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and Gallicians. The Mongols were forgotten; the chronicles, however, are filled with fatal presages: in the midst of scarcity, famine and pestilence, of incendiaries in the towns and calamities of all sorts, they remark on the comet of 1224, the earthquake and eclipse of the sun of 1230.

The Tatars were busy finishing the conquest of China, but presently one of the sons of Genghis, Ougoudei or Oktaï, sent his nephew Bati to the West. As the reflux of the Polovtsi had announced the invasion of 1224, that of the Saxin nomads, related to the Khirghiz who took refuge on the lands of the Bulgarians of the Volga, warned men of a new irruption of the Tatars, and indicated its direction. It was no longer South Russia, but Souzdalian Russia that was threatened. In 1237 Bati conquered the Great City, capital of the half-civilised Bulgars, who were, like the Polovtsi, ancient enemies of Russia, and who were to be included in her ruin. Bolgary was given up to the flames, and her inhabitants were put to the sword. The Tatars next plunged into the deep forests of the Volga, and sent a sorcerer and two officers as envoys to the princes of Riazan. The three princes of Riazan, those of Pronsk, Kolomna, Moscow and Mourom, advanced to meet them. "If you want peace," said the Tatars, "give us the tenth of your goods." "When we are dead," replied the Russian princes, "you can have the whole." Though abandoned by the princes of Tchernigof and the Grand Prince George II., of whom they had implored help, the dynasty of Riazan accepted the unequal struggle. They were completely crushed; nearly all their princes remained on the field of battle. Legend has embellished their fall. It is told how Feodor preferred to die rather

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than see his young wife, Euphrasia, the spoil of Bati; and how, on learning his fate, she threw herself and her son from the window of the *terem*. Oleg the Handsome, found still alive on the battle-field, repelled the caresses, the attention, and religion of the Khan, and was cut in pieces. Riazan was immediately taken by assault, sacked, and burned. All the towns of the principality suffered the same fate.

It was now the turn of the Grand Prince, for the Russia of the North-east had not even the honour of falling in a great battle like the Russia of the Southwest, united for once against the common enemy. The Souzdalian army, commanded by a son of George II., was beaten on the day of Kolomna, on the Oka. The Tatars burned Moscow, then besieged Vladimir on the Kliazma, which George II. had abandoned to seek for help in the North. His two sons were charged with the defence of the capital. Princes and boyards, feeling there was no alternative but death or servitude, prepared to die. The princesses and all the nobles prayed Bishop Metropolanes to give them the tonsure; and when the Tatars rushed into the town by all its gates, the vanquished retired into the cathedral, where they perished, men and women, in a general conflagration. Souzdal, Rostof, Iaroslavl, fourteen towns, a multitude of villages in the Grand Principality, were all given over to the flames (1238). The Tatars then went to seek the Grand Prince, who was encamped on the Sit, almost on the frontier of the possessions of Novgorod. George II. could neither avenge his people nor his family. After the battle, the bishop of Rostof found his headless corpse (1238). His nephew, Vassilko, who was taken prisoner, was stabbed for

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refusing to serve Bati. The immense Tatar army,
after having sacked Tver, took Torjok; there "the
Russian heads fell beneath the sword of the Tatars
as grass beneath the scythe." The territory of Nov-
gorod was invaded; the great republic trembled, but
the deep forests and the swollen rivers delayed
Bati. The invading flood reached the Cross of Igna-
tius, about fifty miles from Novgorod, then returned
to the South-east. On the way the small town of
Kozelsk (near Kalouga) checked the Tatars for so
long, and inflicted on them so much loss, that it was
called by them the *wicked town*. Its population was
exterminated, and the prince Vassili, still a child,
was "drowned in blood."

The two following years (1239-1240) were spent
by the Tatars in ravaging Southern Russia. They
burnt Pereiaslaf, and Tchernigof, defended with des-
operation by its princes. Next Mangou, grandson of
Genghis Khan, marched against the famous town of
Kief, whose name resounded through the East, and in
the books of the Arab writers. From the left bank of
the Dnieper, the barbarian admired the great city on
the heights of the right bank, towering over the wide
river with her white walls and towers adorned by
Byzantine artists, and innumerable churches with
cupolas of gold and silver. Mangou proposed a
capitulation to the Kievians; the fate of Riazan, of
Tchernigof, of Vladimir, the capitals of powerful
states, announced to them the lot that awaited them
in case of refusal, yet the Kievians dared to massacre
the envoys of the Khan. Michael, their Grand
Prince, fled; his rival, Daniel of Galitch, did not
care to remain. On hearing the report of Mangou,
Bati came to assault Kief with the bulk of his army.
The grinding of the wooden chariots, the bellowings

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of the buffaloes, the cries of the camels, the neighing
of the horses, the howlings of the Tatars, rendered it
impossible, says the annalist, to hear your own voice
in the town. The Tatars assailed the Polish Gate,
and knocked down the walls with a battering-ram.
"The Kievians, supported by the brave Dmitri, a
Gallician boyard, defended the fallen ramparts till
the end of the day, then retreated to the Church of
the Dîme, which they surrounded by a palisade.
The last defenders of Kief found themselves grouped
around the tomb of Iaroslaf. Next day they perished.
The Khan gave the boyard his life, but 'the Mother
of Russian cities' was sacked. This third pillage
was the most terrible. Even the tombs were not
respected. All that remains of the Church of the
Dîme is only a few fragments of mosaic in the
Museum at Kief. Saint Sophia, and the Monastery
of the Catacombs, were delivered up to be plundered"
(1240).

Volhynia and Gallicia still remained, but their
princes could not defend them, and Russia found
herself, with the exception of Novgorod and the
north-west country, under the Tatar yoke. The
princes had fled or were dead; hundreds of thousands
of Russians were dragged into captivity. Men saw
the wives of boyards, "who had never known work,
who a short time ago had been clothed in rich gar-
ments, adorned with jewels and collars of gold, sur-
rounded with slaves, now reduced to be themselves
the slaves of barbarians and their wives, turning the
wheel of the mill, and preparing their coarse food."

If we look for the causes which rendered the
defeat of the brave Russian nation so complete, we
may, with Karamsin, indicate the following :—
1. Though the Tatars were not more advanced, from

VOL. I.

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a military point of view, than the Russians, who had
made war in Greece and in the West against the
most warlike and civilised people of Europe, yet
they had an enormous superiority of numbers. Bati
probably had with him 500,000 warriors. 2. This
immense army moved like one man; it could succes-
sively annihilate the *droujinas* of the princes, or the
militia of the towns, which only presented themselves
successively to its blows. The Tatars had found
Russia divided against herself. 3. Even though
Russia had wished to form a confederation, the sudden
irruptions of an army entirely composed of horsemen
did not leave her time. 4. In the tribes ruled by
Bati, every man was a soldier; in Russia the nobles
and citizens alone bore arms: the peasants, who
formed the bulk of the population, allowed themselves
to be stabbed or bound without resistance. 5. It
was not by a weak nation that Russia was conquered.
The Tatar-Mongols, under Genghis Khan, had filled
the East with the glory of their name, and subdued
nearly all Asia. They arrived, proud of their ex-
ploits, animated by the recollection of a hundred
victories, and reinforced by numerous peoples whom
they had vanquished, and hurried with them to the
West.

When the princes of Galitch, of Volhynia, and of
Kief arrived as fugitives in Poland and Hungary,
Europe was terror-stricken. The Pope, whose sup-
port had been claimed by the Prince of Galitch,
summoned Christendom to arms. Louis IX. prepared
for a crusade. Frederic II., as Emperor, wrote to the
sovereigns of the West: "This is the moment to
open the eyes of body and soul, now that the brave
princes on whom we reckoned are dead or in slavery."
The Tatars invaded Hungary, gave battle to the

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Poles in Liegnitz in Silesia, had their progress a long
while arrested by the courageous defence of Olmütz
in Moravia, by the Tcheque voïevode Iaroslaf, and
stopped finally, learning that a large army, com-
manded by the King of Bohemia and the dukes of
Austria and Carinthia, was approaching. The news
of the death of Oktaï, second Emperor of all the
Tatars, in China, recalled Bati from the West, and
during the long march from Germany his army neces-
sarily diminished in number. The Tatars were no
longer in the vast plains of Asia and Eastern Europe,
but in a broken hilly country, bristling with for-
tresses, defended by a population more dense and a
chivalry more numerous than those in Russia. To sum
up, all the fury of the Mongol tempest spent itself on
the Slavonic race. It was the Russians who fought
at the Kalka, at Kolomna, at the Sit; the Poles and
Silesians at Liegnitz; the Bohemians and Moravians
at Olmütz. The Germans suffered nothing from the
invasion of the Mongols but the fear of it. It ex-
hausted itself principally on those plains of Russia
which seem a continuation of the steppes of Asia.
Only in Russian history did the invasion produce
great results. About the same time Bati built on
one of the arms of the Lower Volga a city called
Saraï (the Castle), which became the capital of a
powerful Tatar Empire, the Golden Horde, extending
from the Oural and Caspian to the mouth of the
Danube. The Golden Horde was formed not only
of Tatar-Mongols or Nogaïs, who even now survive
in the Northern Crimea, but particularly of the
remains of ancient nomads, such as the Patzinaks
and Polovtsi, whose descendants seem to be the
present Kalmucks and Bachkirs; of Turkish tribes
tending to become sedentary, like the Tatars of

M 2

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Astrakhan in the present day; and of the Finnish
populations already established in the country, and
which mixed with the invaders. Oktaï, Kouïouk,
and Mangou, the first three successors of Genghis
Khan, elected by all the Mongol princes, took the
title of Great Khans, and the Golden Horde recog-
nised their authority; but under his fourth successor,
Khouboulaï, who usurped the throne and established
himself in China, this bond of vassalage was broken.
The Golden Horde became an independent State
(1260). United and powerful under the terrible
Bati, who died in 1255, it fell to pieces under his
successors; but in the 14th century the Khan Uz-
beck reunited it anew, and gave the horde a second
period of prosperity. The Tatars, who were pagans
when they entered Russia, embraced about 1272 the
faith of Islam, and became its most formidable
apostles.

ALEXANDER NEVSKI (1252–1263).

Iaroslaf, after his defeat at Lipetsk, entered Souzdal
on the tragic death of his brother, the Grand Prince
George II. Iaroslaf (1238-1246) found his inherit-
ance in the most deplorable condition. The towns
and villages were burnt, the country and roads
covered with unburied corpses; the survivors hid
themselves in the woods. He recalled the fugitives
and began to rebuild. Bati, who had completed the
devastation of South Russia, summoned Iaroslaf to
do him homage at Saraï, on the Volga. Iaroslaf
was received there with distinction. Bati confirmed
his title of Grand Prince, but invited him to go in
person to the Great Khan, supreme chief of the
Mongol nation, who lived on the banks of the river

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Sakhalian or Amour. To do this was to cross the
whole of Russia and Asia. Iaroslaf bent his knees
to the new master of the world, Oktaï, succeeded in
refuting the accusations brought against him by a
Russian boyard, and obtained a new confirmation of
his title. On his return he died in the desert of
exhaustion, and his faithful servants brought his body
back to Vladimir. His son Andrew succeeded him
in Souzdal (1246-1252). His other son, Alexander,
reigned at Novgorod the Great.

Alexander was as brave as he was intelligent. He
was the hero of the North, and yet he forced himself
to accept the necessary humiliations of his ter-
rible situation. In his youth we see him fighting
with all the enemies of Novgorod, Livonian knights
and Tchouds, Swedes and Finns. The Novgorodians
found themselves at issue with the Scandinavians on
the subject of their possessions on the Neva and the
Gulf of Finland. As they had helped the natives
to resist the Latin faith, King John obtained the
promise of Gregory IX. that a crusade, with plenary
indulgences, should be preached against the Great
Republic and her *protégés*, the pagans of the Baltic.
His son-in-law, Birger, with an army of Scandina-
vians, Finns, and Western Crusaders, took the com-
mand of the forces, and sent word to the Prince of
Novgorod, "Defend yourself if you can: know that I
am already in your provinces." The Russians on
their side, feeling they were fighting for orthodoxy,
opposed the Latin crusade with a Greek one. Alex-
ander humbled himself in Saint Sophia, received the
benediction of the Archbishop Spiridion, and ad-
dressed an energetic harangue to his warriors. He
had no time to await reinforcements from Souzdal.
He attacked the Swedish camp, which was situated

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on the Ijora, one of the southern affluents of the
Neva, which has given its name to Ingria. Alex-
ander won a brilliant victory, which gained him
his surname of Nevski, and the honour of becoming
under Peter the Great, the second conqueror of the
Swedes, one of the patrons of St. Petersburg. By the
orders of his great successor his bones repose in the
Monastery of Alexander Nevski. The battle of the
Neva was preserved in a dramatic legend. An
Ingrian chief told Alexander how, in the eve of the
combat, he had seen a mysterious barque, manned by
two warriors with shining brows, glide through the
night. They were Boris and Gleb, who came to the
rescue of their young kinsman. Other accounts
have preserved to us the individual exploits of the
Russian heroes—Gabriel, Skylaf of Novgorod, James
of Polotsk, Sabas, who threw down the tent of Birger,
and Alexander Nevski himself, who with a stroke
of the lance "imprinted his seal on his face" (1240).
Notwithstanding the triumph of such a service, Alex-
ander and the Novgorodians could not agree; a
short time after, he retired to Peréiaslavl-Zaliesski.
The proud republicans soon had reason to regret the
exile of this second Camillus. The Order of the
Sword-bearers, the indefatigable enemy of ortho-
doxy, took Pskof, their ally; the Germans imposed
tribute on the Vojans, vassals of Novgorod, con-
structed the fortress of Koporié on her territory
of the Neva, took the Russian town of Tessof in
Estonia, and pillaged the merchants of Novgorod
within seventeen miles of their ramparts. During
this time the Tchouds and the Lithuanians cap-
tured the peasants, and the cattle of the citizens.
At last Alexander allowed himself to be touched by
the prayers of the archbishop and the people, assem-

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bled an army, expelled the Germans from Koporié, and next from Pskof, hung as traitors the captive Vojans and Tchouds, and put to death six knights who fell into his hands. This war between the two races and two religions was cruel and pitiless. The rights of nations were hardly recognised. More than once Germans and Russians slew the ambassadors of the other side. Alexander Nevski finally gave battle to the Livonian knights on the ice of Lake Peïpus, killed 400 of them, took 50 prisoners, and exterminated a multitude of Tchouds. Such was the *Battle of the Ice* (1242). He returned in triumph to Novgorod, dragging with him his prisoners in armour of iron. The Grand Master expected to see Alexander at the gates of Riga, and implored help of Denmark. The Prince of Novgorod, satisfied with having delivered Pskof, concluded peace, recovered certain districts, and consented to the exchange of prisoners. At this time Innocent IV., deceived by false information, addressed a bull to Alexander, as a devoted son of the Church, assuring him that his father Iaroslaf, while dying among the Horde, had desired to submit himself to the throne of St. Peter. Two cardinals brought him this letter from the Pope (1251).

It is this hero of the Neva and Lake Peïpus, this vanquisher of the Scandinavians and Livonian knights, that we are presently to see grovelling at the feet of a barbarian. Alexander Nevski had understood that, in presence of this immense and brutal force of the Mongols, all resistance was madness, all pride ruin. To brave them was to complete the overthrow of Russia. His conduct may not have been chivalrous, but it was wise and humane. Alexander disdained to play the hero at the expense of

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his people, like his brother Andrew of Souzdal, who
was immediately obliged to fly, abandoning his
country to the vengeance of the Tatars. The Prince
of Novgorod was the only prince in Russia who had
kept his independence, but he knew Bati's hands
could extend as far as the Ilmen. "God has sub-
jected many peoples to me," wrote the barbarian to
him: "will you alone refuse to recognise my power?
If you wish to keep your land, come to me; you will
see the splendour and the glory of my sway." Then
Alexander went to Saraï with his brother Andrew,
who disputed the Grand Principality of Vladimir
with his uncle Sviatoslaf. Bati declared that fame
had not exaggerated the merit of Alexander, that he
far excelled the common run of Russian princes.
He enjoined the two brothers to show themselves,
like their father Iaroslaf, at the Great Horde; they
returned from it in 1257. Kouïouk had confirmed
the one in the possession of Vladimir, and the other
in that of Novgorod, adding to it all South Russia
and Kief.

The year 1260 put the patience of Alexander and
his politic obedience to the Tatars to the proof. Ou-
lavtchi, to whom the Khan Berkaï had confided the
affairs of Russia, demanded that Novgorod should sub-
mit to the census and pay tribute. It was the hero of
the Neva that was charged with the humiliating and
dangerous mission of persuading Novgorod. When
the possadnik uttered in the *retché* the doctrine that
it was necessary to submit to the strongest, the
people raised a terrible cry and murdered the possad-
nik. Vassili himself, the son of Alexander, declared
against a father "who brought servitude to free
men;" and retired to the Pskovians. It needed a soul
of iron temper to resist the universal disapprobation,

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and counsel the Novgorodians to the commission of the cowardly though necessary act. Alexander arrested his son, and punished the boyards who had led him into the revolt with death or mutilation. The vetché had decided to refuse the tribute, and send back the Mongol ambassadors with presents. However, on the rumour of the approach of the Tatars, they repented, and Alexander could announce to the enemy that Novgorod submitted to the census. But when they saw the officers of the Khan at work, the population revolted again, and the prince was obliged to keep guard on the officers night and day. In vain the boyards advised the citizens to give in: assembled around St. Sophia, the people declared they would die for liberty and honour. Alexander then threatened to quit the city with his men, and abandon it to the vengeance of the Khan. This menace conquered the pride of the Novgorodians. The Mongols and their agents might go, register in hand, from house to house in the humiliated and silent city to make the list of the inhabitants. "The boyards," says Karamsin, "might yet be vain of their rank and their riches, but the simple citizens had lost with their national honour their most precious possession" (1260).

In Souzdal also Alexander found himself in the presence of insolent victors and exasperated subjects. In 1262 the inhabitants of Vladimir, of Souzdal, of Rostof, rose against the collectors of the Tatar impost. The people of Iaroslavl slew a renegade named Zozimus, a former monk, who had become a Moslem fanatic. Terrible reprisals were sure to follow. Alexander set out with presents for the Horde at the risk of leaving his head there. He had likewise to excuse himself for having refused a

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body of auxiliary Russians to the Mongols, wishing at least to spare the blood and religious scruples of his subjects. It is a remarkable fact that, over the most profound humiliations of the Russian nationality, the contemporary history always throws a ray of glory. At the moment that Alexander went to prostrate himself at Saraï, the Souzdalian army, united to that of Novgorod, and commanded by his son Dmitri, defeated the Livonian knights, and took Dorpat by assault. The Khan Berkaï gave Alexander a kind greeting, accepted his explanations, dispensed with the promised contingent, but kept him for a year near his court. The health of Alexander broke down; he died on his return before reaching Vladimir. When the news arrived at his capital, the Metropolitan Cyril, who was finishing the liturgy, turned towards the faithful, and said: "Learn, my dear children, that the Sun of Russia is set, is dead." "We are lost," cried the people, breaking forth into sobs. Alexander by this policy of resignation, which his chivalrous heroism does not permit us to despise, had secured some repose for exhausted Russia. By his victories over his enemies of the West he had given her some glory, and hindered her from despairing under the most crushing tyranny, material and moral, which a European people had ever suffered.

## THE MONGOL YOKE—INFLUENCE OF THE TATARS ON THE RUSSIAN DEVELOPMENT.

The Mongol khans, after having devastated and abased Russia, did not introduce any direct political change. They left to each country her laws, her courts of justice, her natural chiefs. The house of

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Andrew Bogoliubski continued to reign in Souzdal, that of Daniel Romanovitch in Galitch and Volhynia, the Olgovitches in Tchernigof, and the descendants of Rogvolod the Varangian at Polotsk. Novgorod might continue to expel and recall her princes, and the dynasties of the South to dispute the throne of Kief. The Russian States found themselves under the Mongol yoke, in much the same situation as that of the Christians of the Greco-Slav peninsula three centuries later, under the Ottomans. The Russians remained in possession of all their lands, which their nomad conquerors, encamped on the steppes of the East and South, disdained. They were, like their Danubian kinsmen, a sort of rayahs, over whom the authority of the khans was exerted with more or less rigour, but whom their conquerors never tried in any way to *Tatarize*. Let us see exactly in what consisted the obligations of the vanquished, and their relations with their conquerors, during the period of the Mongol yoke or *Tatarchtchina*.

1. The Russian princes were forced to visit the Horde, either as evidence of their submission, or to give the Khan opportunity of judging their disputes. We have seen how they had to go not only to the Khan of the Golden Horde, but often also to the Grand Khan at the extremity of Asia, on the borders of the Sakhalian or Amour. They met there the chiefs of the Mongol, Tatar, Thibetian and Bokharian hordes, and sometimes the ambassador of the Caliph of Bagdad, of the Pope, or of the King of France. The Grand Khans tried to play off against each other these ambassadors, who were astounded to meet at his Court. Mangou Khan desired Saint Louis to recognise him as the master of the world, "for," said he, "when the universe has saluted me as sovereign, a

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happy tranquillity will reign on the earth." In the case of refusal, "neither deep seas nor inaccessible mountains" would place the King of France beyond the power of his wrath. To the princes of Asia and Russia he displayed the presents of the King of France, affecting to consider them as tributes and signs of submission. "We will send to seek him to confound you," he said to them, and Joinville assures us that this threat, and "the fear of the King of France," decided many to throw themselves on his mercy. This journey to the Grand Horde was terrible. The road went through deserts, or countries once rich, but changed by the Tatars into vast wastes. Few who went returned. Planus Carpinus, envoy of Innocent IV., saw in the steppes of the Kirghiz the dry bones of the boyards of the unhappy Iaroslaf, who had died of thirst in the sand. Planus Carpinus thus describes the Court of Bati on the Volga:—"It is crowded and brilliant. His army consists of 600,000 men, 150,000 of whom are Tatars, and 450,000 strangers, Christians as well as infidels. On Good Friday we were conducted to his tent, between two fires, because the Tatars pretend that a fire purifies everything, and robs even poison of its danger. We had to make many prostrations, and enter the tent without touching the threshold. Bati was on his throne with one of his wives; his brothers, his children, and the Tatar lords were seated on benches; the rest of the assembly were on the ground, the men on the right, the women on the left. . . . The Khan and the lords of the Court emptied from time to time cups of gold and silver, while the musicians made the air ring with their melodies. Bati has a bright complexion; he is affable with his men, but inspires general terror." The Court of the Grand Khan was

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still more magnificent. Planus Carpinus found there
a Russian named Koum, who was the favourite and
special goldsmith of Gaïouk or Kouïouk, and Rubru-
quis discovered a Parisian goldsmith, named Guil-
laume. Much money was needed for success, either
at the Court of the Grand Khan or of Bati. Pre-
sents had to be distributed to the Tatar princes, to the
favourites; above all to the wives and the mother of
the Khan. At this terrible tribunal the Russian
princes had to struggle with intrigues and corruption;
the heads of the pleaders were often the stakes of
these dreadful trials. The most dangerous enemies
they encountered at the Tatar Court were not the
barbarians, but the Russians, their rivals. The his-
tory of the Russian princes at the Horde is very
tragic. Thus Michael of Tchernigof perished at the
Horde of Sarai in 1246, and Michael of Tver in 1319,
the one assassinated by the renegade Doman, the
other by the renegade Romanetz, at the instigation
and under the eyes of the Grand Prince of Moscow.

2. The conquered people were obliged to pay a capi-
tation tax, which weighed as heavily on the poor as on
the rich. The tribute was paid either in money or
in furs; those who were unable to furnish it became
slaves. The Khans had for some time farmed out
this revenue to some Khiva merchants, who collected
it with the utmost rigour, and whom they protected
by appointing superior agents called *baskaks*, with
strong guards to support them. The excesses of these
tax-gatherers excited many revolts: in 1262, that
of Souzdal; in 1284, that of Koursk; in 1318, that
of Kolomna; in 1327, that of Tver, where the inha-
bitants slew the *baskak* Chevkal, and brought down on
themselves frightful reprisals. Later, the princes of
Moscow themselves farmed not only the tax from their

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own subjects, but also from neighbouring countries. They became the farmers-general of the invaders. This was the origin of their riches and their power.

3. Besides the tribute, the Russians had to furnish to their master the blood-tax, a military contingent. Already at the time of the Huns and Avars, we have seen Slavs and Goths accompany the Asiatic hordes, form their vanguards, and be as it were the hounds of Baïan. In the 13th century, the Russian princes furnished to the Tatars select troops, especially a solid infantry, and marched in their armies at the head of their *droujinas*. It was thus that in 1276 Boris of Rostof, Gleb of Biélozersk, Feodor of Iaroslavl, and Andrew of Gorodetz followed Mangou Khan in a war against the tribes of the Caucasus, and sacked Dediakof in Daghestan, the capital of the Iasses. The Mongols scrupulously reserved to them their part of the booty. The same Russian princes took part in an expedition against an adventurer named Lachan by the Greek historians, formerly a keeper of pigs, who had raised Bulgaria. The descendants of Monomachus behaved still more dishonourably in the troubles in the interior of Russia. They excited the Mongols against their countrymen and aided the invaders. Prince Andrew, son of Alexander Nevski, pillaged in 1281, in concert with the Tatars, the provinces of Vladimir, Souzdal, Mourom, Moscow, and Peréiaslavl, which he was disputing with Dmitri, his elder brother. He helped the barbarians to profane churches and convents. In 1327 it was the princes of Moscow and Souzdal who directed the military execution against Tver. In 1284, two Olgovitches reigned in the land of Koursk; one of them, Oleg, put the other to death in the name of the Khan. Servitude had so much abased all cha-

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racters, that even the annalists share the general
degradation. They blame, not Oleg the murderer,
but Sviatoslaf the victim. Was it not his unbridled
conduct that caused the anger of the Khan ?

4. No prince could ascend the throne without
having received the investiture and the iarlikh, or
letters patent, from the Khan. The proud Novgo-
rodians themselves rejected Michael, their prince,
saying, " It is true we have chosen Michael, but on
the condition that he should show us the iarlikh. "

5. No Russian State dared to make war without
being authorised to do so. In 1269 the Novgoro-
dians asked leave to march against Revel. In 1303,
in an assembly of princes, and in the presence of the
Metropolitan Maximus, a decree of the Khan Tokhta
was read, enjoining the princes to put an end to
their dissensions, and to content themselves with
their appanages, it being the will of the Grand Khan
that the Grand Principality should enjoy peace.
When the Mongol ambassadors brought a letter from
their sovereign, the Russian princes were obliged to
meet them on foot, prostrate themselves, spread
precious carpets under their feet, present them with
a cup filled with gold pieces, and listen, kneeling,
while the iarlikh was read.

Even while the Tatars conquered the Russians,
they respected their bravery. Matrimonial alliances
were contracted between their princes. About 1272,
Gleb, prince of Biélozersk, took a wife out of the
Khan's family, which already professed Christianity,
and Feodor of Riazan became the son-in-law of the
Khan of the Nogaïs, who assigned to the young
couple a palace in Sarai. In 1318 the Grand Prince
George married Kontchaka, sister of Uzbeck Khan,
who was baptized by the name of Agatha. Towards

176

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

the end of the 14th century, the Tatars were no
longer the rude shepherds of the steppes. Mingled
with sedentary and more cultivated races, they rebuilt
fresh cities on the ruins of those they had destroyed:
Krym in the Crimea, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Saraï.
They had acquired a taste for luxury and magnificence, honoured the national poets who sang their
exploits, piqued themselves on their chivalry and
even on their gallantry. Notwithstanding the difference of religion, a reconciliation was taking place
between the aristocracy of the two countries, between
the Russian kniazes and the Tatar mourzas.

The Russian historians are not entirely agreed as
to the nature and degree of influence exerted by the
Mongol yoke on the Russian development. Karamsin
and M. Kostomarof believe it to have been considerable. "Perhaps," says the former, "our national
character still presents some blots which are derived
from the Mongol barbarism." M. Solovief, on the
contrary, affirms that the Tatars hardly influenced
it more than the Patzinaks or Polovtsi. M. Boustojef-Rioumine estimates the influence to have been
specially exerted on the financial administration and
military organisation. On one side the Tatars established the capitation-tax, which has remained in
the financial system of Russia; on the other, the
conquered race had a natural tendency to adopt the
military system of the victors. The Russian or
Mongol princes formed a caste of soldiers henceforth
quite distinct from Western chivalry, to which the
Russian heroes of the 12th century belonged. The
warriors of Daniel of Galitch, it is said, astounded the
Poles and Hungarians by the Oriental character of
their equipment. Short stirrups, very high saddles,
a long caftan or floating dress, a sort of turban sur-

ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA.

177

mounted by an aigret, sabres and poniards in their belts, a bow and arrows—such was the military costume of a Russian prince of the 15th century.

On the other side, many of the peculiarities in which the Mongol influence is thought traceable may be attributed as well or better to purely Slav traditions, or imitations of Byzantine manners. If the Muscovite princes inclined to autocracy, it was not that they formed themselves on the model of the Grand Khans, but that they naturally adopted imperial ideas of absolutism imported from Constantinople. It is always the Roman Emperor of Tzargrad, and not the leader of Asiatic shepherds, who is their typical monarch. If from this time the Russian penal law makes more frequent use of the pain of death and corporal punishment, it is not only the result of imitation of the Tatars, but of the ever-growing influence of Byzantine laws, and the progressive triumph of their principles over those of the ancient code of Iaroslaf. Now these laws so very easily admitted torture, flogging, mutilation, the stake, &c., that there is no need to explain anything by Mongol usages. The habit of prostration, of beating the forehead, of affecting a servile submission, is certainly Oriental, but it is also Byzantine. The seclusion of women was customary in ancient Russia, moulded by Greek missionaries, and the Russian *terem* proceeds more certainly from the Hellenic *gynaeum* than from the Oriental *harem*; all the more because the Tatar women, before the conversion of the Mongols to Islamism, do not appear to have been secluded. If the Russians of the 17th century seem strange to us in their long robes and Oriental fashions, we must remember that the French and Italians of the 15th century, dressed by Venetian merchants, dis-

VOL. I.

N

178

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

played the same taste. Only in France fashions
made advances, while in Russia, isolated from the
rest of Europe, they remained stationary.

From a social point of view, two Russian expres-
sions seem to date from the Tatar invasion: *tcherne*,
or the *black people*, to designate the lower orders;
and *krestianine*, signifying the peasant, that is, the
Christian *par excellence*, who was always a stranger
to the Mongol customs adopted for a short time by
the aristocracy. As to the amount of Mongol or
Tatar blood mixed with the blood of the Russians, it
must have been very small: the aristocracy of the
two countries may have contracted marriages, a cer-
tain number of *mourzas* may have become Russian
princes by their conversion to orthodoxy, but the
two races, as a whole, remained strangers. Even
to-day, while the autochthonous Finns continue to be
Russified, the Tatar cantons, even though converted
to Christianity, are still Tatar.

✓ If the Mongol yoke has influenced the Russian
development, it is very indirectly. 1. In separating
Russia from the West, in making her a political
dependency of Asia, it perpetuated in the country
that Byzantine half-civilisation whose inferiority to
European civilisation became daily more obvious.
If the Russians of the 17th century differ so much
from Western nations, it is above all because they
have remained at the point whence all set out.
2. The Tatar conquest also favoured indirectly the
establishment of absolute power. The Muscovite
princes, responsible to the Khan for the public tran-
quillity and the collection of the tax, being all the
while watched and supported by the *baskaks*, could
the more easily annihilate the independence of the
towns, the resistance of the second order of princes,

ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA.

179

the turbulence of the boyards, and the privileges of
the free peasants. The Grand Prince of Moscow had
no consideration for his subjects because no man
had any consideration for him, and because his life
was always at stake. The Mongol tyranny bore
with a frightful weight on all the Russian hierarchy,
and subjected more closely the nobles to the princes,
and the peasants to the nobles. " The princes of
Moscow," says Karamsin, " took the humble title of
servants of the khans, and it was by this means that
they became powerful monarchs." No doubt the
Russian principalities would always have ended by
losing themselves in the same dominion, but Russian
unity would have been made, like French unity, with-
out the entire destruction of local autonomies, the
privileges of the towns, and the rights of the subjects.
It was the crushing weight of the Mongol domination
that stifled all the germs of political liberty. We
may say with Mr. Wallace, that "the first Tzars of
Muscovy were the political descendants, not of the
Russian princes, but of the Tatar khans." 3. A third
indirect result of the conquest was the growth of the
power and riches of the Church. In spite of the
saintly legends about the martyrdom of certain
princes, the Tatars were a tolerant nation. Rubru-
quis saw in the presence of the Grand Khan Mangou,
Nestorians, Mussulmans, and Shamans celebrating
their own particular worships.

Kouïouk had a Christian chapel near his palace;
Khoubilaï regularly took part in the feast of Easter.
In 1261 the Khan of Sarai authorised the erection of
a church and an orthodox bishopric in his capital.
The Mongols had no sectarian hatred against bishops
and priests. With a sure political instinct, the
Tatars, like the Sultans of Stamboul, understood that

N 2

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

these men could agitate or calm the people. After
the first fury of the conquest was passed, they applied
themselves to gaining them over. They excepted
priests and monks from the capitation-tax; they re-
ceived them well at the Horde, and gave pardons at
their intercession. They settled disputes of orthodox
prelates, and established the peace in the Church that
they imposed on the State. In 1313 the Khan Uz-
beck, at the prayer of Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow,
confirmed the privileges of the Church and forbade
her being deprived of her goods, "for," says the edict,
"these possessions are sacred, because they belong to
men whose prayers preserve our lives and strengthen
our armies." The right of justice in the Church was
formally recognised. Sacrilege was punished by
death.

The convents also increased in numbers and riches.
They filled enormously: were they not the safest
asylums? Their peasants and servants multiplied:
was not the protection of the Church the surest?
Gifts of land were showered on them, as in France
in the year 1000. It was thus that the great eccle-
siastical patrimony of Russia, a wealthy reservoir of
revenues and capital, was constituted, on which more
than once in national crises the Russian sovereigns
were glad to draw. The Church, which, even in her
weakness, had steadily tended to unity and autocracy,
was to place at the service of the crown a power
which had become enormous. The Metropolitans of
Moscow were nearly always the faithful allies of the
Grand Princes.

CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA.

181

CHAPTER XI.

THE LITHUANIANS: CONQUEST OF WESTERN
RUSSIA (1210-1430).

The Lithuanians—Conquests of Mindvog (1240–1263), of Gedimin (1315–1340), and of Olgerd (1345–1377)—Jagellon — Union of Lithuania with Poland (1386) — The Grand Prince Vitovt (1392–1430) — Battles of the Vorskla (1399), and of Tannenberg (1410).

THE LITHUANIANS—CONQUESTS OF MINDVOG (1210–1263), OF GEDIMIN (1315–1340), AND OF OLGERD (1345–1377).

THE Lithuanian tribes had already been greatly broken up by the German conquest. Russians, Korsi, Semigalli, and Letts had been brought into subjection either by the Teutonic or Livonian knights. Two among the tribes, the Jmouds and the Lithuanians properly so called, had preserved in the deep forests and marshes of the Niemen their proud independence, their ferocity, and their ancient gods. A Russian tradition affirms that formerly they had paid the Russians the only tribute their poverty could afford—bark and brooms. Jmouds and Lithuanians were divided, like the ancient Slavs, into rival and jealous tribes. Although more than once they marched from their forests, blowing long trumpets, careering on rough ponies—though they had made many incursions into the Russian territory —they were not really dangerous. This old Aryan

182

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

people, whom European influences had never modi-
fied, had preserved from the time they dwelt in
Asia a powerful sacerdotal caste,—the vaidelotes,
above whom were the krivites, whose chief, the krive-
kriveito, was high-priest of the nation. Their prin-
cipal divinity was Perkun, the god of thunder, ana-
logous to the Perun of the Russians. The sacred
fire, the znitch, burned constantly before this idol.
They had also priestesses, the wild Velledas, like
that Birouta who, captured by Kestout, became the
mother of the great Vitovt. The time had come
when the Lithuanians must perish like the Prussians
or Letts, if they did not succeed in uniting against
Germany. The emigrants from the countries already
conquered would doubtless lend them new strength
and energy. A wily barbarian, Mindvog, created
Lithuanian unity at the beginning of the 13th
century in much the same way as Clovis—by ex-
terminating the princes. “He began,” says a
chronicle, “by slaying his brothers and his sons,
chased the survivors from the country, and reigned
alone over the land of Lithuania.” Thence he led his
savage warriors against the Russian principalities,
now enfeebled by the Mongol invasions, and con-
quered Grodno and Novogrodek. Happily Western
Russia had two great men at its head, Alexander
Nevski and Daniel of Volhynia. Threatened on one
side by these princes, on the other by the knights of
Livonia, the Lithuanians bethought themselves of
hastening to the Pope and embracing the Catholic
faith. A legate of Innocent IV. and the landmeister
of the Teutonic Order came to Grodno, escorted by
a brilliant suite of cavaliers. In presence of an
immense concourse of people, Mindvog received
baptism with his wife, and was consecrated King of

CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA.

183

Lithuania (1252). The danger passed, and Rome was forgotten. He and his new co-religionists did not agree, and he was forced to cede the Jmoud country to the Livonian knights. Sharing the irritation of his subjects, he washed off his baptism as the unfortunate Livonians had done, re-established paganism, invaded Mazovia, ravaged the lands of the Order, and defeated the landmeister in person. He had taken the wife of one of his princes named Dovmont, and had married her. Dovmont awaited him on the road, and assassinated him (1263), and then fled from the vengeance of Mindvog's son to the Pskovians. He became their prince, was baptized, and defended them bravely against his pagan compatriots till he died, and was buried at the church of the Trinity. Voichel, son of Mindvog, in the first fervour of an ephemeral Christianity, had become a monk. When he heard of the murder of his father, he threw his cowl to the winds, and began a war of extermination with the confederates. Lithuania fell back into anarchy during the contest of the descendants of Mindvog with the rest of the princes who refused to accept their supremacy.

She recovered herself under the enterprising and energetic Gedimin (1315-1340), the real founder of her power. He turned the exhaustion and divisions of South Russia to his own profit; and to the conquests of his predecessors—Grodno, Pinsk, Brest, and Polotsk—soon added Tchernigof, and all Volhynia with Vladimir, under whose walls he defeated the Russians, aided though they were by an auxiliary army of Tatars (1321). As to Kief, it is not known in what year she fell under his power; in the universal disorder, this memorable event passed almost unnoticed. The old capital of Russia was, however,

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

destined to remain for 400 years—up to the time
of Alexis Romanof—in the hands of strangers.
The Russian populations willingly received this new
master, who would free them from the heavy yoke
of the Mongols and the unceasing civil wars. As
he respected their internal constitution and the
rights of the orthodox clergy, it appears that many
towns readily opened their gates to him. Gedimin
sought to legalise his conquests by contracting
alliances with the house of St. Vladimir, allowed his
sons to embrace the orthodox faith, and authorised
the construction of Greek churches in his residences
at Wilna and Novogrodek. In the North he had a
perpetual struggle to sustain against the deadly
enemies of his race, the military monks of Prussia
and Livonia. Like Mindvog, he addressed himself
to the Pope, John XXII., and informed him that he
wished to preserve his independence, that he only
asked protection for his religion, that he was sur-
rounded by Franciscans and Dominicans to whom
he gave full liberty to teach their doctrine, and that
he was ready to recognise the Pope as supreme head
of the Church, if he would arrest the depredations of
the Germans. The French Pope sent him Bartholo-
mew, Bishop of Alais, and Bernard, Abbot of Puy.
In the interval he had been exasperated by renewed
attacks of the Teutonic knights, and forced the two
legates to fly. He had transferred his capital to
Wilna on the Wilia, and the ruins of his castle may
still be perceived on the height which overlooks the
citadel. He drew thither by immunities German
artists and artisans, and granted them the rights of
Riga and the Hanseatic towns. A Russian quarter
was also formed in his capital. He died, and was
buried according to the pagan rite: his body was

CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA.

185

burned in a caldron with his war-horse and his
favourite groom.

After his death his sons Olgerd (1345-1377) and Kestout deprived two of their brothers of their appanages, and together governed Lithuania, now re-united into a single State. Olgerd humiliated Novgorod the Great, which had received another of his fugitive brothers, ravaged her territory, and forced her to put to death the possadnik who had been the cause of the war. He extended his possessions to the east and south, and conquered Vitepsk, Mobilef, Briansk, Novgorod-Severski, Kamenetz and Podolia; thus rendering himself master of nearly all the basin of the Dnieper, and obtaining a footing on the coast of the Black Sea, between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester. With the republic of Pskof he maintained relations sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile; gave her help against the Germans, and sent his son Andrew to govern her, and occasionally arrested her merchants and laid waste her territory. The Poles disputed Volhynia with him, oppressed the orthodox faith, and changed the Greek into Latin churches. Olgerd then made advances to Simeon the Proud, Grand Prince of Moscow, and, though a pagan, married Juliana, princess of Tver. Under Simeon's successors the Lithuanian army three times took the road to Moscow, and, without the check imposed on him by the Poles and the two German orders, Olgerd might have made the conquest of Eastern Russia. In 1368 he had annihilated the Mongol hordes which infested the Lower Dnieper, and, more destructive than even these barbarians, completed the ruin of Cherson in the Crimea.

186

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

JAGELLON—UNION OF LITHUANIA AND POLAND
(1386).

Although Olgerd had reconstituted the Lithuanian unity, he fell back into the old error, and divided his States between his sons and his brother, the brave Kestout, who had been his faithful associate. One of his sons, *Iagailo* or *Jagellon* (1377-1434), cruelly repaired the fault of his father. He made his uncle Kestout prisoner by treachery, and caused him to be put to death. His brothers and cousins only escaped a similar fate by flying to neighbouring States. In spite of this the bloody pagan was the Apostle of Lithuania. For a long while Christianity had sought to penetrate by two different channels,— under the Latin form from Poland, and under the Greek form from Russia. The fierce war sustained by the Lithuanians against the military monks of the North had rendered Catholicism particularly hateful to them. Under Olgerd the people of Wilna had risen, and fourteen Franciscans were slain. On the other side the larger part of the Lithuanian conquests was composed of Russian territory, and Lithuania underwent the influence of the Russian religion as well as of the Russian language. Russian became the official tongue; it even seemed as if orthodoxy was to become the ruling faith, and the victors were to be absorbed by the vanquished, and Russified by their conquest. An unexpected event turned the natural course of history. The Angevin and French dynasty in Poland had lately been extinguished in the person of Louis of Hungary, whose only heir was his daughter Hedwiga. The Polish nobles felt that the best way of putting a stop

CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA.

187

to the eternal warfare with the Lithuanians was
by marrying their queen to the powerful Prince of
Wilna. The heart of Hedwiga is said to have been
elsewhere engaged; but the Catholic clergy set forth
her consent to this union as a duty, the fulfilment of
which was to ensure in Lithuania proper the triumph
of the Latin faith, and thus to separate it from the
Lithuanian Russian provinces which still remained
orthodox.

In 1386 Jagellon went to Cracow and received
baptism and the crown of Poland.

The conversion of the Lithuanians was then con-
ducted after a fashion as summary as that of the
Russians in the time of Vladimir. They were divided
into groups, and the priest then sprinkled them with
holy water, pronouncing, as he did so, a name of the
Latin calendar. To one group he gave the name of
Peter, to another that of Paul or John. Jagellon
overthrew the idol Perkun, extinguished the sacred
fire that burned in the castle of Wilna, killed the
holy serpents, and cut down the magic woods. The
people, however, worshipped their gods for some
time longer; like the Northmen who were converted
by the Carolingians, many Lithuanians presented
themselves more than once to be baptized, in order
to receive again and again the white tunic of the
neophyte. By transferring his capital to Cracow, in
defference to his new subjects, Jagellon necessarily
irritated his old subjects. To the determined pagans
the orthodox allied themselves, provoked by the king's
propaganda in favour of Catholicism. Lithuania
believed that by her union with Poland she had for-
feited her independence.

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

THE GRAND PRINCE VITOVT (1392-1430)—BATTLES OF THE VORSKLA (1399), AND OF TANNENBERG (1410).

Vitovt, son of the hero Kestout and the priestess
Birouta, put himself at the head of the malcontents.
He allied himself with the Teutonic knights, and
twice besieged the Polish garrison in the Castle of
Wilna. Weary of war, Jagellon ended by ceding
him Lithuania with the title of Grand Prince
(1392).

Vitovt (1392-1430), brother-in-law of the Grand
Prince of Moscow (Vassili Dmitriévitch), took up
the plans of Olgerd for the subjugation of the north-
east of Russia. Sviatoslaf, the last prince but one of
Smolensk, had made himself hated, even in that iron
century, by his cruelties. Fighting in the Russian
territory, he took pleasure in impaling and burning
alive women and children. He was killed in 1387
in a battle against the Lithuanians, and his son Ioury
was only the shadow of a Grand Prince of Smolensk,
under the guardianship of Vitovt. The latter, who
combined perfidy with the courage and energy of his
father, made himself master of the town by a strata-
gem worthy of Cæsar Borgia. He contrived to induce
the prince and his brothers to visit him in his tent,
embraced and pressed them in his arms, and then
declared them prisoners of war, while his army sur-
prised and pillaged Smolensk. This queenly city
on the Upper Dnieper was lost to Russia. The
Lithuanian Empire now bordered on the ancient
Souzdal and the principality of Riazan. These two
countries, with Novgorod and Pskof, were the only
ones which had preserved their independence. It
seemed as if one campaign would suffice to annihilate
the Russian name. But Vitovt cherished great

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189

projects, in which the conquest of Moscow was only
an incident. He had already fought against the
Mongols, and with the prisoners taken in the environs
of Azof, had peopled many villages round Wilna,
where their posterity still exist. He took under his
protection the Khan Tokhtamych, whom Timour
Koutlouï had expelled from Sarai, and resolved to
subjugate the Golden Horde, to instal a vassal there,
and finally add to the conquest of the Tatar Empire
that of Moscow and Riazan. The army that he
assembled under the walls of Kief was perhaps the
most important that had marched against the infidels
since the first crusade. To his Lithuanian troops he
had united the Polish contingent sent by Jagellon
under the famous voïevodes Spitko of Cracow, John
of Mazoyia, Sandivog of Ostorog, Dobrogost of
Samotoul, and the *droujinas* of the Russian princes,
Gleb of Smolensk, Michael and Dmitri of Volhynia,
the Mongols of Tokhtamych, and five hundred knights,
“iron men,” richly armed, sent by the Grand Master
of the Teutonic Order. He came up with the enemy
on the banks of the Vorskla, an affluent of the
Dnieper, that runs near Pultowa. It was almost
the battle-field where fought in 1709 the heroes of
the North. To Timour's proposals of peace, Vitovt
answered that God had designed him to be master of
the world, and that the Khan must recognise him as
*his father*, pay him tribute, and place his armorial
bearings on the Mongol coins. The Khan only
negotiated to gain time till the bulk of the Tatar
army, commanded by Ediger, came up. Ediger, in
his turn, ironically summoned Vitovt to acknowledge
him as father, and to place his arms on the Lithuanian
coins. Vitovt, who hoped to make up for his defi-
ciency in numbers by his artillery, gave the signal

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

for battle. A manœuvre of the Tatars on the rear of the enemy assured them the victory. Two-thirds of the Lithuanian army, with the princes of Smolensk and Volhynia, remained on the field of battle. The remnant was pursued by Timour to the Dnieper. He levied a war contribution on Kief and the Monastery of the Catacombs (1399). So fell the prestige of Vitovt. Even the princes of Riazan thought that they might safely insult his frontiers. But he was still formidable, and the Grand Prince of Moscow, after having tried to attack him, judged it more prudent to make peace.

When Vitovt began to recover from his disaster, he directed a still more famous expedition against the Teutonic knights. The Grand Prince of Lithuania had more than once found himself at issue with the two German orders. About this time the Teutonic knights had lost their early energy, thanks to the development of the system of fiefs, and to the progress of the commercial towns. In 1409 the Jmouds and Oriental Prussia, after having protested against the severity of the yoke imposed on them, revolted, counting on Vitovt to support them. A new Grand Master, the warlike Ulrich of Jungingen, refused the mediation of Vitovt's suzerain, the King of Poland. Upon this the united forces of Poland and Lithuania, with 40,000 Tatars and 21,000 Bohemian, Hungarian, Moravian, and Silesian mercenaries, making a total of 97,000 infantry, 66,000 cavalry, and 60 cannons, entered Prussia. The Grand Master had only 57,000 infantry and 26,000 cavalry, with which to oppose them. The battle of Tannenberg (1410), gained chiefly by Vitovt, who broke the German centre and left wing, was a blow from which the power of the Teutonic Order never

CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA.

191

recovered. The Grand Master and nearly all the high dignitaries, 200 Knights of the Order, and 400 foreign knights, besides 4000 soldiers, were killed. Nearly all the princes of Western Russia took part in the combat, and the contingent of Smolensk especially distinguished itself. The Jmoud country was freed from the Teutonic rule and united to Lithuania.

Three years afterwards (1413) the Congress of Horodlo on the Bug, between Jagellon, accompanied by the Polish pans, and Vitovt, accompanied by his Lithuanian chiefs, took place. It was settled that the Lithuanian Catholics should receive the rights and privileges of the Polish schliachta; and that the representatives of the two countries should unite in a common diet to elect the Kings of Poland and the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, and decide important affairs. Vitovt soon had differences with his own subjects: the Jmouds, so refractory under the Teutonic rule, were pagans and Lithuanians at heart. They hated Catholicism and the Polish domination. They rose and expelled the monks. Vitovt could only govern them by force.

The Russian provinces of Lithuania were orthodox, and depended upon the Metropolitan of Moscow. Vitovt wished to shake off his religious supremacy, and demanded of the Patriarch of Constantinople a special metropolitan for Western Russia. In spite of the Patriarch's refusal, he convoked a council of orthodox prelates: a learned Bulgarian monk, Gregory Tsamblak, was elected Metropolitan of Kief. Thus Russia had two religious chiefs, as she had two Grand Princes—the Metropolitan of Eastern Russia, and the Metropolitan of Western Russia; one at Moscow, the other at Kief. Vitovt also wished to free himself on

192

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

the western side, and deprive Poland of her supre-
macy over Lithuania. In 1429 he had an interview
with the Emperor Sigismond, who promised to create
him King of Lithuania. Vitovt, then eighty years
of age, was at the height of his power. We see
him at the fêtes of Troki and Wilna, attended by
his grandson Vassili Vassiliévitch, Grand Prince of
Moscow, who was accompanied by the Muscovite
Metropolitan Photius, the Princes of Tver and Riazan,
Jagellon, king of Poland, the Khan of the Crimea,
the exiled Hospodar of Wallachia, the Grand Master
of Prussia, the Landmeister of Livonia, and the
ambassadors of the Emperor of the East. Daily
were 700 oxen, 1400 sheep, and game in proportion,
consumed. In the midst of these fêtes the ambitious
old man had to swallow a bitter draught. The
Poles had intrigued with the Pope, and he was for-
bidden to dream of royalty. The ambassadors of
Sigismond were checked as they were bringing him
the sceptre and the crown. Vitovt fell ill, and died
of disappointment (1430).

After this Lithuania ceased to be formidable. We
find it in turns governed by a Grand Duke of its
own, united to Poland under Vladislas, separated
again, then definitely placed under the Polish sceptre
from 1501. Though henceforward it always had the
same sovereign as Poland, it remained a State apart—
the Grand Principality or Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Her Lithuanian and Russian provinces became
steadily Polish, and the princely descendants of
Rurik and St. Vladimir, or of Mindvog and Gedimin,
assumed the manners and language of the Polish
aristocracy.

THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW.

193

## CHAPTER XII.

### THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW: ORGANISATION OF EASTERN RUSSIA (1303-1462).

Origin of Moscow — Daniel — George Danielovitch (1303-1325) and Ivan Kalita (1328-1341) — Contest with the house of Tver — Simeon the Proud and Ivan the Débonnaire (1341-1359) — Dmitri Donskoï (1363-1389) — Battle of Koulikovo — Vassili Dmitriévitch and Vassili the Blind (1389-1462).

#### ORIGIN OF MOSCOW — DANIEL.

WHILST Western Russia grouped herself around the Lithuanian State, which had given the conquered Russian provinces a new capital in Wilna, and soon involved them in her own union with Poland, Eastern Russia grouped herself around Moscow. When this double concentration on the Moskowa and on the Wilna should be accomplished, Great Russia, proud of her national and religious unity, and Lithuanian Russia (or rather a foreign State composed of the Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish races, and of three religions, the Greek, Roman, and Protestant, besides the Jewish), would find themselves face to face. The contest of these two sister-enemies will fill many centuries of the history of the North. To other sovereigns, in other centuries, will fall the task of reconstituting the Russian unity in its fullest extent. The honour of the princes of Moscow is to have created the living germ which became Great Russia.

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Round Moscow, under the Mongol yoke, a race was formed, patient and resigned, yet energetic and enterprising, born to endure bad fortune and profit by good, which in the long run was to get the upper hand over Western Russia and Lithuania. There a dynasty of princes grew, politic and persevering, prudent and pitiless, of gloomy and terrible mien, whose foreheads were marked by the seal of fatality. They were the founders of the Russian empire, as the Capetians were of the French monarchy.

The means used by the sovereigns of Russia were very different. Here we shall find no sympathetic figures like that of Louis VI. careering proudly in the narrow domains of France, capturing rebel castles in the face of the sun—of a Louis IX., true mirror of chivalry, the noblest incarnation of the kingly ideal. The princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue, corruption, the purchase of consciences, servility to the khans, perfidy to their equals, murder, and treachery. They were at once the tax-gatherers and the police of the khans. But they created the germ of the Russian monarchy, and made it grow. Henceforward we have a fixed centre around which gathers that scattered history of Russia which we have had to follow in so many different places—in Novgorod and Pskof, in Livonia and in Lithuania, at Smolensk and in Galicia, at Tchernigof and at Kief, at Vladimir and at Riazan. The mutilation of Russia, conquered on the west by the Lithuanians, enslaved on the east by the Mongols, was to facilitate the work of organisation. In this diminished fatherland the sovereigns of Moscow could play more easily the part of Grand Princes.

The extent of country which had by the middle of the 15th century escaped the Lithuanian conquest

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was very small. Without counting Smolensk, whose
days were numbered, there remained the following
principalities:—1. Riazan, with its appanages of
Pronsk and Peréiaslavl-Riazanski; 2. Souzdal, with
the towns of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Souzdal,
Galitch in Souzdal, Kostroma, and Gorodetz; 3. Tver,
situated on the Upper Volga, and chiefly made up of
bailiwicks taken from Novgorod by the Grand Princes
of Souzdal, with the towns of Rjef, Kachine, and
Zoubtsof; 4. Moscow, shut in on the north by Tver,
on the east by Souzdal, on the south by Riazan, nearly
stifled by its powerful neighbours, like the France
of the Capetians between the formidable States of
English Normandy, Flanders, and Champagne.

The name of Moscow appears for the first time in
the chronicles at the date of 1147. It is there said
that the Grand Prince George Dolgorouki, having
arrived on the domain of a boyard named Stephen
Koutchko, caused him to be put to death on some
pretext, and that, struck by the position of one of
the villages situated on a height washed by the
Moskowa, the very spot whereon the Kremlin now
stands, he built the city of Moscow. In the Capitol of
ancient Rome the founder, Romulus, discovered the
head of a man; the Capitol of Moscow, destined to
become the centre of an empire, was sprinkled in
its beginning by human blood. The name of a still-
existing church, "St. Saviour of the Pines" (Sjúss
na Borou), preserves the memory of the thick forests
that then clothed both banks of the Moskowa, on the
space now covered by an immense capital. During
the century following its foundation, Moscow re-
mained an obscure and insignificant village of Souz-
dal. The chroniclers do not allude to it except to
mention that it was burned by the Tatars (1237), or

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that a brother of Alexander Nevski, Michael of
Moscow, was killed there in a battle with the Lithu-
anians. The real founder of the principality of the
name was Daniel, a son of Alexander Nevski, who
had received this small town and a few villages as his
appanage. He increased his State by an important
town, Peréiaslavl-Zaliesski, that belonged to one of
his nephews, and by the addition of Kolomna, which
he took from the Riazanese. At his death in 1303
he was the first to be buried in the church of Saint
Michael the Archangel, which till the time of Peter
the Great remained the burying-place of the Russian
princes. He was followed, in due course, by his
brothers George and Ivan.

GEORGE DANIELOVITCH (1303-1325) AND IVAN KALLITA (1328-1341)—STRUGGLE WITH THE HOUSE OF TVER.

The first act of George Danielovitch (1303-1325)
was to capture Mojaïsk from the Prince of Smolensk,
and to take the latter prisoner. Almost at the same
time began the bloody struggle with the house of
Tver, which, transmitted from father to son, lasted for
eighty years. When Andrew Alexandrovitch, Grand
Prince of Souzdal, died, in 1304, two competitors pre-
sented themselves—Michael of Tver, cousin-german of
the deceased, and his nephew George of Moscow. The
claim of Michael was incontestable; was he not the
eldest of the family? The boyards of Vladimir and
the citizens of Novgorod did not hesitate to acknow-
ledge him as Grand Prince; at Saraï, Tokhta the
khan declared in his favour, and ordered him to be
installed. Michael, who had on his side the national
law and the sovereign will of the Mongols, could also

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use force; he twice besieged Moscow, and obliged the son of Daniel to leave him in peace. In this young man he had an implacable enemy. The chroniclers, indignant at the revolt of George against the old hereditary custom, unanimously pronounce against him. While making due allowance for their efforts to blacken his character, we cannot help seeing that he was not a man to shrink from any crime. His father had taken the Prince of Riazan prisoner. He had him assassinated in his dungeon, and would have taken possession of his territories, if the Khan had not ordered the rights of the young heir to be respected. Then George caused himself to be recognised as Prince of Novgorod, to the prejudice of Michael, but the army of Tver and Vladimir defeated that furnished him by the republic. An unexpected event suddenly changed the face of things. The Khan-Tokhta died; George managed to gain the good graces of his successor Uzbeck, so that the latter gave him his sister Kontchaka in marriage, and, reversing the decision of Tokhta, adjudged him the grand principality. The son of Daniel returned to Russia with a Mongol army, commanded by the *baskak* Kavgadi. Michael consented, say the chroniclers, to cede Vladimir, if his hereditary appanage were respected; but George began to lay waste the country of Tver, and war was inevitable. Michael triumphed completely. The Tatar wife of George, his brother Boris, the Mongol general Kavgadi, and nearly all the officers of the Khan, fell into his hands. Michael covered his prisoners with attentions dictated by prudence. Kavgadi, released with honour, swore to be his friend, but, as the sister of the Khan died, the enemies of the Prince of Tver set on foot a report that he had poisoned her. The

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cause of the two princes was carried before the
tribunal of the Khan. Whilst the indefatigable
Muscovite went in person, with his hands full of
presents, to the Horde, Michael had the imprudence
to send his son, a boy of twelve years old, in his
place. Finding George was occupied in accusing,
intriguing, and corrupting, Michael at last made up
his mind to follow him. Not unprepared for the lot
that awaited him, he made his will, and distributed
appanages among his children. He was accused of
having drawn his sword against a *baskak*, envoy of
the Khan, and of having poisoned Kontchaka. These
accusations were so manifestly absurd, that Uzbeck
deferred judgment. This, however, did not meet
George's views, and, by means of intrigues, he ob-
tained the arrest of his kinsman. The Khan now
set out for some months' hunting in the Caucasus.
Michael was dragged in the train of the court, loaded
with irons, from Sarai to Dediakof in Daghestan.
One day he was put in the pillory in the market of a
thickly-populated town, and the spectators crowded
to see him, saying, "This prisoner was, a short
time ago, a powerful prince in his own country."
The boyards of Michael had told him to escape; he
refused, not wishing his people to suffer for him.
George was so energetic, and scattered about so
much money, that, finally, the death-warrant was
signed. One of Michael's pages entered the tent
which served him as a prison, in great alarm, to tell
him that George and Kavgadi were approaching,
followed by a multitude of people. "I know the
reason," replied the prince; and he sent his young
son Constantine to one of the Khan's wives, who had
promised to take him under her protection. His two
enemies took their stand near his tent, dismissed the

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boyards of Tver, and sent their hired ruffians to assassinate the prince. They threw him down, and trampled him under their feet. As in the case of Michael of Tchernigof, it was not a Mongol that stabbed him and tore out his heart, but a renegade named Romanetz. When George and Kavgadi entered and contemplated the naked corpse, "What," said the Tatar, "will you allow the body of your uncle to be outraged?" One of George's servants threw a mantle over the victim (1319). Michael was bewailed by the Tverians. His body, incorruptible as that of a martyr, was afterwards deposited in a silver bier in the cathedral of Tver. He became a saint, and the patron of his city. On the walls of the cathedral, ancient and modern pictures recall his martyrdom, and condemn the crime of the Muscovite. All the contemporary chroniclers warmly take his part against the assassin. Karamsin has made himself the echo of their apologies and curses. But at the same time that Michael became a saint, George became the all-powerful sovereign of Moscow, Souzdal, and Novgorod. The tragic fate of Michael foretold the ruin of Tver.

Some years afterwards, things were reversed at the Horde. Dmitri of the terrible eyes, son of the unhappy Michael, obtained the title of Grand Prince, and the baskak Seventch Bonga was charged to place him on the throne of Vladimir. George found himself obliged to go again to Sarai; there the two rivals, Dmitri of Tver and George of Moscow, met. Dmitri had his father to avenge; his sword leaped from the scabbard, and the Prince of Moscow fell mortally wounded (1325). All that his friends could obtain was that Dmitri should be put to death. The latter was succeeded in Vladimir by his brother Alexander.

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Unluckily for the house of Tver, the following year the Tverians, exasperated by the *baskak* Chevkal, rose in rebellion and murdered him and all his suite. Alexander, instead of imitating the firm prudence of his Muscovite neighbours, allowed himself to be carried away by the popular passion. It was he who assaulted the palace of the *baskak*, and lighted the fire. After such an action, he had no pity to expect from the Khan; and if Uzbeck could have forgotten the insult to his majesty, the princes of Moscow would have kept him in mind of it. The brother of George, Ivan Kalita, offered to complete the ruin of Tver. Uzbeck promised him the title of Grand Prince, and gave him an army of 50,000 Tatars, to whom were joined the contingents of Moscow and Souzdal. Alexander, who had not had the wisdom to resist his people, had likewise not the courage to defend them and die with them. He fled, with his brothers, to Pskof and Ladoga. Pitiless was the vengeance of the Khan, and the vengeance of Moscow. Tver, Kachine, and Torjok were sacked. Novgorod had to buy herself off by a war indemnity. Not content with exterminating the Tverians, Uzbeck put to death at the same time the Prince of Riazan, son of that Prince Iaroslaf whom George Danielovitch had murdered in prison. The Horde and Moscow seemed to have the same enemies—they struck in concert. It is remarkable that it was in the blood of the martyrs Michael of Tver and Dmitri “with the terrible eyes,” that “holy Russia” came to her growth.

Ivan Kalita (1328–1341) became Grand Prince, and made the journey to the Horde with Constantine, son of Michael, who had replaced the fugitive Alexander on the throne of Tver. Ivan was well received,

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but Uzbeck commanded him to make Alexander appear before him. The ambassadors of the Grand Prince went to Pskof, to conjure Alexander to appear, or to summon the Pskovians to deliver him up. "Do not expose," they said, "a Christian people to the wrath of the infidels." But the Pskovians, touched by the prayers of the Prince of Tver, replied, "Do not go to the Horde, my lord; whatever happens, we will die with thee." As magnanimous as the Novgorodians at the time of Alexander Nevski, as heroically absurd, they ordered the ambassadors to be gone, took up arms, and built a new fortress near Izborsk. Ivan assembled an army and persuaded the Metropolitan Theognostus to place Alexander and the Pskovians under an interdict. Thus men saw a Christian prince persecute one of his kinsmen by order of the Tatars, and a metropolitan excommunicate the Christians to force them to obey the Khan. The Pskovians, though alarmed, would not yield an inch; but Alexander left them and took refuge in Lithuania. Then they said to the Grand Prince, "Alexander is gone; all Pskof swears it, from the smallest to the greatest, popes, monks, nuns, orphans, women, and children" (1329).

Alexander afterwards returned, and was again recognised by them as their prince, but still regretted his good city of Tver. The protection of the Lithuanian Gedimin was too dangerous and too burdensome. Alexander thought it would be easier to bend the terrible Uzbeck. He went to the Horde with his boyards. "Lord, all-powerful Tzar," he said to Uzbeck, "if I have done anything against you, I have come hither to receive of you life or death. Do as God inspires you; I am ready for either." The Khan pardoned him, and Alexander returned to

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Tver. Ivan Kalita had hoped he had for ever got rid of him. In Alexander's absence he was the master of Russia, had interfered in the affairs of Tver, married one of his daughters to Vladimir of Iaroslavl, and another to Constantine of Rostof, brother of the banished prince. The return of Alexander gave a chief to those who were discontented with Ivan. Instead of declaring war, Ivan preferred to resort to his ordinary means. He flew to the Horde, and there represented Alexander as the most dangerous enemy of the Mongols. In consequence of these insinuations, Alexander was summoned before the Khan; this time he was beheaded, with his son Feodor. The rivalry with Moscow had already cost four princes of the house of Tver their lives. Uzbeck, who had only confidence in Moscow, and who wished to govern the rest of Russia by terror, about this time put the Prince of Starodoub to death. The princes Constantine and Vassili of Tver, sons, brothers, and uncles of the victims, felt that they could only maintain themselves by obedience to their terrible father-in-law. As a proof of submission they sent to Kalita the great bell of the cathedral of Tver. The princes of Riazan and Souzdal were also obliged to fight under his standards. Novgorod, threatened by him, began the course which afterwards proved so fatal to her, and might have proved the ruin of Russia; she allied herself with Lithuania, accepted as prince, Narimond, a son of Gedimin, and gave him the Novgorodian possessions in Ingria and Carelia, as hereditary appanages. She tried also to make friends with the Grand Prince of Moscow, but Ivan only desired to restrict her liberties, and exacted, in the name of the Khan, a double capitation-tax.

This unwarlike prince, at the same time as he

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strengthened his supremacy, acquired by purchase
the towns of Ouglitch, Galitch, Biélozersk, and lands
in the neighbourhoods of Kostroma, Vladimir, and
Rostof. He was at once Prince of Moscow and
Grand Prince of Vladimir; but Moscow was his
inheritance, of which he could not legally be despoiled
by the Khan, while Vladimir could be given to
another house. It was thus that in Germany the
archduchy of Austria was hereditary, whilst the im-
perial crown might legally pass to another family.
It may therefore be imagined how Kalita chose to
sacrifice Vladimir to Moscow, as the Hapsburgs
sacrificed Frankfort to Vienna. His Tverian rivals,
the two grand princes, his predecessors, had acted in
the same way. Michael and Dmitri of Tver had
hardly appeared at Vladimir, except to be crowned
in the cathedral. They lived habitually in their
appanage towns, one at Tver, the other at Peréia-
slavl. Under Kalita, Vladimir remained the legal
capital of Russia; Moscow was the real capital, and
Kalita was working to make her the capital de jure
as well as de facto. The Metropolitan of Vladimir,
Peter, who had an affection for Moscow, often
resided there. His successor, Theognostus, estab-
blished himself there completely. Then the religious
supremacy which had first belonged to Kief, and
next to Vladimir, passed to Moscow. Kalita did his
best to give it the prestige of a metropolis. He built
magnificent churches in the Kremlin, among others
that of the Assumption, the Ouspienski sobor. The
first Metropolitans of Moscow, thanks to him and his
successors, were beatified. St. Alexis and St. Peter
are reckoned among the patron-saints of Russia.
It is related that the Metropolitan Peter himself
marked out the place of his tomb in the new church,

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

and that he said to Ivan, “God will bless thee, and elevate thee above all the other princes, and raise this town above all other towns. Thy race will reign in this place during many centuries; their hands will conquer all their enemies; the saints will make their dwelling here, and here shall my bones repose.”

What made the chief glory of Kief the ancient metropolis was the famous Petcherski monastery, with its holy catacombs and the tombs of so many ascetics and wonder-workers. Moscow had also her heritage of virtues and glorious austerity. Under Kalita's successor, not far from the capital, in a deep forest, where he had at first no companion but a bear, on watercourses which were haunted only by the beavers, St. Sergius founded the Troitsa monastery (the Trinity), which became one of the richest and most venerated of Eastern Russia. On its increase of wealth, it was obliged to be surrounded with ramparts; and its thick brick walls with a triple row of embrasures, its nine war-towers, and its still existing fortifications, were afterwards destined to brave the assaults of Catholics and infidels. The princes of Moscow, in spite of their perfidious and pitiless policy, were as pious as good King Robert—décots, alms-givers, indefatigable in building churches and monasteries, in honouring the clergy, and in helping the poor. The surname of Kalita given to Ivan comes from the kalita or alms-bag he wore always at his girdle. This kalita may also have been Shylock's purse—the bag of a prince who was farmer-general and usurer, who demanded from Novgorod double what he intended to pay on her behalf to Uzbeck. Ivan liked to converse with the monks in his Convent of the Transfiguration. Like all the other princes of the house, he took care, when at the point of death,

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to be tonsured and adopt the religious dress and a new name.

If the princes of Moscow laboured with fierce energy to bind together the Russian soil, they continued to divide it into appanages among their sons. Many causes contributed to prevent the return of the former anarchy. These princes, as a rule, had few sons; they gradually got into the way of giving only very weak appanages to the younger ones, and these on condition of an absolute dependence on the eldest. Ivan, for example, had only three sons; he gave by far the larger share (Mojaïsk and Kolomna) to Simeon, and forbade Moscow to be divided. The idea of the State as one and indivisible was certain to end by gaining the day.

SIMEON THE PROUD AND IVAN THE DÉBONNAIRE
(1341-1359).

Simeon the Proud (1341-1353) and Ivan II. (1353-1359) succeeded one after the other their father Kalita. They were all three contemporaries of the early Valois. At the news of the death of Ivan, many princes at once disputed the throne of Vladimir with his sons. Constantine of Tver, and Constantine of Souzdal, especially, were supported by the other princes who did not desire the title of Grand Prince to be perpetuated in the house of Moscow. They went to the Horde at the same time as Simeon and his two sons travelled thither. Simeon owed his success neither to his eloquence nor his arguments, but to the treasure of his father, which won over the infidels. After being crowned in the Cathedral of Vladimir, he swore to live in harmony with his two brothers, and exacted from them the same oath.

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

While pushing his submission to the Khan to the verge of baseness, he domineered over the Russian princes with a haughtiness that gained for him the surname of “the Proud.” He forced Novgorod to pay him a contribution, and, in his capacity of supreme head of Russia, confirmed the liberties of the republic. He was the first who assumed the title of “Grand Prince of all the Russias,” which was little justified by the facts, as in 1341 Olgerd of Lithuania besieged the town of Mojaïsk, Simeon’s own appanage. The friendship of St. Alexis, third Metropolitan of Moscow, gave him great moral aid. In his reign Boris, a Russian artist, cast bells for the cathedrals of Moscow and Novgorod; three churches of the Kremlin were adorned with new paintings—that of the *Assumption*, by Greek artists; that of St. Michael, by the Court painters; that of the *Transfiguration*, by a foreigner named Goiten. Paper replaced parchment: and it was on paper that Simeon’s will was written. Russia then still maintained her old relations with Byzantium, and entered into new ones with Europe. Simeon died of the famous “black death” or “black pestilence,” which at this time desolated the West.

Ivan II., brother and successor of “the Proud,” deserves, on the contrary, the surname of “the Débonnaire.” He was of a different type from the sinister princes of Souzdal, and was pacific and gentle. The anarchy into which Russia fell during the six years of his reign, shows how little his virtues were those of his century. Without attempting to avenge himself, Ivan permitted Oleg of Riazan to insult his territory, burn his villages of the Lopasnia, and illtreat his lieutenant. He allowed the Novgorodians to despise his authority and obey Constantine of Souzdal;

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he let the Grand Duke Olgerd occupy Rjef, and Andrew of Lithuania menace Pskof. He interfered neither in the civil wars of the princes of Riazan, nor in those of the principality of Tver, nor in the troubles excited at Novgorod by the rivalry of the Slavonian quarters and that of St. Sophia, nor in the storm raised in the Church by the Patriarch of Constantinople, who dared to consecrate metropolitan a rival of St. Alexis. The murder of one of his officers, Alexis, military governor of Moscow, remained unpunished. In this weakness of the prince, the churchmen naturally came to the front, and took up the part abandoned by him. Moses, Archbishop of Novgorod, quelled a revolt in the republic; St. Alexis reconciled the princes of Tver, and acquired, by a miraculous cure, great power in the Horde, by which he profited to protect his people and his prince. At the death of Ivan II., the title of Grand Prince, which his three predecessors had made such efforts to perpetuate in the house of Moscow, passed to that of Souzdal. Dmitri of Souzdal (1359-1362), furnished with the iarlikh, made his solemn entry into Vladimir. It was again St. Alexis who saved the supremacy of Moscow. After having blessed the Grand Prince in Vladimir, he returned to his care of the young children of Ivan II., and to Moscow, which had for a moment ceased to be the capital. It was by his counsels that Dmitri Ivanovitch, at the age of twelve, dared to declare himself the rival of Dmitri of Souzdal, and determined to appeal to the tribunal of the Khan. The Golden Horde was then a prey to civil wars; the ferocious Maman harassed Mourout, but as the latter reigned at Sarai, and seemed the legitimate successor of Bati, it was to him that the Souzdalian and Muscovite boyards addressed themselves. Mourout

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adjudged the Grand Principality to the grandson of
Kalita, whom a Muscovite army led to be consecrated
in Vladimir.

DMITRI DONSKOÏ (1363-1389)—THE BATTLE OF
KOULIKOVO.

Dmitri Ivanovitch (1363-1389) is distinguished
from nearly all the Souzdal princes by a warlike and
chivalrous character worthy of the West. He proves
that the Russian soul had been only repressed, not
rendered depraved and servile by the Tatar yoke,
and that Slav chivalry only awaited an opportunity
to raise the cry of war, and make their swords flash
like the *preux chevaliers* of Louis IX. or of John the
Good. Dmitri had at once to sustain a series of wars
against the neighbouring princes; notably against
Dmitri of Souzdal, Michael of Tver, and Oleg of
Riazan. As changes took place at the Horde, Dmitri
of Souzdal obtained from the Khan Mourout a re-
versal of his first decision, and returned to Vladimir.
The Prince of Moscow, who feared this feeble Khan
no longer, did not hesitate to take up arms, and to
expel his rival from Vladimir. A treaty was agreed
on between them. The Souzdalian appanage of
Nijni-Novgorod having become vacant, Dmitri sup-
ported his ancient enemy against his competitor Boris.
Like his grandfather Kalita, who had caused Nov-
gorod to be excommunicated, Dmitri Ivanovitch
entreated St. Sergius, the founder of the Troitsa
Monastery, to lay Nijni-Novgorod under an interdict.
Then Boris yielded, and Dmitri of Souzdal, now
Prince of Nijni-Novgorod, gave the Prince of Mos-
cow his daughter Eudoxia in marriage, and hence-
forward remained his friend. Dmitri Ivanovitch

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deprived the rebel princes of Starodoub and Galitch of their appanages, and forced Constantine Boris-sovitch to recognise his supremacy. He made, under the guarantee of St. Alexis, a treaty with his cousin, Vladimir Andriévitch, by which he undertook to hand over to him the appanage that Kalita had secured to his father, and by which Vladimir engaged to acknowledge him as his father and his Grand Prince. Vladimir kept his word, and was always the bravest lieutenant and the right arm of Dmitri.

The struggle now recommenced with the house of Tver. Michael Alexandrovitch, whose father had been killed at the Horde, disputed the throne with one of his uncles. The Grand Prince and the Metropolitan of Moscow took the part of the latter. Michael paid no attention to this decision, took Tver with a Lithuanian army, besieged his uncle in Kachine, and obliged him to renounce his claims. He then took the title of Grand Prince of Tver. It was chiefly the alliance with Olgerd, the husband of his sister Juliana, that rendered him formidable. Thrice—in 1368, in 1371, and in 1372—Olgerd conducted his brother-in-law, burning and pillaging on his way, up to the walls of the Kremlin of Moscow. Neither the Lithuanian nor the Muscovite army on any of these occasions fought a decisive battle. The boyards of Dmitri felt that a lost battle would be the ruin of Russia; while Olgerd was too old and experienced to stake all on a hazard. At last, in 1375, after the death of his brother-in-law, Michael found himself besieged in Tver by the united forces of all the vassals and allies of Dmitri and of the Novgorodians who had the sack of Torjok and the devastation of their territory to avenge. Reduced to extremities, and abandoned by Lithuania, he was constrained to sign

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a treaty by which he engaged to regard Dmitri as
his “elder brother,” to renounce all claim to Nov-
gorod and Vladimir, not to disquiet the allies of Mos-
cow, and to imitate Dmitri’s conduct towards the
Tatars, whether he continued to pay tribute or he
declared war.

Another enemy, not less dangerous, was Oleg of
Riazan, who had formerly braved Ivan the Débon-
naire. In 1371, the Muscovites defeated Oleg, and
installed a prince of Pronsk in his capital, who was
not, however, strong enough to maintain his position.
If Tver was sometimes supported by Lithuania,
Riazan had often the Horde as an ally.

The empire of Kiptchak was gradually falling
to pieces. Many competitors disputed the throne of
Saraï. The Tatars acted after their kind, and invaded
the Russian territory in disorderly style. It is true
it was no longer a point of honour with the Christian
princes to submit to them. Oleg of Riazan himself
united with the princes of Pronsk and Kozelsk, and
defied the *mourza* Tagaï, who had burnt Riazan.
Dmitri of Souzdal, prince of Nijni-Novgorod, had
defeated Boulat-Temir, who on his return to the
Horde had been disavowed and put to death. Finally,
Dmitri of Moscow had many times disobeyed the
terrible Mamaï. He had, however, the courage to
answer to the summons of the Khan, and the good
fortune or the cleverness to return to Moscow safe
and well (1371). In 1376 Dmitri sent a great ex-
pedition against Kazan by the Volga, and forced two
Tatar princes to pay tribute. Conflicts multiplied
between the Christians and the infidels. In this
manner the princes of Souzdal exterminated a band
of Mordvians, and delivered up their chiefs to be torn
in pieces by the dogs of Novgorod; in return, Mamaï

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ordered the town to be burnt. In 1378, Dmitri of Moscow gained a brilliant victory over the lieutenant of Mamaï on the banks of the Voja in Riazan. In the first intoxication of victory, he cried, "Their time is past, and God is with us!" The Khan, in his blind fury, caused his anger to fall on Oleg of Riazan, the rival of Dmitri Ivanovitch, who fled, abandoning his lands to the ravages of the enemy.

It took Mamaï two years to mature his plans of vengeance, and he assembled in silence an immense host of Tatars, Turks, Polovtsi, Tcherkesses, Iasses, and Bourtanians or Caucasian Jews. Even the Genoese of Kaffa, settled in the Crimea and on the territory of the Khan, furnished a contingent. In these critical circumstances for Russia, Oleg of Riazan, forgetting his grievances against the Tatars, and only remembering his mistrust and jealousy of Moscow, betrayed the common cause. While keeping on good terms with Dmitri, even while warning him of what was preparing, he secretly negotiated an alliance between the two most formidable enemies of Russia—Jagellon of Lithuania and Mamaï. The Grand Prince's army would probably be crushed between them; but Dmitri did not lose heart. The desire of vengeance awakened in the Russians with the force of religious enthusiasm. At the call of the Grand Prince, the princes of Rostof, Biélozersk, Iaroslavl, Starodoub, and Kachine, with their *droujinas*; the boyards of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Souzdal, Peréiaslavl-Zaliesski, Kostroma, Mourom, Dmitrof, Mojaïsk, Zvenigorod, Ouglitch, and Serpoukhof, at the head of their contingents, successively made their entrance into the Kremlin, amid the acclamations of the Muscovites. At Kostroma Dmitri was to be joined by two Lithuanian

P 2

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princes—Andrew and Dmitri—who brought him troops from Pskof and Briansk. The Grand Prince, with his cousin Vladimir, went to the hermitage of Troitsa to ask the benediction of Saint Sergius. The latter predicted that he would gain the victory, but that it would be a bloody fight. He sent two of his monks, Alexander Peresvet and Osliaba, formerly a brave boyard of Briansk, to accompany Dmitri. On their cowls he made the sign of the cross. “Be-hold,” he cried, “a weapon which faileth never.” The Prince of Tver had taken good care not to send his contingent, and the treason of the Prince of Riazan now became known. The hearts of the Russians beat with joy and enthusiasm at the thought of revenge. In spite of private jealousies, the princes were animated by the same ardour as the Spanish kings when they marched against the Moors, or the companions of Godfrey of Bouillon on the road for the Holy Land. Never had such an army been seen. Dmitri is said to have had 150,000 men.

They crossed the country of Riazan, then under a craven prince, and reached the banks of the Don. The princes debated as to whether it was necessary to cross the river immediately; but it was urgent to dispose of the Mongols before having on their hands Jagellon, who had already arrived at Odoef, fifteen leagues off. A letter which Dmitri received from Saint Sergius, recommending him to “go forwards,” decided the matter. The Don was crossed, and they found themselves on the plain of Koulikovo (the Field of Woodcocks), watered by the Nepriadva. The centre was occupied by the princes of Lithuania and Smolensk, with the droujina of Dmitri; the right was commanded by the princes of Rostof and Starodoub, the left by those of Laroslavl and Vo-

THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW.

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logda; the reserve by Prince Vladimir, the brave Dmitri of Volhynia, and the princes of Briansk and Kachine. The Mongols soon came up, and the battle began. It was bloody and dubious. The enemy had already cut to pieces the *droujina* of the Grand Prince, when Vladimir and Dmitri of Volhynia, who had lain in ambush, suddenly attacked the Tatars. Mamaï, from the top of a *kourgan*, contemplated the flight of his army. His camp, his chariots, and his camels were all captured. The Mongols were pursued to the Młetcha, in which many drowned themselves. If the barbarians lost, as they are said to have done, 100,000 men, the Russian loss was also very severe. They counted among the dead the two monks of Saint Sergius; one of them, Peresvet, was discovered in the arms of a Patzinak giant, who had fought with him hand to hand, and perished along with him. For a long while Dmitri could not be found; at last he was seen in a swoon, his armour bloody and broken. This memorable battle of Koulikovo has been related in more than one way by the Russian historians. With the annalists, properly so called, the official historiographers of the Grand Prince, Dmitri is the hero. In the poetical recitals which were inspired by the account of the pope Sophronius, it is Saint Sergius who at each moment supports the courage of Dmitri, whom they represent with rather too much humility for a general-in-chief. The battle of the Don, which gained for Dmitri the surname of *Donskoi*, and for Vladimir that of the Brave, is as celebrated in Russia as that of Las Navas de Tolosa in Spain. It showed the Russians that they could vanquish the invincible; and the Mongol yoke, even after they again fell

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under it, did not seem inevitable. Dmitri had heroically broken the tradition of slavery; he had proclaimed the future freedom (1380).

Unhappily the event showed the advantages of the policy of resignation over the policy of chivalry—of the patience of the hero of the Neva over the bravery of the hero of the Don. A man appeared at this moment at the head of the Mongols, who was as formidable as Genghis Khan—Tamerlane, the conqueror of the two Bokharas, of Hindostan, of Iran, and of Asia Minor. Tokhtamych, one of his generals, caused Mamai to be put to death, and announced to Dmitri that he had triumphed over their common enemy; then he summoned the Russian princes to present themselves at the Horde. Dmitri refused. Was it in vain that the blood of the Christians had flowed at Koulikovo? The Khan assembled an immense army. Dmitri found no longer the same wisdom or energy among his councillors. Not knowing what to do, he left Moscow and went to assemble an army at Kostroma. Tokhtamych marched straight on the capital, and during three days tried to carry the walls of the Kremlin by assault. Then he had recourse to a ruse, and affected to enter into a negotiation. At last the Tatars surprised the gates, and delivered up Moscow to fire and sword. A tolerably exact calculation proves that 24,000 men perished, besides the precious documents and earliest archives of the principality.

Vladimir, Mojaïsk, Iourief, and other towns of Souzdal suffered the same fate. When Tokhtamych had retired, Dmitri came and wept over the ruins of his capital. "Our fathers," he cried, "who never triumphed over the Tatars, were less unhappy than we." Bitter morrow of victory! However, although

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215

Russia had to resign herself to her Tatar collectors, she felt that the Horde would never recover its former power.

Dmitri longed at least to revenge himself on the perfidious Oleg. The latter escaped him, but Riazan, which was regarded as a harbour for traitors, was sacked. Michael of Tver merited the same chastise-ment; he had refused to fight Mamaï, and was one of the first to fly to the Horde of Tokhtamych. The war continued with Oleg of Riazan, who ravaged the territory of Kolomna. Saint Sergius again inter-vened, entreated and threatened Oleg, and finally induced him to conclude a "perpetual peace" with Dmitri, and to cement it by the marriage of his son Feodor with Sophia, daughter of Dmitri.

The Novgorod adventurers, the "Good Com-panions," had about this time committed many ravages on the territories of the Grand Principalities. They insulted Iaroslavl and Kostroma in 1371, and Kostroma and Nijni-Novgorod in 1375, pillaging as far as Sarai and Astrakhan, sparing neither infidels nor Christians. Novgorod continued to furnish ap-panages to the Lithuanian princes, to despise the political authority of the Grand Prince, and the religious supremacy of the Metropolitan. Dmitri marched against the republic with the contingents of twenty-five provinces. Novgorod had to pay an indemnity for the glorious deeds of the Good Com-panions, and to engage to furnish a yearly tribute.

When Dmitri died, the principality of Moscow was by far the most considerable of the States of the North-east, since it extended on the south to Kalouga and Kasimof, and included on the north-east Bielozersk and Galitch. As to Vladimir, Dmitri, in his will, calls it his patrimony. He has been

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reproached for having limited himself to the sack
of Tver and Riazan, without hastening their final
annexation. If Dmitri gave appanages to his five
younger sons, he at least established the principle of
inheritance in a direct line instead of the ancient
principle of collateral succession. He had signed a
treaty with his cousin Vladimir, by which the latter
renounced his rights as "eldest of the family,"
engaging to consider Vassili, eldest son of Dmitri,
as his "elder brother." In the reign of Donskoï
the monk Stephen founded the first church in the
country of the Permians, confuted their priests and
sorcerers, overthrew the idols of Voïssel and the
*Old Golden Woman* who held two infants in her
arms, put a stop to the sacrifice of reindeer, built
schools, and died Bishop of Permia. A certain
Andrew, probably a Genoese by birth, settled on the
Petchora. Russia entered into relations with the
West by means of the Genoese of Kaffa and Azof;
coins of silver and copper, with the image of a
knight, replaced the *kounes*, or marten-skins. About
1389 the first cannons appeared in the Russian army.
Moscow continued to adorn herself, and the monas-
teries of the Miracle, of Andronii, and of Simeon
were built.

VASSILI DMITRIÉVITCH AND VASSILI THE BLIND
(1389-1465).

Vassili Dmitriévitch (1389-1425), the contemporary
of Charles VI. of France, succeeded his father with-
out opposition as Grand Prince of Moscow and
Vladimir. The preponderance of the first of these
towns over the second became more and more
marked. The situation of both was equally advan-

THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW.

217

tageous; the one on the Moskowa, the other on
the Kliazma, affluents of the Oka. Vladimir, like
Moscow, had its kremlin on a high hill, commanding
a vast extent of country. Both cities were in com-
munication with the great Russian artery, the Volga;
but were far enough from it to escape the piracies of
the Good Companions. Vladimir had been in other
respects as favoured as Moscow. Andrew Bogo-
lioubski had ornamented the former, as Ivan Kalita
had embellished the second. Vladimir, to which the
title of Grand Principality was attached, seemed even
better fitted than Moscow to be the capital of Russia.
It was almost an historical accident that decided in
favour of the latter. At the present day Vladimir
is merely a simple seat of government with a popu-
lation of 14,000, while Moscow is a metropolis with
600,000 souls.

With regard to Novgorod, the Grand Prince of
Moscow began to look upon it from the point of
view of a sovereign, and called the city "his patri-
mony." The Novgorodians on their side appealed
to the charter of Iaroslaf the Great, which formally
conceded them the right to choose their princes. In
the last reigns they had been accustomed to have
recourse to a bargain. The republicans recognised
the sovereign of Moscow as their prince, if the latter
would consent to certain conditions,—the final homage
rendered to the ancient Slav freedom. After the
fall of Alexander of Tver (1328), no Russian prince
could compete with the house of Moscow for the
throne of Novgorod. The only possible rivals were
the Grand Princes of Lithuania. Now with Lithu-
ania it was not only a competition of candidates,
but it was a great national and religious question.
Moscow would prefer to ruin Novgorod rather than

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allow her to pass into the hands of the most dangerous enemy of Russian orthodoxy. We may say that after 1328 Novgorod had no longer a special prince, but only a boyard of Moscow, who represented the Grand Prince. The power of the latter was sometimes exerted with vigour. In 1393 Novgorod having revolted against Moscow, Vassili sent in his troops, and seventy inhabitants of Torjok, accused of having put to death one of his men, were cut to pieces.

Vassili Dmitriévitch then, on his accession to the throne, found his power considerably strengthened, as Vladimir on the Kliazma and Novgorod the Great, the objects of so many bloody contests with the Russian princes, had in some ways already become integral parts of his dominions. If he went to the Horde in 1392, it was less to obtain the confirmation of this triple crown than to acquire new territories. From the Khan Tokhtamych he bought a iarlikh, which put him in possession of the three appanages of Mourom, Nijni-Novgorod, and Souzdal. The boyards of Moscow and the ambassador of the Khan betook themselves to Nijni. Boris, the last titular prince of the two latter appanages, was betrayed by his men, who persuaded him to open the gates, and delivered him up to the soldiers of the Grand Prince. Then, with the ringing of all the bells in the town, Vassili of Moscow was proclaimed Prince of Nijni and Souzdal.

This prince, who lived on such good terms with the Horde, was witness, however, of two Tatar invasions of Russia. Tamerlane, conqueror of the Ottoman Turks at Anticyra, attacked his old favourite Tokhtamych, and pillaged the Golden Horde. He continued to move towards the West, putting the Russian

THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW.

219

territory to fire and sword. Moscow was threatened with an invasion as terrible as that of Bati. The famous Virgin of Vladimir, brought by Andrew Bogoliubski from Vychegorod, was taken solemnly to Moscow. The Tatars reached Eletz on the Don, and made its princes prisoners. There they stopped, and suddenly retreated. 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. They indemnified themselves by the pillage of Azof, where Egyptian, Venetian, Genoese, Catalan and Biscayan merchants had accumulated great wealth, and by the destruction of Astrakhan and Saraï (1395).

The irruption of Tamerlane resulted in the more rapid dissolution of the Golden Horde. We have seen that Vitovt took advantage of it to organise against the Mongols his great crusade of the Vorskla (1399). Vassili Dmitriévitch had taken good care not to interfere in the war between Lithuania and the Kiptchaks. His Western neighbours appeared to him more dangerous than those of the East; with the latter the payment of the tribute still sufficed, with the former the stake was the existence of Russia. Vassili profited by the defeat of the one and the disorganisation of the other, and was careful to irritate neither party. As the Horde was then disputed by many competitors, he forbore to pay the tribute, affecting not to know which was the legitimate Khan. Ediger, the vanquisher of Vitovt, resolved to reduce the Russian vassals to obedience. He lulled the prudence of the Muscovites to rest by spreading the rumour that he was assembling troops for a war against Lithuania. Suddenly they heard

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that he had entered the Grand Principality. Vassili imitated the conduct of his father in similar circumstances. He retired to Kostroma to assemble an army, and confided the defence of Moscow to Vladimir the Brave. Defended by artillery, the Kremlin could withstand the attack of a large force, but the dense population caused fears of famine. Ediger burnt the towns in the flat country while blockading Moscow. Ivan, prince of Tver, showed on this occasion more greatness of soul and political wisdom than his father Michael. He abstained from coming to the help of the Tatars against his formidable suzerain. In these circumstances Ediger learnt that his master Boulat himself feared an attack at the Horde by his Oriental enemies. To cover his forced retreat he addressed a haughty letter to the Grand Prince, summoning him to pay tribute; he obtained three thousand roubles from the Muscovite boyards as a war indemnity (1408).

Vitovt of Lithuania, whose daughter Sophia Vassili had married, was a still more dangerous enemy. Great caution was necessary in all dealings with him. Vassili saw the hand of his father-in-law, in the troubles of Novgorod, everywhere; at Pskof, where Vitovt had taken the title of Grand Prince; at Smolensk, which he had united to Lithuania; at Tver, where he supported Michael against the Grand Prince. Like Olgerd, Vitovt marched thrice against Moscow. Each of the two rivals had too many other enemies to dispose of, to risk in one battle the fortunes of Moscow or Lithuania. In 1408 they signed a treaty by which the Ougra was fixed on as the limit of the two Grand Principalities, leaving Smolensk to Vitovt, and restoring Kozelsk to Russia. Besides Mourom and Souzdal, Vassili had

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221

united to his domains many appanages of the country
of Tchernigof, such as Toroussa, Novossil, Kozelsk,
and Peremysl. In the quarrels with Novgorod, gene-
rally occasioned by the exploits of the Good Compa-
nions or by commercial rivalry, he had appropriated
vast territories on the Dwina; among others, Vo-
logda. In an expedition against the republic of
Viatka he had reduced it to submission, and made
one of his brothers its prince. He had imposed a
treaty on Feodor Olgovitch, prince of Riazan, by
which the latter undertook to look on him as a
father, and to make no alliances to his hurt. Vassili
on his side ceded to him Toula and the title of
Grand Prince. The Oka formed the boundary of
the two States. He made, no doubt, a similar treaty
with Ivan, prince of Tver. One of his daughters
had married the Emperor John Palæologus.

The reign of Vassili the Blind (1425-1462), con-
temporary with Charles VII. of France, marks a
pause in the development of the Grand Principality.
A civil war of twenty years broke out in the bosom
of the family of Donskoi. One of his sons, George,
or Jouri, whom he had made Prince of Roussa
and Zvenigorod, attempted to revert to the ancient
national law, and invoked his right as "eldest"
against his nephew, Vassili Vassiliévitch. Vassili's
other uncles declared in favour of the young prince.
In 1431 it was necessary to carry the dispute to the
Horde. Each of the two parties set forth his right
to the Khan Oulou-Makhmet. Vsevolojski, a boyard
of the Prince of Moscow, found the best of argu-
ments for his master. "My Lord Tzar," he said
to Makhmet, "let me speak—me, the slave of the
Grand Prince. My master the Grand Prince prays
for the throne of the Grand Principality, which is thy

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

property, having no other title but thy protection,
thy investiture, and thy iurlikh. Thou art master,
and can dispose of it according to thy good pleasure.
My lord the Prince Iouri Dmitriévitch, his uncle,
claims the Grand Principality by the act and the
will of his father, but not as a favour from the
All-powerful." In this contest of baseness the prize
was adjudged to the Prince of Moscow. The Khan
ordered Iouri to lead his nephew's horse by the
bridle. A Tatar baskak was present at the corona-
tion of the Grand Prince, which took place, for the
first time, not at Vladimir, but at the Assumption in
Moscow. From this time Vladimir lost her privileges
as the capital, although, in the enumeration of their
titles, the Grand Princes continued to inscribe the
name of Vladimir before that of Moscow.

Vassili owed his throne to the clever boyard, Vsevo-
lojski. He had promised to marry his daughter, but
his own mother, Sophia, the proud Lithuanian,
daughter of the great Vitovt, made him contract an
alliance with the Princess Maria, grand-daughter of
Vladimir the Brave. The irritated boyard left Vas-
sili's service, and retired to his enemy, Iouri, whose
resentment against his nephew he fanned. Another
circumstance exasperated Iouri; his two sons, Vassili
the Squinting, and Chemiaka, assisted at the marriage
of the Grand Prince. The Princess Sophia recog-
nised round the waist of Vassili the Squinting a belt
of gold which had belonged to Dmitri Donskoï. She
had the imprudence, publicly and with open scandal,
to take it from the son of Iouri. On this affront,
the two princes at once left the banqueting-hall, and
retired to their father. The latter instantly took
up arms, and departed for Peréiaslavl. The Prince
of Moscow could hardly assemble any troops, and fell

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223

into the hands of his uncle at Kostroma (1433). Vassili tried in vain to soften him by his tears. The Squinter and Chemiaka wished their prisoner to be put to death, but by the self-interested counsel of the boyard Morozof, Iouri allowed his nephew to live, and gave him the appanage of Kostroma, while he took for himself the Grand Principality. The affection of the Muscovites for their prince was so great, that they abandoned their city *en masse*, and crowded into Kostroma. Iouri saw that his nephew was still powerful, reproached Morozof for his perfidious advice, and had him stabbed by his two sons. "Thou hast ruined our father," they said. The usurper was indeed unable to remain in Moscow, and sent to tell his nephew he might come and take possession of it. The boyards pressed around Vassili on his return to his capital, "as bees press around their queen." The war, however, continued: thanks to the cowardice of Vassili, Iouri again took the Kremlin, and made prisoners the wife and mother of the Grand Prince, while the Squinter and Chemiaka occupied Vladimir, and marched on Nijni-Novgorod.

Iouri had hardly been recognised as Grand Prince of Novgorod, when he died suddenly. His sons then made peace with Vassili, but immediately took up arms again. In one of the many reverses of this civil war, Vassili the Squinting fell into the hands of the Grand Prince, who had his eyes put out in an excess of fury (1436). Then, by one of those changes common to violent and impulsive natures, he passed from anger to dismay; and to atone for his crime against his cousin, set free Chemiaka, whom he had made prisoner at the same time. Chemiaka promised to serve him, but served him very badly. In a battle with the Tatars, his deser-

224

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

tion caused the rout of the Russian army (siege of Biélef, in Lithuania). In 1441 the war began again between the Grand Prince and Chemiaka. The latter, with some thousands of Free-lances and Good Companions, suddenly undertook the siege of Moscow. Zenobius, superior of the Troitsa monastery, succeeded once more in reconciling them. Chemiaka displayed his ordinary duplicity on the occasion of a military incursion of the Tatars of Kazan. The Grand Prince waited in vain for the succours that had been promised him, and it was with only 1500 men that he finally took the field, so much had the discords between the descendants of Dmitri Donskoï weakened the Grand Principality, loosened the ties of obedience among the vassals, and degraded that Russia which had armed 150,000 men against Mamaï. Vassili, covered with fifteen wounds, fell into the hands of the barbarians, and was led prisoner to Kazan.

Moscow was in despair. The Prince of Tver insulted her territory; Chemiaka intrigued at the Horde to get himself nominated Grand Prince. All at once the Tzar of Kazan took it into his head to liberate his prisoners for a small ransom. Vassili re-entered his capital amid the acclamations of his people. Chemiaka had done enough to fear the vengeance of the Grand Prince; in the interests of his own safety, Vassili must be overthrown. Following the example of his father and grandfather, Vassili went to the Troitsa monastery to return thanks to Saint Sergius for his deliverance. He had few companions, and Chemiaka and his associates surprised the Kremlin in his absence, and captured his wife, his mother, and his treasures. Then he flew to Troitsa, where his accomplice, Ivan of Mojaïsk, discovered the Grand Prince, who was hidden in the principal

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225

church near the tomb of Saint Sergius. He was brought back to Moscow, and ten years after the blinding of Vassili the Squinting, Chemiaka avenged his brother by putting out the eyes of the Grand Prince (1446).

During his short reign at Moscow, Chemiaka had made himself hated by the people and the boyards, who were faithful at bottom to their unhappy prince. In the popular language, a "judgment of Chemiaka" became the synonym for a crying wrong. Presently Vassili's partisans assembled troops in Lithuania, joined those of the two Tatar *tzarévitches*, and marched against the usurper. At this period, Russia was infested by armed bands, the relics of the great Tatar and Lithuanian wars, Lithuanian adventurers, *tzarévitches* banished from the Horde, Novgorodian Good Companions, Free-lances of all races. They ravaged the flat country, attacked the strongest towns, and their chiefs sometimes created ephemeral principalities for themselves. As the Asiatic element predominated in them, they might be termed *Great Mongol Companies*, analogous to the *Great English* or the *French Companies* that, about the year 1444, Charles VII. sent to Alsace and Switzerland. Serving Chemiaka or the Grand Prince indifferently, they did their best to perpetuate the quarrel. Chemiaka wished to march against his enemies. Hardly had he left Moscow when the city broke into revolt, and Vassili entered in triumph. Chemiaka fled, and accepted a reconciliation with his victim (1447). Incapable of repose, he again took up arms, was completely defeated near Galitch by the Muscovites and Tatars (1450), and fled to Novgorod, where he is said to have died three years after, by poison. All his appanages were reunited to the royal domain.

VOL. I.

*

226

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Disembarrassed of this dangerous enemy, Vassili
the Blind hastened to take up the work of his prede-
cessors. Novgorod had not ceased to give asylum to
his enemies, to despise the authority of his lieutenants,
to contest his right of final appeal and the supre-
macy of the Metropolitan. A Muscovite army re-
duced her to reason; she was forced to annul all the
acts of the *vetché* which tended to limit the authority
of the Grand Prince, to pay him a heavy indemnity,
and to promise to set no seal but that of Vassili on
her deeds. Pskof received one of his sons as her
prince. The republic of Viatka had to pay tribute,
and to furnish a military contingent. The Prince of
Riazan having just died, Vassili took his young heir
to Moscow, under pretence of bringing him up, and
sent his lieutenant to govern the appanage. Vassili
of Borovsk, grandson of Vladimir the Brave, had
rendered him important services, but none the less was
he imprisoned, and his possessions swallowed up in the
Grand Principality. The authority of the Grand
Prince began to be exercised on his subordinates with
new rigour; and the rebels, real or supposed, were
subjected to the knout, tortures, mutilations, and re-
fined cruelties. Vassili, who had suffered so much
from the appanaged princes Iouri and Chemiaka—
who was so energetic in destroying the appanages
around him—could not free himself from the yoke of
custom, and began to dismember the principality
which he had aggrandised, in favour of his four
younger sons. However, to avoid all contests about
the title of Grand Prince, and to ensure the suc-
cession of the direct line, he had, since the year 1449,
associated with himself his eldest son, Ivan.

Memorable events had agitated the orthodox world
during his reign. In 1439, Pope Eugenius IV.

THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW.

227

assembled the Council of Florence to discuss the union
of the two Churches. The Greek Emperor, John
Palæologus, who hoped to obtain the help of the
Pope against the Ottomans, had sent the bishops of
his communion; Isidore, Metropolitan of Moscow, was
also present. It was in vain that the Emperor of
Constantinople, three vicars of the Patriarchs of the
East, seventeen metropolitans, and a multitude of
bishops signed the act of union. The Greek world
listened to the energetic protest of Mark, the old
bishop of Ephesus, and rejected the union with Rome.
Isidore announced at Kief and Moscow that he had
signed the act of reconciliation; the appearance of the
Latin cross at the Assumption in the Kremlin, the
name of Pope Eugenius in the public prayers, and the
reading of the formal document, astonished the Rus-
sians. Vassili, who piqued himself on his theology,
also raised his voice, began a polemic against Isidore,
and so overwhelmed him with insults, that the "false
shepherd" thought it prudent to fly to Rome. This
check to the union heralded the fall of the Greek
empire. In 1453, Mahomet II. entered Constanti-
nople. There was no longer a Christian Tzar;
Moscow became the great metropolis of orthodoxy.
She was the heir of Constantinople. Soon the monks,
the artists, the literary men of Constantinople were
to bring to her, as to the rest of Europe, the Re-
naissance.

q 2

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

CHAPTER XIII.

IVAN THE GREAT, THE UNITER OF THE RUSSIAN
LAND (1462-1505).

Submission of Novgorod — Annexation of Tver, Rostof, and Iaro-
savl — Wars with the Great Horde and Kazan — End of the
Tatar yoke — Wars with Lithuania — Western Russia as far as the
Soja reconquered — Marriage with Sophia Palæologus — Greeks
and Italians at the Court of Moscow.

SUBMISSION OF NOVGOROD—ANNEXATION OF THE PRIN-
CIPALITIES OF TVER, ROSTOF, AND IAROSLAVL.

AT the death of Vassili the Blind, Russia was all but
stifled between the great Lithuanian empire and the
vast possessions of the Mongols. To the north, she
had two restless neighbours, the Livonian Order and
Sweden. In spite of the labours of eight Muscovite
princes, the little Russian State could not yet make
its unity a fact; Riazan and Tver, though weakened,
still existed. Novgorod and Pskof hesitated between
the Grand Princes of Moscow and Lithuania. The
heirs of Kalita, by creating new appanages, inces-
santly destroyed the unity after which they toiled, by
means of a pitiless policy. Muscovy, which touches
on no sea, had only intermittent relations with the
centres of European civilisation. It was, however,
the time when the nations of the West began
to be organised. Charles VII. and Louis XI. in
France, Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, the Tudors
in England, Frederic III. and Maximilian in Austria,
laboured to build up powerful States from the ruins

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of feudal anarchy. European civilisation made un-
heard-of strides; the Renaissance began, printing
spread, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama
discovered new worlds. Was not Russia also going
to achieve her unity, to take part in the great Euro-
pean movement? The man who was to restore her
to herself, to free her from the Mongol yoke, to put
her into relations with the West,—this man was
expected. It had all been predicted. When a son
named Ivan was born in 1440 to Vassili the Blind, an
old monk had a revelation about it in Novgorod the
Great. He came and said to his archbishop: "Truly
it is to-day that the Grand Prince triumphs; God
has given him an heir; I behold this child making
himself illustrious by glorious deeds. He will subdue
princes and peoples. But woe to Novgorod! Nov-
gorod will fall at his feet, and never rise up again."

Ivan III., whose reign of forty-three years was to
permit him to realise the expectations of Russia, was
a cold, imperious, calculating prince, the very type of
the Souzdalian and Muscovite princes. Disliking
war, he allowed doubts to be thrown upon his courage.
He was victorious in Lithuania, in Livonia and
Siberia, almost without leaving the Kremlin. His
father had taken long journeys, which led him into
many sad adventures, but Stephen of Moldavia said
of Ivan: "Ivan is a strange man; he stays quietly
at home and triumphs over his enemies, while I,
though always on horseback, cannot defend my
country." It was the verdict of Edward III. on
Charles V. Ivan exhausted his enemies by negotia-
tions and delay, and never employed force till it
was absolutely necessary. His devotion was mixed
with hypocrisy. He wept for his relatives whom he
put to death, as Louis XI. bewailed the Duc de

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Guienne. Born a despot, "he had," says Karamsin, "penetrated the secret of autocracy, and became a formidable deity in the eyes of the Russians." His glance caused women to faint. When he slept after his meals, it was wonderful to see the frightened respect of the boyards for the sleep of the master. He inflicted cruel punishments and tortures on all rebels, even on those of the highest rank; he mutilated the counsellors of his son, whipped Prince Oukhtomski and the archimandrite of a powerful monastery, and burned alive two Poles in an iron cage on the Moskowa, for having conspired against him. He had already won the surname of "Terrible," which his grandson was to bear even more justly.

Ivan's first effort was directed against Novgorod the Great. The republic of the Ilmen was dying in the anarchy of the aristocracy, the dissensions of the people, the Church, and especially of the boyards. It is of this epoch that M. Biélaef has said, that "parties in Novgorod had become so complicated, that often it is difficult to perceive from what motive this or that faction excited troubles and revolts." They thought themselves able to despise the authority of a new prince, and had the imprudence to neglect the complaints and suggestions made in a tolerably moderate tone by Ivan III. He then signified to the Pskovians that they would have to second him in an expedition against the rebels. This the Pskovians did not wish to do, foreseeing that the fall of Novgorod would drag them down also. They offered their mediation to their "elder sister"—it was rejected, and they were obliged to proceed. Ivan III. often received, however, the Archbishop of Novgorod, Theophilus, in his palace at Moscow, and continued to negotiate. He had a large party in Novgorod, but

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the opposing faction was the bolder. Marfa, the
widow of the possadnik Boretski, mother of two
grown-up sons, put herself at the head of the anti-
Muscovite party. Ready and eloquent speech, im-
mense wealth, an audacity equal to everything, had
given her a great influence with the people and the
boyards. This intrepid woman was the last incar-
nation of Novgorodian liberty. To save the republic,
Marfa wished to throw it into the arms of the King
of Poland, Casimir IV. She contended also that the
Archbishop of Novgorod should be nominated by the
Metropolitan of Kief, not by the Metropolitan of Mos-
cow. In her devotion to Novgorod, she thus betrayed
the cause of Russia and orthodoxy. The sittings of
the *vetché*, amid the opposition of the two parties, de-
generated into violent tumults. Some cried, “The
king;” others, “Long live orthodox Moscow! long
live the Grand Prince Ivan and our father the Metro-
politan Philip!” The friends of Marfa finally won
the day. Novgorod handed herself over to the King
of Poland by a formal act, in which she stipulated for
the same rights as she had enjoyed under her ancient
princes. Ivan III. tried once more to recall the
citizens to obedience, and he sent them an ambassador,
but the party of Marfa was always the more numerous
or the more noisy. At last Ivan decided to begin the
war. His voïevodes made the conquest of the terri-
tory of the Dwina; the Muscovites, supported by the
Tatar cavalry, cruelly ravaged the territory of the
“perfidious” Novgorodians; after the battle of Koro-
styne, they cut off the noses and lips of the prisoners.
The republicans had fallen from their ancient valour:
Marfa had hastily enrolled ill-disciplined artisans.
At the battle of the Chelona, 5000 Muscovites de-
feated 30,000 Novgorodians. At Roussa the Grand

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Prince caused many boyards to be beheaded, one of whom was a son of Marfa, and sent others as prisoners into Muscovy. Ivan III. always advanced, fighting and negotiating. Novgorod submitted, paid a war indemnity, and, if she still remained a republic, she was a republic dependent on the good pleasure of the Prince (1470).

From that time Ivan laboured entirely to reduce the town, and his party in Novgorod increased. If the people complained of the injustice of his lieutenants, he blamed the insufficiency of the ancient laws of the city. He tried to excite the animosity of the lower classes against the boyards. It was by the invitation of the former that he came in 1475 to hold a solemn court in Novgorod. Great and small immediately crowded to his tribunal, to beg for justice one against the other. Ivan saw how much his own cause was strengthened by these divisions. An act of authority that he tried, succeeded completely. Marfa's second son, the possadnik, and many boyards were loaded with chains, and sent to Moscow. No one dared to protest. On his return to his capital, a multitude of complainants hastened after him; he forced them all to appear before him. Since Rurik, say the annalists, such a violation of Novgorod's liberty had never been known. Profiting by a documentary error made by the envoys of the town, he declared himself sovereign (goçoudar) of Novgorod, instead of lord (gospodine). Now if this interpretation were accepted, the subjection of the republic, which was only a matter of fact, would become a matter of law. The party of Marfa made a last effort to reject this sovereignty; the friends of the Grand Prince were massacred. Ivan declared that the Novgorodians, after having accorded him the title of goçoudar, had

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the effrontery to deny it. Then the Metropolitan, the
bishops, the boyards, all Moscow, advised him to make
war. Accordingly it was preached as a Holy War
against the allies of the Pope and Lithuania. All the
forces of Russia were put in motion, and many boyards
of Novgorod appeared at the camp of the Grand
Prince. The city was blockaded, and starved out.
In vain the partisans of Marfa shouted the old war-
cry: "Let us die for liberty and Saint Sophia!"
They were forced to capitulate. Ivan guaranteed to
them their persons and possessions, their ancient
jurisdiction, and exemption from the Muscovite ser-
vice; but the *vetché* and the possadnik were abolished
for ever. The belfry was reduced to silence. The
Republic of Novgorod had ceased to exist (1478).

Marfa and the principal oligarchs were transported
to Moscow, and their goods confiscated. Many times
afterwards, there were party agitations, which were
quelled by Ivan III. and his successor, by numerous
transportations. In 1481 some boyards were tortured
and put to death. Eight thousand Novgorodians
were transplanted to the towns of Souzdal. Ivan III.
struck another terrible blow at the prosperity of the
city when, in 1495, after a quarrel with the people
of Revel, he caused the merchants of forty-nine Han-
seatic towns to be arrested at Novgorod, pillaged the
"German market," and removed wares to the value
of £40,000 to Moscow. The covetous Grand Prince
doubtless did not see he was killing the hen with the
golden eggs. A long while elapsed before the mer-
chants of the West again made their appearance in
Novgorod. Pskof, more docile, had preserved her
*vetché* and her ancient institutions.

Whilst he was destroying the liberty of Novgorod,
Ivan deprived her of her colonies, and undertook on

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his own account the conquest of Northern Russia. By this time Muscovy extended as far as Finland, the White Sea and the Icy Ocean, and had already obtained a footing in Asia. Ivan had conquered Permia in 1472, by which means he became master of the "silver beyond the Kama," which the Novgorodians had hitherto got in the course of trade. In 1489, Viatka, which had fallen for a short time into the power of the Tatars of Kazan, was reconquered, and lost her republican organisation. In 1499 the voïevodes of Oustiougue, of the Dwina and of Viatka, advanced as far as the Petchora, and built a fortress on the banks of the river. In the depth of winter, in sledges drawn by dogs, they passed the defiles of the Ourals, in the teeth of the wind and snow, slew 50 of the Samoyedes, and captured 200 reindeer; invaded the territory of the Vogouls and Ougrians, the Finnish brethren of the Magyars; took 40 enclosures of palisades, made 50 princes prisoners, and returned to Moscow, after having reduced this unknown country, supposed by the geographers of antiquity to be the home of so many wonders and monsters. Russia, like the maritime nations of the West, had discovered a new world.

The cultivated provinces of Central Russia were more important than the deserts of the North. Here there were no immense territories to be conquered, but only the territories of the smaller appanaged princes to be grafted on to the already united mass. Ivan III. might have dethroned the young Prince of Riazan, whom his father had brought to Moscow, but he preferred to give him the hand of his sister, Anne Vassilievna, and send him back to his territories (1464). The absorption of the principalities of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski was re-

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served for his successor. He showed the same moderation about Tver, but in 1482 Prince Michael, who had only maintained his position on sufferance, had the imprudence to ally himself with Lithuania. Ivan hailed this pretext with joy, and marched in person against Tver, accompanied by the celebrated Aristotele Fioraventi of Bologna, grand master of his artillery. Michael took to flight; and Ivan began to organise his new subjects. A principality which could furnish 40,000 soldiers was united to Moscow without a blow. In like manner he obtained possession of Vereia and of Biélozersk, and deprived the princes of Rostof and Iaroslavl of their ancient rights of sovereignty.

His father, by giving appanages to his brothers, had prepared for him a new and ungrateful task, but Ivan undertook it without scruple. When his brother Iouri died, he wept much for him, but at once laid hands on his towns of Dmitrof, Mojaïsk, and Serpoukhof, thereby causing his other brothers, who hoped to share the spoil, great discontent (1468). Andrew was accused of an understanding with Lithuania, and thrown into prison, where he died (1493). The Grand Prince convoked the Metropolitan and bishops to his palace, appeared before them with downcast eyes, his face sorrowful and bathed in tears, humbly accused himself of having been too cruel to his unhappy brother, and submitted to their pastoral admonitions; but he confiscated Andrew's appanage notwithstanding, and that of his brother Boris, who died a short time after, thus reuniting all the domains of his father. He acquired the surname of "Binder of the Russian Land," a name which his eight predecessors equally merited. It was owing to their earlier labours that Ivan was able to become the greatest and most powerful of these "Binders." He

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avoided their errors, and if later he gave appanages
to his own children, it was only on condition that
they should remain subjects of their eldest brother,
and that they should neither have the right to coin
money nor to exercise a separate diplomacy.

WARS WITH THE GREAT HORDE AND KAZAN—END
OF THE TATAR YOKE.

The empire of the Horde was at last dissolved.
The principal States which had risen from its débris
were the Tzarate of Kazan, that of Saraï or Astra-
khan, the Horde of the Nogaïs, and the Khanate of
the Crimea. Kazan and the Crimea particularly pre-
sented strange ethnographical amalgamations. The
Tzarate of Kazan had been founded in the reign of
Vassili the Blind on the ruins of the ancient Bulgaria
on the Volga, formerly so flourishing and civilised,
by a banished prince of the Horde. It was the same
Makhmet who had tried to establish himself at Belef,
and had defeated Chemiaka. The Mongols had mixed
with the ancient Bulgars, and reconstituted an im-
portant centre of commerce and civilisation. The
rule of the Tzarate extended over the Finnish tribes
of the Mordvians, the Tchouvaches, and the Tchere-
misses, as well as the Bachkirs and Metcheraks. The
Khanate of the Crimea had been founded almost at
the same date, by a descendant of Genghis Khan,
named Azi. A peasant named Ghirei having saved
him from death, Azi added his benefactor's name to
his own, and henceforward the title belonged to all
the khans of the Crimea. The Mongols, on arriving
at the peninsula, found it occupied by the remains
of the ancient Tauric, Hellenic, and Gothic races;
by Armenians, Jews, and Jewish Kharaïtes, who

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pretended to have settled B.C. 500 on the rocks and
in the Troglodyte cities of Tchoufout-Kalé and
Mangoup-Kalé, and finally by the Genoese of Kaffa.
The Jews and Italians excepted, a large part of the
ancient population was absorbed by the Asiatic in-
vaders. Thus while the Tatars of the steppes of the
Northern Crimean are pure Mongols, those of the
mountains of the south seem to be chiefly Taurians,
Goths, and Islamised Greeks. As to the great
Horde of Saraï, that was almost entirely composed
of nomads, such as the Nogaïs and other Turco-Tatar
races.

Anarchy and rivalry reigned in the heart of
each of these States. The princes of Kazan, Saraï,
and the Crimea came to seek an asylum from the
Grand Prince, who made use of them to perpetuate
these divisions. In 1473 Ivan constituted the town
of Novgorod of Riazan into a fief for one Mustafa;
others served in the armies, and aided Ivan against
Novgorod and Lithuania. Towards the khans and
the tzars, especially those of the Great Horde or
Saraï, the sovereign of Moscow held himself on the
defensive, repelling the attacks of adventurers, but
taking care not to provoke them; avoiding the pay-
ment of the tribute, but disposed to send them pre-
sents. At the same time he schemed for alliances
against the Khan of Saraï, and despatched to the
Turkoman Oussoum-Hassan, master of Persia and
enemy of the Mongols, his Italian ambassador, Marco
Ruffo (1477). A more solid friendship united him
with Mengli-Ghirei, Khan of the Crimea, and lasted
all their lives. Mengli was as serviceable to him
against Lithuania as against the Horde.

In 1478, having carefully taken all his measures,
he openly rebelled. When the Khan Akhmet sent

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his ambassadors with his image to receive the tribute, Ivan III. trampled the image of the Khan under his feet, and put all the envoys to death, excepting one, who conveyed the news to the Horde. This act, so very little in accordance with the well-known prudence of Ivan, is not to be found in all the chronicles. When Akhmet took the field, Ivan occupied a strong position on the Oka, with a more numerous and better-organised army than that of Dmitri Donskoï. His 150,000 men and powerful artillery did not, however, prevent him from reflecting much on the hazard of battles. He even returned to reflect at Moscow, and it needed all the clamours of the people to induce him to leave it. "What!" ex-claimed the Muscovites, "he has overtaxed us, and refused to pay tribute to the Horde, and now that he has irritated the Khan, he declines to fight!" Ivan wished to consult his mother, his boyards, and his bishops. "March bravely against the enemy," was the unanimous reply. "Is it the part of mortals to fear death?" said old Archbishop Vassian. "We cannot escape destiny." Ivan desired, at least, to send his young son Ivan back to Moscow, but the prince heroically disobeyed. The Grand Prince finally decided to return to the army, blessed by his mother and the Metropolitan, who promised him the victory as to a David or to a Constantine, reminding him that "a good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep." Ivan, who did not feel himself made of the stuff of a Constantine, kept his army immov-able on the Oka and the Ougra; the two forces contending themselves with sending arrows and insults across the river. Ivan closed his ears to the warlike counsel of his boyards, and rather listened to the prudent advice of his two favourites—"fat and powerful

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lords,” says the chronicle. However, he refused the propositions of the Khan, who offered to pardon him if he would either come himself or send one of his men to kiss his stirrup. At last monks and white-haired bishops lost all patience. Vassian addressed a bellicose letter to the Grand Prince, invoking the memories of Igor, Sviatoslaf, of Vladimir Monomachus, and Dmitri Donskoï. Ivan assured him that this letter “filled his heart with joy, courage, and strength;” but another fortnight passed in inaction. On the fifteenth day the rivers were covered with ice; the Grand Prince gave the order to retreat. An inexplicable panic seized the two armies—Russians and Tatars both fled, when no man pursued. The Khan never stopped till he reached the Horde (1480). Such was the last invasion of the horsemen of the Kiptchak. It was in this unheroic way that Russia broke at last the Mongol yoke under which she had groaned for three centuries. Like Louis XI., Ivan III. had his battle of Montlhéry; but if he fought less, he gained far more. The Horde, attacked by the Khans of the Crimea, survived its decay but a short time. Akhmet was put to death by one of his own men.

Hostility increased between Kazan and Moscow. In 1467 and 1469 Ivan III. had organised two expeditions against Bulgaria. In 1487, seven years after having shaken off the supremacy of the Great Horde, the Muscovite voïevodes marched against the same Kazan, where the father of their Grand Prince had been held a captive. After a siege of seven weeks the city was taken, and the sovereign Alegam made prisoner. A tzar of Kazan was then seen a prisoner in Moscow! Ivan III. added the title of Prince of Bulgaria to those he already bore;

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but feeling that the Mussulman city was not yet ripe
for annexation, he gave the crown to a nephew of
his friend the Khan of the Crimea. The people
were forced to take the oath of fidelity to him. The
conquest of the land of Arsk, in Bulgaria itself, and
the establishment of a Russian garrison in the fortress,
allowed him to watch from close by all that passed
in Kazan. The Khan of the Crimea did not care
to protest against the captivity of the Tzar Alegam,
his nephew's enemy, but the princes of the Chiban
and the Nogaïs, who were related to him, and who
beheld Islamism humiliated in his person, despatched
an embassy to the Grand Prince. The latter
refused to release his prisoner, but replied so gra-
ciously that the envoys could hardly be angry. He
sent to those zealous kinsmen clothes of Flanders,
fishes' teeth, and gerfalcons, and did not forget the
wives of the *mourzas*, whom he called his sisters.
At the same time, wishing to make these Asiatics
feel that times had changed, he took care never
personally to compromise himself with the Nogaï
envoys, and only to communicate with them by means
of treasurers, secretaries, and other officers of the
second rank.

WARS WITH LITHUANIA—WESTERN RUSSIA UP TO THE
SOJA RECONQUERED.

Lithuania and Poland united remained, after all,
Ivan's great enemy. This composite State plays
the same part in Russian history as the Burgundy
of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold in that of
France. Made up in a great degree of Russian as
well as of Polish and Lithuanian elements, it was
many times on the point of annihilating Russia, in

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the same way as Burgundy, composed of French, Batavian, and German provinces, had been on the point of annihilating the French nation. Lithuania was incorporated with Poland in the same manner as the States of Burgundy, unfortunately for France, were incorporated with Austria.

At the beginning of Ivan's reign the King Casimir IV. was sovereign of the two united States, and neglected no means of disquieting the Grand Prince. The latter, on his part, incited his ally Mengli to invade the Lithuanian possessions; and the Crimean Tatars pillaged Kief and the Monastery of the Catacombs (1482). When, ten years after, Casimir died (1492), leaving Poland to his eldest son Albert, and Lithuania to Alexander, the second son, Ivan III. resolved to turn the division to account. He had obtained the friendship of the Turkish Sultan Bayazet II., of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, of the active Stephen of Moldavia, the determined enemy of the Lithuanians; but, above all, he counted on Mengli. Mengli had held Lithuania in check while Ivan had got rid of the Mongols; now he was to play the same part with the Horde, while the Grand Prince settled old scores with Alexander, but without interfering with the Tatar incursions in the Ukraine. The discovery at Moscow of a Polish plot against the life of the Grand Prince spread rumours of war. In the same way that he had been able to utilise the Mongol refugees against the Horde, he found the Lithuanian princes and other great personages entering into relations with him. It was then that the Belski, afterwards so famous, obtained a footing in Russia, that the Prince of Mazovia sent an embassy to Ivan III., and the princes

VOL. I.

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of Viazma, Vorotinsk, Belef, and Mezetsk did him
homage.

The war was popular in Moscow, for its object was
to break the yoke imposed by the Polish Catholics
on the orthodox Russian people. In White Russia
the Muscovites were to awake old national and
religious sympathies. "Lithuania," said the am-
bassadors of Ivan III. to the plenipotentiaries of
Alexander, "Lithuania has profited by the mis-
fortunes of Russia to take our territory, but to-day
things have changed." Peace was made after a
short war (1494). The frontier of Muscovy was
carried to the Desna, and comprehended the appa-
nages of the princes who had taken service with
Ivan, with Mstislavl, Obolensk, Kozelsk, Vorotinsk,
Peremysl, &c.

The peace seemed to be cemented by the mar-
riage of Alexander with Helena, daughter of Ivan
III.; but, on the contrary, this union proved the
germ of a new war. The sovereign of Moscow
had stipulated that his daughter was under no
circumstances to change her religion, that she was
to have a Greek chapel in the palace, and an
orthodox almoner. Ivan himself gave his daughter
the most pressing injunctions never to appear in the
Catholic church, and gave her minute directions
as to her toilette, her table, her mode of travelling,
and her way of conducting herself towards her new
subjects. At her departure he bestowed on her a
collection of various pious books. His policy agreed
with his conviction; it was necessary that in Lithu-
ania orthodoxy should raise her lowered head, and
reign with his daughter. Soon afterwards, he com-
plained that Helena was forced to offend her con-
science, that she was made to wear the Polish

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costume, that her domestics and orthodox almoners
were dismissed, and their places filled with Catholics
—that the Greek religion was persecuted, that the
assassination of the Metropolitan of Kief had re-
mained unpunished, and that he was to be succeeded
by a man devoted to the Pope. Lithuania, at the
beginning of the war, was further enfeebled by new
defections. The princes of Bielsk, of Mossalsk, of
Khotatof, the boyards of Mtsensk and of Serpeïsk,
and finally the princes of Tchernigof and Starodoub,
of Rylsk and Novgorod-Severski, declared for the
Grand Prince of Moscow. All the country between
the Desna and the Soja passed into the hands of
the Russians, together with Briansk, Poutivle, and
Dorogobouge. They had only to show themselves
to conquer. Alexander could not abandon the
conquests of Olgerd, Vitovt, and Gedimin without
striking a blow, but his army was cut to pieces
at the battle of Vedrocha. Constantine Ostrojski,
his voïevode, fell into the hands of the Muscovites,
who tried to gain him over to their cause. The
Lithuanians, however, kept the strongholds of
Vitepsk, Polotsk, Orcha, and Smolensk.

This prolonged struggle between Alexander and
Ivan III. had set all Eastern Europe in a blaze.
Alexander had made an alliance with the Livonian
Order and the Great Horde. The Khan of the
Crimea pitilessly devastated Gallicia and Volhynia.
The Russian troops again defeated the Lithuanians
near Mstislavl, but were forced to raise the siege of
Smolensk. In the north, the Grand Prince of
Moscow had stopped the Germans of Livonia from
building the fortress of Ivangorod opposite Narva,
and had seized the Hanseatic wares at Novgorod.
The Grand Master, Hermann of Plettenberg, re-

R 2

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

sponded with joy to the appeal of the Lithuanians; and at the battle of Siritsa, near Izborsk, his formidable German artillery crushed an army of 40,000 Russians (1501). The latter took their revenge the following year on the *iron men* near Pskof. Schig-Akhmet, Khan of the Great Horde, wished to make a diversion, but the Khan of the Crimea attacked him with fury, and in 1502 so completely extinguished his rule, that the ruins of Sarai, the capital of Bati, where the Russian princes had grovelled before the khans, were henceforward a home of serpents.

Alexander had just been elected King of Poland, and wished to finish this ruinous war. The celebrated Pope, Alexander VI., and the King of Hungary tried to mediate between the belligerent powers. As, however, neither of the two parties would abate any of their pretensions, a truce of six years only could be agreed on, during which time the Soja was to be the boundary, and the territories and towns of the princes who had gone over to Russia were to be abandoned to her (1503). What shows the good faith of Ivan III. is that, after this truce was signed, he obtained the promise from the Khan of the Crimea to continue his attacks against Lithuania.

MARRIAGE WITH SOPHIA PALÆOLOGUS (1472)—THE GREEKS AND ITALIANS AT THE COURT OF MOSCOW.

The acquisition of the Novgorodian possessions and the appanages, the capture of Kazan, the fall of the Horde, and the conquest of Lithuania up to the Soja, had doubled the extent of the Grand Principality, even without reckoning the immense territory it had gained on the north. An event not less important in its consequences was the marriage of Ivan III. with a Byzantine princess. Thomas Palæologus, a

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brother of the last Emperor, had taken refuge at the
court of Rome. There he died, leaving a daughter
named Sophia. The Pope wished to find her a
husband, and the Cardinal Bessarion, who belonged
to the Eastern Rite, advised Paul II. to offer her
hand to the Grand Prince of Russia. A Greek
named Iouri, and the two Friazini, relations of
Friazine, minter of Ivan III., were sent on an em-
bassy to Moscow. Ivan and his boyards accepted
the proposal with enthusiasm; it was God, no doubt,
who had given him so illustrious a wife; "a branch
of the imperial tree which formerly overshadowed
all orthodox Christianity." Sophia-dowered by the
Pope, whose heart was always occupied with two
things, the crusade against the Turks, and the re-
union of the two Churches—went from Rome to
Lübeck, from Lübeck by sea to Revel, and was
received in triumph at Pskof, Novgorod, and the
other towns subject to Moscow. This daughter of
emperors was destined to have an enormous in-
fluence on Ivan. It was she, no doubt, who taught
him to "penetrate the secret of autocracy." She
bore the Mongol yoke with less patience than the
Russians, who were accustomed to servitude. She
incited Ivan to shake it off. "How long am I to be
the slave of the Tatars?" she would often ask. With
Sophia a multitude of Greek emigrants came to
Moscow, not only from Rome, but from Constantinople
and Greece; among them were Demetrios Ralo,
Theodore Lascaris, Demetrios Trakhaniotes. They
gave to Russia statesmen, diplomatists, engineers,
artists, and theologians. They brought her Greek
books, the priceless inheritance of ancient civilisa-
tion. These manuscripts were first beginnings of
the present "Library of the Patriarchs."

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Ivan III. was the heir of the Emperors of Byzantium and the Roman Caesars. He took for the new arms of Russia the two-headed eagle which in its archaic form is still to be found in the "Palais à facettes" of the Kremlin. Moscow succeeded to Byzantium as Byzantium had succeeded to Rome. Having become the only metropolis of orthodoxy, it was incumbent on her to protect the Greek Christians of the entire East, and to prepare the revenge against Islamism for the work of 1453. With the Greeks came Italians: Aristotele Fioraventi of Bologna, who was Ivan III.'s architect, military engineer, and master of artillery; Marco Ruffo, his ambassador in Persia; Pietro Antonio, who built his imperial palace; the metal-founder, Paul Bossio, besides architects and arquebusiers.

Ivan entered into relations with Venice when Trevisani, envoy of the republic, on his way to the Horde, tried to traverse *incognito* the States of the Grand Prince, and was arrested and condemned to death. The Senate interfered, and the imprudent diplomatist was set at liberty. Ivan sent in his turn a Russian ambassador, Simeon Tolbouzine, charged to bind the two countries in friendly ties, and to bring back some skilful architect from Italy. He was followed in 1499 by Demetrius Ralo and Golokh-vastof. Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, returned from Persia with a French ecclesiastic named Louis, who called himself envoy of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Patriarch of Antioch. He stopped at Moscow, and was kindly received by Ivan. He himself was much struck by the Grand Prince. "When, in speaking, I respectfully stepped back," relates Contarini, "the Grand Prince always drew near, and gave particular attention to my remarks." Ivan III.—

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247.

whether to secure himself allies against Poland, or to obtain from Germany artists and handi-craftsmen—exchanged more than one embassy with Frederic III. and Maximilian of Austria, Matthias of Hungary, and the Pope. When attacked by Sweden, he negotiated an alliance with Denmark. Plehtchéef was the first Russian ambassador at Constantinople under Bajazet II. From the East came envoys of Georgia and even of Djagatai (Turkestan and Tatar Siberia).

The prince who, born vassal of a nomad race, founded the greatness of Russia, may be compared with one of the greatest of French kings, Louis XI. What the latter accomplished in the case of appanaged feudalism, Ivan succeeded in doing in that of appanaged principalities. He was pitiless towards the smaller Russian dynasties, as the King of France was to Armagnac or Saint Pol. He detached a slice from Lithuania, as his Western contemporary managed to dismember Burgundy. He put an end to the Mongol invasions, as Louis did to the English wars. He repulsed, without striking a blow, the last incursion of the khans, as Louis XI. sweetly dismissed the last embarkation of the English under Edward IV. Both had the same taste for foreigners, especially industrious Italians, and for the useful arts. Both explored the metallic riches of their States. They each created a diplomacy; the one by means of Comynes, the other by means of Greeks, and Russians as supple as Greeks. They strengthened the national army, and gave it a permanent character; they both owed their success against the minor princes to their artillery. Ivan III. had his brothers Bureau in Aristotele Fioraventi.

Louis XI., who wished to put an end to the anarchy

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

of the law and to the thefts of chicanery, meditated
a real code, or grand costumier, which would put the
old laws in harmony with the new order of things.
This is precisely what Ivan did in his Oulogenia
(1497). In comparing it with the Rousskaïa Pravda
of Iaroslaf, we are able to gauge the amount of
change caused in the national laws by the influence
of Byzantium, the example of the Tatars, and the
progress of autocracy. Corporal penalties have
notably increased: for homicide, death; for theft,
whipping in a public place. Torture was making
its way in the procedure. The judicial duel was
still admitted, only now it could hardly become
mortal; each of the combatants had a cuirass,
and was armed only with a short club. Women,
minors, and ecclesiastics were represented by a cham-
pion. In the same way as the end and aim of the
policy of Ivan was the suppression of appanages, that
of his code was to efface the privileges, the legal and
judicial peculiarities of the different provinces.

For three generations the throne had been in-
herited in the direct line. When, however, Ivan,
eldest son of Ivan III., died, the latter hesitated long
between his grandson Dmitri Ivanovitch, and his
second son Vassili. His wife supported Vassili; his
daughter-in-law Helena, Ivan's widow, her own son.
The court was divided, and both parties were
absorbed in their intrigues. Ivan III. at first pro-
claimed Dmitri, threw Vassili in prison, and dis-
graced his wife. Then he changed his mind, im-
prisoned his daughter-in-law and his grandson in
their turn, and proclaimed Vassili his heir. The
hereditary right of the West was not established in
Russia without many struggles.

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CHAPTER XIV.

VASSILI IVANOVITCH (1505–1533).

Reunion of Pskof, Riazan, and Novgorod-Severski — Wars with Lithuania — Acquisition of Smolensk — Wars with the Tatars — Diplomatic relations with Europe.

REUNION OF PSKOF, RIAZAN, AND NOVGOROD-SEVERSKI
—WARS WITH LITHUANIA—ACQUISITION OF SMO-
LENSK.

THE reign of Vassili Ivanovitch may seem some-
what pale between those of the two Ivans—the two
“*Terribles*,”—his father and son. It was likewise
of shorter duration, lasting only twenty-eight years
(1505–1533), but was the continuation of the one,
and the preparation for the other: the movement
which was bearing Russia towards unity and auto-
cracy was not retarded under Vassili Ivanovitch.

There were still three States which had preserved a
certain independence—the Republic of Pskof, and the
Principalities of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski. The
quarrels still continued at Pskof between the citizens
and the peasants, the aristocracy and the lower
classes. The whole of Pskof was in conflict with
her *namiestnik*, or the royal lieutenant. Vassili came
to hold his court at Novgorod, and summoned the
magistrates of Pskof to appear before him. When
they arrived, he arrested them. A merchant of Pskof,
who was on his way to Novgorod, returned with the
news to his compatriots. Instantly the bell of the

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

vetché began to ring, and the cry was heard, "Let us raise the shield against the Grand Prince. Let us shut the gates of the town." The more prudent tried to restrain the people. "What can we do? Our brothers, our magistrates, our boyards, and all our chief men are in the hands of the Prince." The imprisoned Pskovians sent a messenger to implore their fellow-citizens not to attempt a useless resistance, and to avoid the shedding of blood. The latter then despatched one of their number to the Grand Prince, and charged him to say, "My lord, we are not your enemies. After God, it is you that have power over all your subjects." Vassili Ivanovitch sent them one of his diaks, or secretaries, who was admitted into the assembly of the citizens, saluted them in the name of the Grand Prince, and informed them that his master imposed on them two conditions: the first was that the towns subject to Pskof should receive his namiestniks; the second was the suppression of the vetché and its bell. For a long while they could give him no answer—their sobs and tears choked them. At last they demanded twenty-four hours to deliberate. The day and night passed in lamentations. "The infants at the breast," says the annalist, "alone could refrain from tears." Next day the people met for the last time, and the first magistrate of the city thus spoke to Dalmatof, diak of the Grand Prince: "It is written in our Chronicles that our ancestors took oaths to the Grand Prince. The Pskovians swore never to rebel against our lord who is at Moscow, never to ally themselves with Lithuania, with Poland, nor with the Germans, otherwise the wrath of God would be upon them, bringing with it famine, fires, floods, and the invasion of the infidels. If the Grand Prince, on his

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part, did not observe his vow, he dared the same consequences. Now our town and our bell are in the power of God and the prince. As for us, we have kept our oath." Dalmatof had the great bell, symbol of the independence of the republic, taken down, and carried to Novgorod, amid the general despair. Then Vassili Ivanovitch came to visit his "patrimony of Pskof." He installed his men and boyards in the upper town, transplanted 300 families of the aristocracy into the cities of the interior, and established 300 Muscovite families in their place. When he went away, he left a garrison of 5000 *dieti boyarskié*, and 500 Novgorod artillerymen (1510). "Alas!" cries the annalist, "glorious city of Pskof the Great, wherefore this lamentation and tears?" And the noble city of Pskof replies: "How can I but weep and lament? An eagle, a many-winged eagle, with claws like a lion, has swooped down upon me. He has taken captive the three cedars of Lebanon—my beauty, my riches, my children! Our land is a desert, our city ruined, our commerce destroyed. Our brothers have been carried away to a place where our fathers never dwelt, nor our grandfathers, nor our great-grandfathers."

Ivan, prince of Riazan, was accused about 1521 of having made an alliance with the Khan of the Crimea. He was summoned to Moscow, and imprisoned. He managed to escape into Lithuania, where he died in obscurity. This fertile country, whose rich harvests "looked like waving forests," was united to the Grand Principality. A certain number of Riazanese were transported to Muscovite soil. Vassili Chemiakine reigned at Novgorod-Severski; he was the grandson of the Chemiaka who had put out the eyes of Vassili Vassiliévitch.

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

About 1523 he was thrown into prison, on the accu-
sation of an understanding with Poland, where he
died. There was now only one Russia. A jester of
the Grand Prince had predicted the fall of the last
appanaged prince. He had gone through the streets
of Moscow armed with a broom, crying "that it was
time to clean the empire of what remained of this
ordure." Vassili, like the most of his predecessors,
had little tenderness for his family. His nephew
Dmitri, whom his grandfather had for a moment
destined to occupy the throne, and who by Western
laws was the rightful heir, died in prison. One of
Vassili's brothers, feeling the yoke press too heavily
on him, tried to escape, but was brought back.

The son of Ivan the Great continued the struggle
with Lithuania. He had attempted, at the death of
Alexander, to get himself nominated Grand Prince
of Wilna, and the reconciliation of Muscovite and
Lithuanian Russia would have changed the destinies
of the North. Sigismond I. reunited the two crowns
of Wilna and Poland. An unimportant war ended in
1509 by a "perpetual peace," and Vassili renounced
all claims on Kief and Smolensk. The perpetual
peace lasted three years, which were filled by the
recriminations of the two parties. Vassili accused
Sigismond of never having sent back all the
prisoners, of pillaging the Muscovite merchants, of
maltreating the widow of Alexander, daughter of
Ivan III.; of tempting Simeon, Vassili's brother, to
fly to Poland; and of inciting the Crimean Tatars
to ravage Russia. He declared that "as long as his
horse was in marching condition, and his sword cut
sharp, there should be neither peace nor truce with
Lithuania." Smolensk was instantly attacked; part
of her inhabitants were on the side of Russia, and

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253

offered to submit to the Grand Prince. A volley of artillery knocked down the ramparts of her Kremlin, which towers over the Dnieper. The Polish voïevode was compelled by the people to capitulate. "Spare your patrimony," said they to the Grand Prince. The Bishop of Smolensk blessed Vassili, and the inhabitants took the oaths of fidelity to him (1514). "The taking of Smolensk," says a Russian chronicler, "was like a brilliant fête-day for Russia; for the capture of the property of another can only flatter an ambitious prince, but to gain possession of what is one's own is ever a cause of joy." Many of the Lithuanians, however, remained undecided; the name of Russia and of orthodoxy brought them into communion with Moscow, but the Muscovites appeared very barbarous by the side of the Poles, and their turbulent nobility were better suited to Polish anarchy than to Russian autocracy. A Glinski, one of a Podolian family, who went over to Vassili at this time, played the traitor. Constantine Ostrojski, whom Vassili had tried to gain over to the cause of orthodoxy, fled from Moscow; and it was he who, in 1514, inflicted on the Russian voïevodes the bloody defeat of Orcha. "The next day," says Karamsin, "he celebrated the victory that he had won over a people of the same religion as himself, and it was in the Russian tongue that he gave thanks to God for having destroyed the Russians." Even the contemporaries felt vaguely that a struggle between Lithuanian Russia and Moscow was a kind of civil war. Had not Vassili tried to unite the two principalities?

As in the time of Ivan III., the duel of the two States made itself felt throughout Europe, and occasioned a great diplomatic movement. Now, Sigismond had the Tatars of the Crimea on his side;

254

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Vassili opposed them with the Tatars of Astrakhan. Sigismond reckoned on Sweden. Vassili negotiated with Denmark. The King had gained over to his cause the Dnieper Cossacks, whose name already began to be heard in history, and who had been powerfully organised by Dachkovitch. But Vassili secured the friendship of the Teutonic Order, who even consented to invade Polish Prussia; of Maximilian of Austria, who signed a treaty of partition of the Polish territory; of the Hospodar of Wallachia; and finally, of the Sultan Selim, to whom he sent embassy after embassy. Negotiations were set on foot in consequence of the defeat of Constantine Ostrojski before Smolensk, in the battle of Opotchka. Maximilian of Austria undertook the office of mediator; his ambassador, Herberstein, the same who has left us the curious book entitled 'Rerum Moscovi-tarum Commentarii,' promised that Vassili should cede Smolensk, and quoted to him the disinterestedness of King Pyrrhus and other great men of anti-quity. Pope Leo X. intervened without greater success, though he counselled Vassili to leave Lithuania alone, and to turn his thoughts to Constantinople, the inheritance of his mother, Sophia Palæologus. At last, in 1522, the negotiations opened and terminated in the truce of 1526. Vassili pronounced a discourse on the subject, in which he expressed his friendship for his noble mediators, the Pope, the Emperor, and the Archduke of Austria (Clement VII., Charles V., and Ferdinand), but Russia kept Smolensk.

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WARS WITH THE TATARS—DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH EUROPE.

The Tatars were still dangerous. Mengli-Ghirei, the ancient ally of Ivan III., had declared for Lithuania against Vassili. Perhaps the old Khan might have lost the authority necessary to restrain his sons and mourzas, who only wished to pillage the Russian territory. Under his successor, Makhmet Ghirei, the Crimea became a deadly enemy of Russia. Kazan, on expelling the *protégé* of Ivan III., had elected a prince hostile to Moscow. Two expeditions directed against the rebel city failed completely. At the death of the Tzar of Kazan, the principality became the apple of discord between the Khan of the Crimea and the Grand Prince. The Russians, however, had succeeded, and installed their client, Schig-Alei, a Mussulman brutalised by idleness and pleasures, whose enormous stomach gave him a grotesque appearance; but he was overthrown by the intrigues of the Khan of the Crimea, and a kinsman of the Ghirei was placed on the throne. In support of their candidate, the Taurians prepared, in 1521, a great invasion of Russia. They crushed the Russian voïevodes on the banks of the Oka, ravaged the Grand Principality, looked on Moscow from the Hill of Sparrows, and made themselves drunk with hydromel found in the cellars of the Grand Prince. At the Kremlin there was a formidable array of artillery, but no powder. Herberstein assures us that the powerful son of Ivan III. humiliated himself, as in the time of Ivan Kalita, to save his capital, sent presents to the Khan, and signed a treaty by which he professed himself his tributary; but that in his retreat, Makhmet Ghirei was received with cannon-balls by the voïe-

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HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

ode of Riazan, who took from him the humiliating treaty. Though the Russian honour was saved by the cannonade of Riazan, this invasion cost Russia dear. All the flat country was a prey to the flames. A multitude of people, especially women and children, had been carried off by the barbarians. Many perished on the journey; the rest were sold in whole troops in the markets of Kaffa and Astrakhan. The following year Vassili assembled on the Oka a formidable army, with an imposing artillery, and sent a challenge to the Khan of the Crimea summoning him to accept an honourable fight in the open country. The Tatar answered that he knew the way to Russia, and never consulted his enemies as to when he was to fight. A short time after, Makhmet conquered the Tzarate of Astrakhan, but was assassinated by Mamaï, Prince of the Nogaïs.

The Tatars of the Crimea were, thanks to the vast southern steppes, nearly beyond Russian enterprises; but it was still possible to attain Kazan. In order to profit by the dissensions of the Hordes of the South, two new expeditions were fitted out in 1523 and 1524 against this town, but both were unsuccessful. Vassili discovered a more certain way of ruining his enemies—he established a fair at Makarief on the Volga, and by this means destroyed that of Kazan. It was this fair of Makarief that was afterwards transported to Nijni-Novgorod, and draws more than 100,000 strangers from Europe and Asia.

Day by day Russia took a more important place in Europe. Vassili exchanged embassies with all the sovereigns of the West, except those of France and England. He was the correspondent of Leo X. and Clement VII.; of Maximilian and Charles V.; of Gustavus Vasa,

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founder of a new dynasty; of Sultan Selim, con-
queror of Egypt; and of Suleiman the Magnificent.
In the East, the Great Mogul of India, Baber, de-
scendant of Tamerlane, sought his friendship. Auto-
cracy daily became stronger. Vassili governed
without consulting his council of boyards. "*Moltchi,
smerd!*" (Be silent, rustic!) he said one day to a
great lord, who dared to raise an objection. Prince
Vassili Kholmski, who was married to one of his
sisters, was thrown into prison for indocility. The
boyard Beklemychef having complained that "the
Grand Prince decided all the questions alone, shut
up, with two others, in his bed-chamber," had
his head cut off. The Metropolitan Varlaam was
deposed and banished to a monastery. Herberstein
asserts already, that no European sovereign is obeyed
like the Grand Prince of Moscow. This growing
power was manifested externally by the splendour of
the court, which naturally did not preclude the worst
barbaric taste. In the reception of his ambassadors,
Vassili displayed unheard-of luxury; many hundreds
of horsemen accompanied him when he hunted. The
throne of the Prince was guarded by young nobles,
the *ryndis*, with their head-dresses of high caps of
white fur, dressed in long caftans of white satin,
armed with silver hatchets. The lists of his
masters of the horse, his cup-bearers, chamberlains,
&c., are already very long. Strangers continued,
though in small numbers, to come to Moscow. The
most illustrious of them was Maximus, surnamed the
Greek, a monk of Mount Athos, and native of Arta,
in Albania. In his youth he had studied at Venice
and at Florence, and been the friend of Lascaris and
Aldus Manutius. He had remained the sincere ad-
mirer of Savonarola. Vassili had sent for him with

VOL. I.

S