Part 128

"Under Wladimir I. (980-1015), and under Jaroslaf I. (1019-1054), the power of the grand-duchy of Kiew was respectable. But Jaroslaf having divided it between his sons conduced to enfeeble it. In the 12th century, the supremacy passed from the grand-duchy of Kiew to the grand-duchy of Wladimir, without extricating Russia from division and impotence. The law of primogeniture not existing in Russia, where it was not introduced into the Czarean family until the 14th century, the principalities were incessantly divided."

_S. Menzies, History of Europe, chapter. 36._

RUSSIA: A. D. 988. Acquisition of Cherson.

See CHERSON: A. D. 988.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1054-1237. The early Russian territory and its divisions.

"It must not be forgotten that the oldest Russia was formed mainly of lands which afterwards passed under the rule of Poland and Lithuania. … The Dnieper, from which Russia was afterwards cut off, was the great central river of the elder Russia; of the Don and the Volga she held only the upper course. The northern frontier barely passed the great lakes of Ladoga and Onega, and the Gulf of Finland itself. It seems not to have reached what was to be the Gulf of Riga, but some of the Russian princes held a certain supremacy over the Finnish and Lettish tribes of that region. In the course of the 11th century, the Russian state, like that of Poland, was divided among princes of the reigning family, acknowledging the superiority of the great prince of Kief. In the next century the chief power passed from Kief to the northern Vladimir on the Kiasma. Thus the former Finnish land of Susdal on the upper tributaries of the Volga became the cradle of the second Russian power. Novgorod the Great, meanwhile, under elective princes, claimed, like its neighbour Pskof, to rank among commonwealths. Its dominion was spread far over the Finnish tribes to the north and east; the White Sea, and, far more precious, the Finnish Gulf, had now a Russian seaboard. It was out of Vladimir and Novgorod that the Russia of the future was to grow. Meanwhile a crowd of principalities, Polotsk, Smolensk, the Severian Novgorod, Tchernigof, and others, arose on the Duna and Dnieper. Far to the east arose the commonwealth of Viatka, and on the frontiers of Poland and Hungary arose the principality of Halicz or Galicia, which afterwards grew for a while into a powerful kingdom. Meanwhile in the lands on the Euxine the old enemies, Patzinaks and Chazars, gave way to the Cumans, known in Russian history as Polovtzi and Parthi. They spread themselves from the Ural river to the borders of Servia and Danubian Bulgaria, cutting off Russia from the Caspian. In the next century Russians and Cumans—momentary allies—fell before the advance of the Mongols, commonly known in European history as Tartars. Known only as ravagers in the lands more to the west, over Russia they become overlords for 250 years. All that escaped absorption by the Lithuanian became tributary to the Mongol. Still the relation was only a tributary one; Russia was never incorporated in the Mongol dominion, as Servia and Bulgaria were incorporated in the Ottoman dominion. But Kief was overthrown; Vladimir became dependent; Novgorod remained the true representative of free Russia in the Baltic lands."

_E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 11, section 2._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1235. Formation of the grand-duchy of Lithuania, embracing a large area of Russian territory.

See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1239. Mongol conquest.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480. Prosperity and greatness of Novgorod as a commercial republic. Two centuries of Tartar domination. Growing power of Lithuania and Poland. Rise of the Duchy of Moscow, the nucleus of the future Russian Empire.

"Alone among the cities the ancient Novgorod has boasted its exemption from plunder [at the hands of the Tartars]. The great city, though fallen since the days of Rurik from being the capital of an Empire, had risen to the dignity of a Republic. It had found wealth in trade; and at successive epochs had introduced the riches of Constantinople to the North, the merchandise of the great Hanse Towns to the South. It had profited by the example, and had emulated the prosperity, of the rich cities of Germany. It had striven also to attain their freedom; and, though still continuing to acknowledge a vague allegiance to the Russian Princes, it had been able, by its wealth and its remoteness from control, to win or to assume privileges, until it had resembled Bremen or Lubeck in the sovereignty of its assemblies, and had surpassed those cities by the assumption of a style declaratory of its independence. It boasted further of a prince, St. Alexander Nevsky, to whom a glorious victory over the Swedes had already given a name, and whose virtues were hereafter to enrol him among the Saints; and it had a defence in the marshes and forests which surrounded it and which had already once deterred the invaders. But even the great city could not continue to defy the Tartar horde, and its submission is at once the last and most conclusive proof of the supremacy of their power. Thenceforth the nation felt the bitterness of servitude. The Tartars did not occupy the country they had conquered; they retired to establish their settlements upon the Volga, where they became known as the Golden Horde: but they exacted the tribute and the homage of the Russian Princes. … {2757} Five centuries have been unable to obliterate the traces which this period has imprinted upon the national character. The Tartars oppressed and extorted tribute from the Russian princes; the princes in their turn became the oppressors and extortioners of their people. Deceit and lying, the refuge of the weak, became habitual. Increasing crime and increasing punishments combined to brutalise the people. The vice of drunkenness was universal. Trade indeed was not extinguished; and religion prospered so abundantly that of all the many monasteries of Russia there are but few that do not owe their origin to this time. … Meanwhile the provinces of the West were falling into the hands of other enemies. The Tartar wave had swept as far as Poland, but it had then recoiled, and had left the countries westward of the Dnieper to their fate. All links of the connection that had bound these regions to the Princes of Vladimir, were now broken. Vitepsk, Polotsk, Smolensk, and even provinces still nearer Moscow, were gradually absorbed by the growing power of Lithuania, which, starting from narrow limits between the Dwina and the Niemen, was destined to overshadow Russia.

See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.

The provinces of the South for a time maintained a certain unity and independence under the name of the Duchy of Halicz or Kief; but these also, through claims of inheritance or feudal right, became eventually merged in the dominions of their neighbours. Poland obtained Black Russia, which has never since returned to its earlier masters. Lithuania acquired Volhynia and Red Russia, and thus extended her wide empire from the Baltic as far as the Red Sea. Then came the union of these powers by the acceptance in 1383 of the Grand Duke Jagellon as King of Poland; and all hopes for the Russian princes of recovering their possessions seemed lost. The ancient empire of Yaroslaf was thus ended; and its history is parted from that of mediæval Russia by the dark curtain of two centuries in which the Russian people were a race but not a nation. The obscure descendants of Rurik still occupied his throne, and ruled with some appearance of hereditary succession. They even chose this period of their weakness to solace their vanity by the adoption of the style of Sovereigns of All the Russias. But they were the mere vassals of the Golden Horde. … It was not until the reign of Dimitry IV., that any sign was shown of reviving independence. Time, by weakening the Tartars, had then brought freedom nearer to the Russians. The Horde, which had been united under Bati, when it had first precipitated itself upon Europe, had become divided by the ambition of rebellious Khans, who had aspired to establish their independent power; and the Russians had at length a prince who was able to profit by the weakness of his enemies. Dimitry, who reigned from 1362 to 1389, is celebrated as having checked the divisions which civil strife and appanages had inflicted upon his country, and as having also gloriously repulsed the Lithuanians from the walls of Moscow, now rising to be his capital. But his greatest deed, and that by which he lives in the remembrance of every Russian, is his victory upon the Don, which gave to him thenceforth the name of Donskoi. The Tartars, indignant at his prominence, had united with the Lithuanians. For the first time the Russians turned against their tyrants, and found upon the field of Khoulikof [1383] that their freedom was still possible. They did not achieve indeed for many years what they now began to hope. Their strength was crippled by renewed attacks of Tartars from the south and of Lithuanians from the west; and they could not dare to brave the revengeful enmity of the Horde. For a hundred years they still paid tribute, and the successors of Dimitry still renewed their homage at the camp upon the Volga. But progress gradually was made. The Grand Prince Vassili Dimitrievitch [1389-1425] was able to extend his rule over a territory that occupied the space of six or seven of the modern governments round Moscow; and though the country, under Vassili Vassilievitch [1425-1462], became enfeebled by a renewal of civil strife, the increasing weakness of the Tartar power continued to prepare the way for the final independence that was accomplished by the close of the 15th century. The reign of Ivan III. became the opening of a new epoch in Russian history. He restored his people, long sunk out of the gaze of Europe, to a place among its nations, and recalled them in some degree from the barbarism of the East to the intercourse and civilization of the West. The Russia of old time was now no more; but the Grand Prince, or Duke of Moscow, as he was called, was still the heir of Rurik and of Yaroslaf, and in the growth of his Duchy their Empire reappeared. … Without the fame of a warrior, but with the wisdom of a statesman, with a strong hand and by the help of a long reign, he built up out of the fragments that surrounded Him an Empire that exceeded vastly that of his immediate predecessor. … The fall of the republic of Novgorod [1478] and the final extinction of the Golden Horde, are the events which are most prominent. Riches had been the bane of the great city. They had fostered insolence, but they had given a distaste for war. The citizens had often rebelled; they had accepted the protection of Lithuania, and had later meditated, and even for a time accomplished, a union with Poland. But they had had no strength to defend the liberty to which they had aspired. … When Ivan advanced, determined, as he said, to reign at Novgorod as he reigned at Moscow, they were unable to repel or to endure a siege, and they surrendered themselves into his hand. Once he had pardoned them; now their independence was taken from them. Their assembly was dissolved; their great bell, the emblem of their freedom, was carried to Moscow. The extinction of the Golden Horde was due to time and policy, rather than to any deeds which have brought glory to the Russian people.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.

Released in this manner from the most dangerous both of domestic and of foreign foes the power of Ivan rapidly advanced. The broad province of Penn, that had begun to boast a half accomplished independence, had been early forced to acknowledge her subjection. The Khan of Kazan was now made tributary; and the rule of Ivan was extended from the Oural to the Neva. Provinces, as important, though less extensive, were acquired in the south. The Russian princes and cities that had preserved their independence were all, with the one exception of Riazan, compelled to acknowledge the sovereignty of Moscow. … {2758} At the same time the Lithuanians were thrust back. Their greatness had gone by; and the territories of Tula, Kalouga, and Orel now ceasing to own allegiance to a declining power, were incorporated with the rising Empire. That Empire had already reached the Dnieper, and was already scheming to recover the ancient capital of its princes."

_C. F. Johnstone, Historical Abstracts, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _A. Rambaud, History of Russia, chapters 8-14 (volume 1)._

RUSSIA: 15th Century. Effects of the Tartar domination. Sources of autocracy.

"The invasion of the Mongols, in the beginning of the 13th century, snapped the thread of Russia's destinies. … Nature, after preparing the invasion, herself marked its bounds. The Tatars, now masters of the steppes in the southeast, which felt to them very much like home, grew ill at ease as soon as they began to lose themselves in the forests of the north. They did not settle there. These regions were too European to suit their half-nomadic habits, and they cared more for tribute-payers than for subjects. So the 'kniazes' received their principalities back from the hands of the Mongols—as fiefs. They had to submit to the presence near their person of a sort of Tatar 'residents,'—the 'baskàks,' whose duty it was to take the census and to collect the taxes. They were compelled to take the long, long journey to the 'Horde,' often encamped in the heart of Asia, in order to receive their investiture from the successors of Djinghiz, and ended by becoming the vassals of a vassal of the 'Great-Khan.' At this price Russia retained her religion, her dynasties, and—thanks to her clergy and her princes—her nationality. Never yet was nation put through such a school of patience and abject submission. … Under this humiliating and impoverishing domination the germs of culture laid in the old principalities withered up. … The Tatar domination developed in the Russians faults and faculties of which their intercourse with Byzance had already brought them the germs, and which, tempered by time, have since contributed to develop their diplomatic gifts. … The oppression by man, added to the oppression by the climate, deepened certain traits already sketched in by nature in the Great-Russian's soul. Nature inclined him to submission, to endurance, to resignation; history confirmed these inclinations. Hardened by nature, he was steeled by history. One of the chief effects of the Tatar domination and all that makes up Russian history, is the importance given to the national worship. … The domination of an enemy who was a stranger to Christianity fortified the sufferers' attachment to their worship. Religion and native land were merged into one faith, took the place of nationality and kept it alive. It was then that the conception sprang up which still links the quality of Russian to the profession of Greek orthodoxy, and makes of the latter the chief pledge of patriotism. … Upon Russia's political sovereignty the Tatar domination had two parallel effects: it hastened national unity and it strengthened autocracy. The country which, under the appanage system, was falling to pieces, was bound together by foreign oppression as by a chain of iron. Having constituted himself suzerain of the 'Grand-Kniazes,' whom he appointed and dethroned at will, the Khan conferred on them his authority. The Asiatic tyranny of which they were the delegates empowered them to govern tyrannically. Their despotism over the Russians was derived from their servitude under the Tatars. … Every germ of free government, whether aristocratic or democratic, was stifled. Nothing remained but one power, the 'Velíki-Kniaz,' the autocrat,—and such now, after more than 500 years, still is the basis of the state."

_A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, part 1, book 4, chapter 3._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682. From Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great. The Poles at Moscow. Origin of the dynasty of the Romanoffs.

"Apart from the striking and appalling character of Ivan himself, whom Mickiewicz, the Polish poet, calls, in his lectures on the Slavonians, 'the most finished tyrant known in history—frivolous and debauched like Nero, stupid and ferocious like Caligula, full of dissimulation like Tiberius or Louis XI.,' the reign of Ivan the Terrible is interesting as marking the beginning of the intercourse between Russia and Western Europe, and especially between Russia and England. The natural approach to Russia from the west was, of course, through Poland; but the Poles impeded systematically, and for political reasons, the introduction of arts and artificers into Russia, and Sigismund wrote a letter to Elizabeth, warning her against the Muscovite power as a danger to civilization, only not formidable for the moment because it was still semi-barbarous. Ivan the Terrible was the third of the independent Tsars; and already under Ivan, sometimes called the 'Great'—to whom indeed belongs the honour of having finally liberated Russia from the Tartar yoke—endeavours had been made to enter into relations with various European nations. Foreigners, too, were encouraged to visit Russia and settle there. The movement of foreigners towards Russia increased with each succeeding reign; and beginning with the first Tsar of Muscovy it became much more marked under the third, that Ivan the Terrible, under whose reign the mariners in the service of the English company of 'merchant adventurers' entered the White Sea, and, in their own language, 'discovered' Russia. Russia was, indeed, until that time, so far as Western Europe was concerned, an unknown land, cut off from Western civilization for political and warlike reasons by the Poles, and for religious reasons by the Catholic Church. On the 18th of March, 1584, Ivan was sitting half dressed, after his bath, 'solacing himself and making merie with pleasant songs, as he used to doe.' He called for his chess-board, had placed the men, and was just setting up the king, when he fell back in a swoon and died. … The death of Ivan was followed by strong dislike against the English at Moscow; and the English diplomatist and match-maker, Sir Jerome Bowes, after being ironically informed that 'the English king was dead,' found himself seized and thrown into prison. He was liberated through the representations of another envoy, who pointed out that it would be imprudent to excite Elizabeth's wrath; and though for a time intercourse between Russia and Western Europe was threatened, through the national hatred of foreigners as manifested by the councillors of the Tsar, yet when the weak-minded Feodor fell beneath the influence of his brother-in-law Boris Godounoff, the previous policy, soon to become traditional, of cultivating relations with Western Europe, was resumed. … {2759} Nineteen years have yet to pass before the election of the first of the Romanoffs to the throne; for strange as it may seem, the first member of the dynasty of the Romanoffs was chosen and appointed to the imperial rule by an assembly representing the various estates. Meanwhile the order of succession had been broken. Several pretenders to the throne had appeared, one of whom, Demetrius, distinctively known as the 'Imposter,' attained for a time supreme power. Demetrius, married to a Polish lady, Marina Mniszek, was aided by her powerful family to maintain his position in Moscow; for the Mniszeks assembled and sent to the Russian capital a body of 4,000 men. Then Ladislas [son of the king] of Poland interfered, and after a time [1610] Moscow fell beneath the power of the Poles.

See POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.

Soon, however, the national feeling of Russia was aroused. A butcher, or cattle dealer of Nijni Novgorod, named Minin, whose patriotism has made him one of the most popular figures in Russian history, got together the nucleus of a national army, and called upon the patriotic nobleman, Prince Pojarski, to place himself at its head. Pojarski and Minin marched together to Moscow, and their success in clearing the capital of the foreign invaders [1612] is commemorated by a group of statuary which stands in the principal square of Moscow. … Among the tombs of the metropolitans buried in … [the cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow] are those of Philaret and Hermogenes, who were thrown into prison by the Poles for refusing to consent to the accession of Ladislas, the Polish prince, to the Russian throne. Hermogenes died soon after his arrest. Philaret, at the expulsion of the Poles, was carried away captive by them in their retreat from Moscow (1612), and was kept nine years a prisoner in Poland. On his return to Russia, he found his son, Michael Feodorovitch, elected to the throne. The belief, then, of the Russian people in Michael's patriotism, seems to have been founded on a knowledge of the patriotism of his father. The surname of the metropolitan who had defied the Polish power and had suffered nine years' imprisonment in Poland was Romanoff; Philaret was the name he had adopted on becoming a monk. His baptismal name was Feodor, and hence the patronymic Feodorovitch attached to the name of Michael, the first of the Romanoffs. There is little to say about the reign of Michael Feodorovitch, the circumstances having once been set forth under which he was elected to the vacant throne; and his son and successor, Alexis Michailovitch, is chiefly remembered as father of Peter the Great."

_H. S. Edwards, The Romanoffs, chapters 1-2._

ALSO IN: _W. K. Kelly, History of Russia, chapters 13-19 (volume 1)._

_P. Mérimée, Demetrius the Imposter._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1547. Assumption of the title, Czar, or Tzar, by the Grand Prince of Moscow.