will be seen that the dream of the Varangian Princes had
been in an unexpected way realized. The Tsar of Russia was the
successor of the Caesars in the East.

Vasili's method of choosing a wife was like that of Ahasuerus. Fifteen
hundred of the most beautiful maidens of noble birth were assembled at
Moscow. After careful scrutiny the number was reduced to ten, then to
five--from these the final choice was made. His wife's relations
formed the court of Vasili, became his companions and advisers,
_boyars_ vying with each other for the privilege of waiting upon his
table or assisting at his toilet. But the office of adviser was a
difficult one. To one great lord who in his inexperience ventured to
offer counsel, as in the olden time of the _Drujina_, he said sharply:
"Be silent, rustic." While still another, more indiscreet, who had
ventured to complain that they were not consulted, was ordered to his
bedchamber, and there had his head cut off.

The court grew in barbaric and in Greek splendor. As the Tsar sat upon
the throne supported by mechanical lions which roared at intervals, he
was guarded by young nobles with high caps of white fur, wearing long
caftans of white satin and armed with silver hatchets. Greek
scholarship was also there. A learned monk and friend of Savonarola
was translating Greek books and arranging for him the priceless volumes
in his library. Vasili himself was now in correspondence with Pope Leo
X., who was using all his arts to induce him to make friends with
Catholic Poland and join in the most important of all wars--a war upon
Constantinople, of which he, Vasili, the spiritual and temporal heir to
the Eastern Empire, was the natural protector.

All this was very splendid. But things were moving with the momentum
gained by his father, Ivan the Great. It was Vasili's inheritance, not
his reign, that was great. That inheritance he had maintained and
increased. He had humiliated the nobility, had developed the movements
initiated by his greater father, and had also shown tastes magnificent
enough for the heir of his imperial mother, Sophia Paleologus. But he
is overshadowed in history by standing between the two Ivans--Ivan the
Great and Ivan the Terrible.

[Illustration: The Czar Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan Ivanovitch.
From the painting by I. E. Repin.]

Leo X. was soon too much occupied with a new foe to think about designs
upon Constantinople. A certain monk was nailing a protest upon the
door of the Church at Wittenburg which would tax to the uttermost his
energies. As from time to time travelers brought back tales of the
splendor of the Muscovite court, Europe was more than ever afraid of
such neighbors. What might these powerful barbarians not do, if they
adopted European methods! More stringent measures were enforced. They
must not have access to the implements of civilization, and Sigismund,
King of Poland, threatened English merchants on the Baltic with death.

It is a singular circumstance that although, up to the time of Ivan the
Great, Russia had apparently not one thing in common with the states of
Western Europe, they were still subject to the same great tides or
tendencies and were moving simultaneously toward identical political
conditions. An invisible but compelling hand had been upon every
European state, drawing the power from many heads into one. In Spain,
Ferdinand and Isabella had brought all the smaller kingdoms and the
Moors under one united crown. In France, Louis XI. had shattered the
fabric of feudalism, and by artful alliance with the people had
humiliated and subjugated the proud nobility. Henry VIII. had
established absolutism in England, and Maximilian had done the same for
Germany, while even the Italian republics, were being gathered into the
hands of larger sovereignties. From this distance in time it is easy
to see the prevailing direction in which all the nations were being
irresistibly drawn.

The hour had struck for the tide to flow toward _centralisation_; and
Russia, remote, cut off from all apparent connection with the Western
kingdoms, was borne along upon the same tide with the rest, as if it
was already a part of the same organism! There, too, the power was
passing from the many to one: first from many ruling families to one
family, then from all the individual members of that family to a
supreme and permanent head--the Tsar.

There were many revolutions in Russia from the time when the Dolgorukis
turned the life-currents from Kief to the North; many centers of
volcanic energy in fearful state of activity, and many times when ruin
threatened from every side. But in the midst of all this there was one
steady process--one end being always approached--a consolidation and a
centralization of authority before which European monarchies would
pale! The process commenced with the autocratic purposes of Andrew
Bogoliubski. And it was because his _boyars_ instinctively knew that
the success of his policy meant their ruin that they assassinated him.

In "Old Russia" a close and fraternal tie bound the Prince and his
_Drujina_ together. It was one family, of which he was the adored
head. What characterized the "New Russia" was a growing antagonism
between the Grand Prince and his lords or _boyars_. This developed
into a life-and-death struggle, similar to that between Louis XI. and
his nobility. His elevation meant their humiliation. It was a
terrible clash of forces--a duel in which one was the instrument of
fate, and the other predestined to destruction.

It was of less importance during the period between Andrew Bogoliubski
and Ivan IV. that Mongols were exercising degrading tyranny and making
desperate reprisals for defeat--that Lithuania and Poland, and
conspirators everywhere, were by arms and by diplomacy and by treachery
trying to ruin the state; all this was of less import than the fact
that every vestige of authority was surely passing out of the hands of
the nobility into those of the Tsar. The fight was a desperate one.
It became open and avowed under Ivan III., still more bitter under his
son Vasili II., and culminated at last under Ivan the Terrible, when,
like an infuriated animal, he let loose upon them all the pent-up
instincts in his blood.

CHAPTER XI

IVAN THE TERRIBLE--ACQUISITION OF SIBERIA

In 1533 Vasili II. died, leaving the scepter to Ivan IV., an infant son
three years old. Now the humiliated Princes and _boyars_ were to have
their turn. The mother of Ivan IV., Helena Glinski, was the only
obstacle in their way. She speedily died, the victim of poison, and
then there was no one to stem the tide of princely and oligarchic
reaction against autocracy; and the many years of Ivan's minority would
give plenty of time to re-establish their lost authority. The _boyars_
took possession of the government. Ivan wrote later: "My brother and I
were treated like the children of beggars. We were half clothed, cold,
and hungry." The _boyars_ in the presence of these children
appropriated the luxuries and treasures in the palace and then
plundered the people as well, exacting unmerciful fines and treating
them like slaves. The only person who loved the neglected Ivan was his
nurse, and she was torn from him; and for a courtier to pity the
forlorn child was sufficient for his downfall. Ivan had a superior
intelligence. He read much and was keenly observant of all that was
happening. He saw himself treated with insolent contempt in private,
but with abject servility in public. He also observed that his
signature was required to give force to everything that was done, and
so discovered that he was the rightful master, that the real power was
vested only in him. Suddenly, in 1543, he sternly summoned his court
to come into his presence, and, ordering the guards to seize the chief
offender among his _boyars_, he then and there had him torn to pieces
by his hounds. This was a _coup d'etat_ by a boy of thirteen! He was
content with the banishment of many others, and then Ivan IV.
peacefully commenced his reign. He seemed a gentle, indolent youth;
very confiding in those he trusted; inclined to be a voluptuary, loving
pleasure and study and everything better than affairs of state. In
1547 he was crowned Tsar of Russia, and soon thereafter married
Anastasia of the house of Romanoff, whom he devotedly loved. As was
the custom, he surrounded himself with his mother's and his wife's
relations. So the Glinskis and the Romanoffs were the envied families
in control of the government. His mother's family, the Glinskis, were
especially unpopular; and when a terrific fire destroyed nearly the
whole of Moscow it was whispered by jealous _boyars_ that the Princess
Anna Glinski had brought this misfortune upon them by enchantments.
She had taken human hearts, boiled them in water, and then sprinkled
the houses where the fire started! An enraged populace burst into the
palace of the Glinskis, murdering all they could find.

Ivan, nervous and impressionable, seems to have been profoundly
affected by all this. He yielded to the popular demand and appointed
two men to administer the government, spiritual and temporal--Adashef,
belonging to the smaller nobility, and Silvester, a priest. Believing
absolutely in their fidelity, he then concerned himself very little
about affairs of state, and engaged in the completion of the work
commenced by Ivan III.--a revision of the old code of laws established
by Yaroslaf. These were very peaceful and very happy years for Russia
and for himself. But Ivan was stricken with a fever, and while
apparently in a dying condition he discovered the treachery of his
trusted ministers, that they were shamefully intriguing with his Tatar
enemies. When he heard their rejoicings that the day of the Glinskis
and the Romanoffs was over, he realized the fate awaiting Anastasia and
her infant son if he died. He resolved that he would not die.

Banishment seems a light punishment to have inflicted. It was gentle
treatment for treason at the court of Moscow. But the poison of
suspicion had entered his soul, and was the more surely, because
slowly, working a transformation in his character. And when soon
thereafter Anastasia mysteriously and suddenly died, his whole nature
seemed to be undergoing a change. He was passing from Ivan the gentle
and confiding, into "Ivan the Terrible."

Ivan said later, in his own vindication: "When that dog Adashef
betrayed me, was anyone put to death? Did I not show mercy? They say
now that I am cruel and irascible; but to whom? I am cruel toward
those that are cruel to me. The good! ah, I would give them the robe
and the chain that I wear! My subjects would have given me over to the
Tatars, sold me to my enemies. Think of the enormity of the treason!
If some were chastised, was it not for their crimes, and are they not
my slaves--and shall I not do what I will with mine own?"

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