The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-07-07
ORIGIN OF THE ROMANOFFS-
GREAT MAD GAR - RUSSIAN
QUEEN ELiZABETHS-REC
OF BLOOD, ANARCHY AND DEs-
POTISM. ~ $50;

A writer in the London Daily Tele-
graph very correctly says that the
story of the Cars is like a con-
glomeration of the wild catastrophes
of Elizabethan tragedy. Astounding
extravagances and contradictions of
character, Incredible impostures, con-
spiracies Infinitely involved, stupefy
ing changes of fortune, are repeated
from age to age.
The Romanoffs, indeed, trace their
line far back to the House of Rurik,
the first of Russian dynasties, but
that is no great matter. Prince Rurik
lived, if he ever lived, some thousand
years ago, and was probably Morse
man. The first Romanoff came to
Moscow, from Prussia it is said, four
hundred years after Rurik was dead
and gone. Russia became united
independent Empire under an auto
cratic Car later still, and her first
ruler was no Romanoff, but Dimitri
of the Don, Prince Of Moscow. For
two centuries Russia had lain under
the ruinous domination of Tartar
hordes. In 1880 Dimitri formed a
coalition of Russian princes and de-
feated the army of the Tartars on the
famous field of Kulikovo. 1t was one
of the decisive battles of the world,
for it determined for all time that
Russia should be European, not
Asiatic.
Dimitri won Russia her right to
freedom, independence, and civiliza-
ton. The men of his dynasty, Ivan
the Great and Basil and Ivan the
Terrible, censolidatedshe her power and
shaped her government into auto
cratic Empire. Ivan the Great sue
ceeded to the throne when he was
three years old. The country re-
lapsed into anarchy, the Court into
barbaric vice. When Ivan assumed
his power as Car, Moscow was in
| flames. But no sovereign ever began
his reign better. There was clean
sweep of the vicious or feeble ad-
illustrators of the Regency. The
country was given peace, justice, and
prosperity. There were fifteen years
| of a golden age. Then suddenly all
was changed. The benevolent father
Iof his people became an execrable
tyrant, a tyrant beyond all the wild
bombast OF Marlowe's' feverish
dreams. His existence became one
Vast orgy of murder and torture.
.. Coming of the Romanoffs.
1t was a rising of the people, head
Fed by a butcher and Prince, which
made the first Romanoff Gar.
Michael Remanoff was elected-for it
| was vote of the whole nation that
gave him the throne-in 1913. He
was prudent and successful admins.
traitor, and these qualities were in
herited by his son Alexis. IA man of
la different stamp succeeded them
when by a coup d'etat Peter the
Great, who was not the next in sue
cession, won the throne in 1854. Peter
was a man of tremendous energy,
bodily and mental, a savage in his
manners, hardly human in his morals
RUTHLESS as Ivan the Terrible, and yet
a man born to rule 1t is a popular
error to suppose that he was the
| first ruler of Russia to see her need
Of the commerce and arts and or
ganization Of the West. But he came
when the time was ripe, and it is
from him, from his foresight and his
vast schemes, that Russia traces her
influence as a European Power.
When Peter the Great died the
descendants of Michael Romanoff