The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 17

by Unknown

CHAPTER V. THE CENTURY AFTER IVAN THE TERRIBLE

[1584-1682 A.D.]

Ivan left two sons, Feodor and Dmitri, the first of whom, at twenty-two years of age, succeeded him. The second, born in 1581, was sprung from a seventh marriage, contracted by Ivan in contempt of the canons of the Greek church, which recognises no union as legitimate after the fourth widowhood. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the right of Dmitri to the title of czarevitch was not disputed, and he was even regarded as the presumptive heir to the crown, as the feeble health of Feodor rendered it extremely probable that he would die without issue.

The character of the new czar contrasted strangely with that of his father. Gentle and timid as a child, and devout even to superstition, Feodor spent his days in prayer, or in listening to and commenting upon pious legends. He was constantly to be seen in the churches, and he frequently took delight in ringing the bells himself, to call the faithful to divine service. “He is a sacristan,” said Ivan the Terrible, “not a czarevitch.” When not engaged in devotional exercises, Feodor used to shut himself up with his buffoons; or else, from a balcony, he would watch his huntsmen combating with bears. To a mind so weak, the cares of government were insupportable; and he therefore lost no time in transferring them to one of his own favourites, the boyard Boris Godunov, his brother-in-law. He first bestowed upon him the office of master of the horse, and attached to that title many important duties and immense power. Shortly afterwards, by a public confession of his own incapacity, he appointed him pravitel, or regent of the empire.[b]

CHARACTER OF BORIS GODUNOV

From that time on, for eighteen years, the destiny of the Russian monarchy and people was bound up with the personality of Boris Godunov. His family traced its origin from the Tatar prince (mourza) Tchet, who in the fourteenth century had been baptised in the horde by the metropolitan Peter and had settled in Russia under the name of Zacharias. The Ipatski monastery, erected by him near Kostroma, was a monument of the piety of the newly baptised Tatar; it became the holy place of his descendants, who provided for it by their offerings and were buried there. The grandson of Zacharias, Ivan Godum, was the forefather of that branch of the family of Prince Tchet which from the appellation of Godum received the name of Godunov. The posterity of Godum flourished remarkably; the Godunovs owned estates, but they did not play an important rôle in Russian history until the time when one of the great-grandsons of the first Godunov had the honour of becoming the father-in-law of the czarevitch Feodor Ivanovitch. Then there appeared at the court of Ivan the Terrible the brother of Feodor’s wife, Boris, who was married to a daughter of the czar’s favourite, Maluta Skuratov. Ivan liked him. The exaltation of persons and families through relationship with the czaritsas was a very ordinary occurrence in the history of Moscow, but such exaltation was often precarious. The relatives of Ivan’s wives were destroyed as freely as the other victims of his bloodthirstiness. Boris himself, by his nearness to the czar, was in imminent peril, and it is reported that Ivan wounded him badly with his staff when Boris interceded for the czarevitch Ivan, murdered by his father. But the czar himself lamented his son and afterwards showed Boris even greater favour for his boldness, which nevertheless cost him some months’ illness. But towards the end of his life Ivan, under the influence of other favourites, began to look askance at Boris, and perhaps things might have gone badly with Godunov had not Ivan died suddenly.

After Ivan’s death Boris found himself in a position such as had never before been occupied by a subject in the empire of Moscow. The feeble-minded Feodor had become czar, and as he could not in any case have ruled himself, he was obliged to give up his power to that one among his immediate entourage who proved himself the most capable and crafty. Such a one in the court circles of that time was Boris. At the time of Ivan’s death he was thirty-two years of age; of a handsome presence, distinguished for his remarkable gift of speech, intelligent, prudent, but egotistical to a high degree. All his activity was directed to the serving of his own interests, to his enrichment, to the increase of his power, to the exaltation of his family. He understood how to wait, to take advantage of propitious moments, to remain in the shade or advance to the front when either manœuvre seemed opportune, to put on the mask of piety and of every virtue, to show kindness and mercy, and where it was necessary severity and harshness. Ever deliberate, he never gave way to enthusiastic impulses and always acted with reflection. Like all such characters, he was ready to do good if good did not stand in the way of his personal interests; neither did he stop at any wickedness or crime if he considered it necessary for the furtherance of his personal advantages, and least of all when it was a question of personal safety.

There was nothing creative in his nature. He was incapable of becoming the propagator of any idea or the guide of men into new pathways; egotistical natures are not fitted for such tasks. As regent of the state he was not far-seeing, but only apprehended proximate circumstances, and could only take advantage of them for close and pre-eminently self-centered aims. The lack of a good education still further narrowed the horizon of his vision, although his strong common sense enabled him to understand the profitableness of acquaintance with the west for the furtherance of his power. All the good of which his mind was capable was frustrated by his narrow egotism and the extraordinary mendacity that penetrated his whole being and was reflected in all his actions. This last quality, however, had become a distinguishing characteristic of the people of Moscow at that period. The seeds of this vice had long existed, but they were in a very great measure fostered and developed by the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who was himself falsehood personified. By creating the opritchniki Ivan had armed the Russians against one another, and taught them to look for favour or safety in the ruin of their neighbours; by punishments and executions for imaginary crimes, he had taught them to give false information; and by perpetrating the most inhuman villanies for pure diversion, he had educated those around him in heartlessness and cruelty. Respect for right and morality vanished after the czar, who according to the national ideal should be the guardian of both, had organised before the eyes of his subjects such spectacles as the baiting of innocent persons by bears or the public torture of naked girls, while at the same time he observed the strictest rules of monastic piety. In moments of personal danger everyone naturally thinks only of himself; but when such moments were prolonged for Russians into decades, it is comprehensible that a generation of self-seeking and hard-hearted egotists must have arisen, whose whole thought and aspiration were directed to the preservation of their own safety—a generation for whom, in spite of the outward observance of the customary forms of piety, lawfulness, and morality, there remained no inward righteousness. He who was clever beyond the average, was bound to become a model of falsity; it was an epoch when the mind, rivetted in the narrow fetters of the self-interested motives inherent in the whole contemporary sphere of existence, could only show its activity in the attainment of its personal aims by means of deceit. Desperate diseases of human society, like physical illnesses, are not quickly cured when the general conditions of life contribute not to the cessation but rather to the prolongation of the unhealthy state; the terrible phenomena of the “troubled times” can be explained only as the outbreaking of the hidden corruptions accumulated during the awful period of the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible.

The mendacity which constituted a feature of the period is powerfully reflected in the contemporary Russian sources of information, and it would be easy to fall into error and inaccurate inferences if we were to trust to them and accept their guidance; fortunately the evident contradictions and absurdities into which they fall sufficiently testify to their untruthfulness.[c]

WAR WITH SWEDEN

[1590 A.D.]

Russia boasted of her power, having in reality the largest army in Europe, yet a part of old Russia was in Sweden’s power. The peace concluded with King John expired at the beginning of the year 1590. The second interview with the ambassadors on the borders of the Plusa was fruitless, the Swedes having refused to restore their conquests. Under such circumstances no understanding could be arrived at. Sweden proposed a mere exchange, giving up Koporie for Sumersk on the banks of the Neva. John complained that the Russians annoyed Finland by incursions, ravaging the land like tigers. Feodor reproached the voyevods for their brigandage in the Zaonega, Olonetz, Ladoga, and Dvina countries. During the summer of 1589 they came from Caianie to pillage the lands belonging to the convents of Sklovetzk, Petchensk, Kola, Kereta, and Kovda, seizing as booty more than half a million of silver roubles in cash. In engaging the king to make concessions, the czar spoke to him of his great allies, the emperor and the shah. But John answered ironically: “I am delighted to see you now know your weakness and wait for help from others. We shall see what kind of aid our relation Rudolph will give you. As for ourselves, we do not need allies to finish you off.” Notwithstanding this insolence, John asked for a third interview with the ambassadors. But Feodor declared to him that neither peace nor a truce was wanted unless the Swedes would yield, besides the lands belonging to Novgorod which they had invaded, Revel and all Esthonia. In short, Russia declared war.

Up to that time, Godunov had only shone by his genius in interior and exterior politics. Always prudent and inclined to peace, not warlike nor aspiring to glory through arms, he yet wished to prove that his love of peace did not arise from cowardice on this occasion when, without being ashamed or failing in the sacred use of power, bloodshed could not be avoided. To fulfil this duty he employed every means necessary to ensure success. He put on the field (if one can credit official documents of the time) nearly three hundred thousand fighters, infantry and cavalry, with three hundred pieces of artillery. All the boyars, all the czarevitches (Muhammed, Koul of Siberia, Rouslanei son of Kaiboula, and Ouraze Magmet of the Kirghiz), the voyevods of countries near and far, towns and hamlets where they lived in quiet, were obliged to be at a certain time under the royal flag; for the pacific Feodor, having left—not without regret—his religious occupations, himself headed his army. This was just what Godunov needed to animate the troops and hinder senseless disputes among the principal dignitaries concerning ancient lineage and precedence.

Esthonian Girl

Prince Feodor Mstislavski commanded the grand army; the advance guard was under Prince Dmitri Khvorostinin, a voyevod distinguished for talent and courage. Godunov and Feodor Romanov-Turiev (descended from the illustrious Philarete), the czar’s second cousin, were combined with him under the title court voyevods. The czarina Irene followed her husband from Moscow as far as Novgorod, where the monarch assigned the destination of the troops. He ordered some to march to Flanders beyond the Neva; others to Esthonia as far as the coast; he himself at the head of the principal army set out on the 18th of January, 1590, against Narva. It was a hard campaign on account of the severe cold, but distinguished by the zeal of the troops. The Russians marched to retake what was theirs, and, on the 27th of January, seized Jama. Twenty thousand Swedes, as many cavalry as infantry, commanded by Gustav Banér, met Prince Dmitri Khvorostinin near Narva, but were defeated and driven back into the town, which was full of people but destitute of provisions. That was why Banér, having left the necessary number of soldiers in the fortress, fled during the night and went to Vesemberg, pursued by the Russian Asiatic cavalry, and left all his baggage and artillery. Among the prisoners were several Swedes of distinction.

On the 4th of February the Russians besieged Narva, and having managed by a vigourous bombardment to make three breaches demanded a submission. The commander, Charles Horn, called them on to the assault and valiantly repulsed the enemy. The voyevods Saburov and Prince Ivan Tokmakov, as well as certain boyar children, Strelitz, and Mordiren, and Tcherckess women and soldiers perished in the breach. Nevertheless, this affair, however brilliant for the Swedes, could not save the town: the cannonade did not cease; walls were tottering and the Russian troops prepared for a new assault on the 21st of February. Even at this epoch the Russians ravaged Esthonia without opposition as far as Revel, and in Finland as far as the Åbo, for King John had more pride than forces. Then negotiations were opened. Russia demanded Narva and all Esthonia in return for peace from the Swedes; but the czar, “yielding to the Christian insistence of Godunov,” as it is said in official documents, contented himself with re-establishing the former frontier.

On the 22nd of February Horn, in the king’s name, concluded a peace for one year, yielding the czar Jama, Ivangorod, and Koporie, with all stores and war ammunition. It was agreed to fix the fate of Esthonia at a nearby meeting of Russians and Swedes, by promising to yield to Russia even Karelia, Narva, and other Esthonian towns. Russia gained in glory by her moderation. Feodor, after leaving the voyevods in the three fortresses taken, hastened to return to Novgorod and his wife, and go thence with her to Moscow to celebrate a victory over those same European powers with which his father, doubtful of his military skill, had warned him not to engage. The clergy, headed by the cross, came to meet the sovereign outside the town; and the metropolitan, Job, in a pompous discourse compared him to Constantine the Great and Vladimir, according him thanks in the name of country and church for having driven the infidels from the heart of Holy Russia, also for having re-established the altars of the true God in the town of Ivan III and in the old Slav possessions of Ilmen.

Soon Swedish perfidy gave new and important success to the arms of the pacific Feodor. King John, accusing Horn of cowardice, declared that the convention signed by him was incriminating. He reinforced his troops in Esthonia, and sent two seigneurs, lieutenants from Upsala and Vestergöt, to the mouths of the Plusa, there to have an interview with Prince Feodor Mstislavski and a member of the Pissemski council, not to give Esthonia to Russia, but to exact that Jama, Ivangorod, and Koporie should be returned. At this news not only Feodor’s ambassadors but even the Swiss soldiers showed their discontent. Ranged on the other side of the Plusa they called on the Russians, but Russia desired no more slaughter, and they forced their plenipotentiaries to forego their pretentions, so that nothing but peace was sought and they ended by consenting to yield all Karelia to Russia. But she insisted on having Narva, and the ambassadors separated.

That same night the Swiss general, Joran Boyé, treacherously besieged Ivangorod whilst the terms of the Narva convention had not yet expired. But the intrepid voyevod Ivan Saburov completely defeated by a vigourous sortie not only General Boyé but the duke of Sudermania joined with him. The principal Moscow army was at Novgorod but was not in time to help. They found the fortress already delivered and saw only from a distance the enemy fleeing.[d]

SERFDOM

It was Boris Godunov, to whom his contemporaries give the title Lieutenant of the Empire, who in reality introduced into it the attachment of serfs to the soil. Up till then the peasants, using and abusing the faculty of passing from one estate to another, had changed masters on every occasion; and many were the inconveniences which resulted, notably this that they accustomed themselves to no given situation with its climate, men, and accessories, were not attached to the ground, and remained strangers to the locality they inhabited. Boris was besieged with the landowners’ complaints on this subject, and saw, besides, that the cultivators themselves, frequently deceived in their hope of finding a better landlord, would then abandon themselves to discouragement; and this engendered poverty, increased the number of vagabonds and the lowest classes, and caused numerous habitations, well suited to shelter field-labourers, to be deserted, become dilapidated, and fall into ruin. Boris had favoured agriculture by releasing the peasants on the czar’s estates, and perhaps those on his own, from the tax. His intentions were doubtless benevolent: his aim was to unite the labourers and the landlords as by a family tie, and to augment the well-being of both, by establishing between them an indissoluble community of interest to their mutual advantage. It was in this hope that he instituted the law of 1592 or 1593, by which the peasant’s undisputed right to liberty of removal (vykhod) was suppressed.

We may, however, believe that Boris had still another motive. In a country of the extent of Russia and administered as she was, the government had some difficulty in keeping up direct relations with the peasants who were bound to pay it the tax and to provide for the recruiting of the army, which had recently been transformed like the rest. The government was then very glad to avail itself of the nobles as intermediaries and enlightened executors of its orders. Consequently it made them its delegates for the administration and police, an arrangement which simplified the machinery; and the nobles, acting in their own most apparent interests, must have afterwards pushed matters to extremes. However that may be, the peasants were now inscribed in review books and forbidden to go away from their commune except by the authority of their lord. In spite of the discontent which this measure produced, it was further strengthened by the ukase of the 21st of November, 1597, relative to fugitive peasants, of which there were a great number in consequence of these legal prescriptions, so evidently contrary to the temperament and genius of the nations. Those who had hired themselves out for a certain time were forbidden to redeem themselves from the effects of this new régime, even by reimbursing the sum stipulated as the price of hire. What was more, these peasants who had disposed of their persons by contract were not the only ones affected by these laws of oppression: they touched even the freemen who, without having signed any engagement, happened to be in the service of the landlords. If they had been there for more than three months, they were obliged to remain permanently, and where their time of service was not so long all they gained was the power of choosing between the last lord and another, but always renouncing the right of being their own masters. A new ukase ordained that all boyars, princes, nobles, the military and legal classes, etc., should present, on account of the individuals in their service, present or in the course of flight, their letters of serfdom, in order to have them inscribed in the registers of the chamber for the regulation of serfs.

The measure once taken, Godunov, who wished to be agreeable to the mass of the rural proprietors, gave it all the extension possible; still, at the same time he declared the emancipated to be free forever, as well as their wives and their children; this last, however, was a very feeble amelioration of an evidently iniquitous law, which did not fail to produce extreme indignation in the whole rural population. In various places the peasants protested by flight against the tyranny exercised over them by a power whose despotism had never gone so far. Want was doubtless not long in bringing the greater part back to their abandoned homes, or they were constrained to return by armed force; but St. George’s day, the date when this law of enslavement was put into execution, was graven in their memories as a day of ill-omen; the people have never pardoned it for its disgrace and will perhaps continue to curse it, although the day of reparation is come at last. But the peasant was not the only one to suffer; the great number of men in flight gave occasion to a thousand ruinous suits between landowners; they accused each other of offering an asylum to the fugitives and of keeping them in concealment. The evil was so great, says the historian upon whose narratives ours is based, that Boris, though unwilling to abolish a law passed from good motives, decided at least to declare that it should be only temporary, and, by an ukase of the 21st of November, 1601, he authorised the peasants of boyars’ children, and of other nobles of the secondary classes, to return, within a fixed period, from one proprietor to another of the same rank; not more than two at a time, however, and exception being made of the Moscow district. On the other hand, he ordered the peasants belonging to the boyars and other great nobles, and those of the crown, the bishoprics, and the convents, not to stir during this same year 1601, but to remain in their respective habitations. Karamzin adds that the sensation produced by all this was such that Boris was personally affected by it. It is asserted, he says, that the abolition of the old régime and the uncertainty of the new, a source of discontent to so many, exercised a great influence over the fate of the unfortunate Godunov. In the end he seems to have left the matter in suspense, and it was Prince Chuïski who, raised to the throne under the name of Vasili (V) Ivanovitch, consummated the social revolution we are speaking of, by his ukase of the 9th of March, 1607, confirming that of 1593 and, in addition, laying down the penalties to be inflicted on whoever should give asylum to the fugitives. The lot was cast—the peasant had lapsed into a serf attached to the soil.[e]

DEATH OF DMITRI (1591 A.D.)

[1591 A.D.]

Boris desired above all things to be feared, but he did not disdain a certain amount of popularity for his family; and he left no means untried to render his sister Irene dear to the Russian people. All rigorous measures were executed in the name of the czar, and by order of the regent; but acts of clemency and favours of every kind were ascribed to the intercession of the czarina Irene, who, indeed, was always a docile instrument in the hands of her brother. She acted and thought only in obedience to his inspirations, blending with great simplicity of heart her respect and admiration of Boris with the passionate love which she felt for Feodor.

The intimidated boyars were reduced to silence. Dmitri, still a child, could cause no apprehension; but his mother, the czarina-dowager, Maria Feodorovna, and his three uncles, Michael, Gregory, and Andrew Nagoi, might perhaps attempt to avail themselves of their alliance with the reigning family. Boris therefore banished them to the town of Uglitch, which had been assigned as an appanage to young Dmitri by the will of Ivan; and, under the pretext of intrusting them with the education of the czarevitch, he kept them there in a kind of exile.

At Uglitch, in 1591, Dmitri, at ten years of age, had his little court—his jiltsy (children brought up with the young princes), and his great officers, among whom the regent had doubtless introduced many a spy. The pensions of the young prince and his family were paid and controlled by a deak, or secretary of chancery, named Michael Bitiagovski, a creature of Boris; and between this functionary and the Nagoi there naturally arose frequent discussions, which increased in bitterness from day to day. Strong in the authority with which the regent had invested him, the secretary delighted to cavil at all the pretensions of the family of the czarevitch. It seemed his constant aim, by the incessant renewal of petty vexations, to make them feel that their fortune had greatly declined since the death of Ivan the Terrible. To the complaints which they laid before the czar, Bitiagovski replied by denouncing any imprudent expressions that might have escaped from the Nagoi during their exile. If we may believe the report of the secretary of chancery, the czarevitch already exhibited the ferocious instincts and cruel tastes of his father. He took pleasure in nothing, it was said, but in seeing animals beaten, or else in mutilating them with a refinement of barbarity. It is related that, one winter’s day, when playing with some children of his own age, he constructed several figures of men out of the snow in the courtyard of his palace. To each of these he gave the name of one of the great functionaries of the empire; and the largest of all he called Boris. Then seizing a wooden sabre, he knocked off either their arms or their heads. “When I am a man,” said the child, “that is how I will treat them.” These and similar anecdotes were carefully collected and commented upon at Moscow. Perhaps they may have been invented by the agents of Boris, in order to render the Nagoi odious to the Russian nobility; or perhaps, educated as he was by servants and courtiers in disgrace, the young prince repeated only too faithfully the lessons which he was taught.

The hopes and fears occasioned by his education were, however, speedily dissipated by the sudden death of Dmitri. His end was strange, and it is difficult to say whether it was the result of an accident or of a crime. On the 15th of May, 1591, the czarevitch, whom his mother had just left for a moment, was amusing himself with four children, his pages or jiltsy, in the courtyard of his palace—a spacious enclosure which contained several separate dwelling houses, built irregularly in various parts. He was still attended by Vasilissa Volokhov his governess, his nurse, and a chambermaid. It is probable that they may have lost sight of him for a moment. According to the unanimous testimony of the three women and of the pages, he was holding a knife, which he was amusing himself by sticking into the ground, or with which he was cutting a piece of wood. On a sudden, the nurse looked around, and saw him weltering in his blood. He had a large wound in his throat, and he expired without uttering a word. On hearing the cries of the nurse, the czarina ran up, and in the first transports of her despair exclaimed that her son had been assassinated. She flew upon the governess, whose duty it was to take care of him, and beat her furiously with a heavy stick, accusing her of having admitted the murderers who had just slain her son. At the same time, as her thoughts doubtless turned to her recent quarrels with Bitiagovski, she invoked upon that man the vengeance of her brothers and of the servants of her household.

Michael Nagoi now came up, having just left the dinner table, in a state of intoxication, according to the testimony of several witnesses; in his turn he began to beat the poor governess, and ordered that the alarm bell should be rung at the church of the Saviour, which stood near the palace. In an instant the courtyard was filled with inhabitants of Uglitch and domestics, who ran up with pitchforks and hatchets, believing that the palace of the czarevitch was on fire. With them arrived Bitiagovski, accompanied by his son and by the gentlemen employed in his chancery. He endeavoured to speak, to appease the tumult, and cried out at once that the child had killed himself by falling on his knife in an epileptic fit, from which it was well known that he frequently suffered. “Behold the murderer!” exclaimed the czarina. A hundred arms were immediately raised to strike him. He fled into one of the houses in the enclosure, and barricaded the door; but it was soon burst open, and he was cut to pieces. His son was slain at the same time. Whoever raised his voice in his defence, whoever was known to be connected with him, was immediately struck down and put to death. The governess Vasilissa, covered with blood and half-killed by the blows she had received, lay on the ground near the czarina, bareheaded, and with dishevelled hair; for the servants of the Nagoi had taken off her cap—which was considered by the Russians, at this period, a more infamous outrage even than blows. One of her serfs, compassionating her disgrace, picked up her cap, and replaced it on her head; he was instantly massacred. The furious crowd, still pursuing and murdering those who were pointed out to its vengeance, carried the bleeding body of the czarevitch into the church. Thither they dragged Daniel Volokhov, the son of the governess, who was known to be intimate with Bitiagovski. This was enough to procure his condemnation as an accomplice in the crime; and he was immediately put to death before the eyes of his mother, in front of the body of the young prince. It was with great difficulty that the priests of the church of the Saviour rescued Vasilissa and the daughters of Bitiagovski from the hands of the multitude. All these women, however, were shut up in one of the buildings adjoining the cathedral; and guards were placed at all the approaches.[b]

Public opinion denounced Boris, and in order to quiet the people he ordered an investigation. His emissaries had the audacity to declare that the young prince, in an access of folly, had cut his own throat, and that the Nagoi and the people of Uglitch had killed, as murderers, men who were innocent. The result of this policy was the extermination of the Nagoi and the depopulation of Uglitch.

Seven years afterward the pious Feodor died: in the person of this pale and virtuous sovereign ended the violent and sanguinary race of men of prey who had made Russia. The dynasty, issue of André Bogoliubski, had accomplished its mission—it had founded a united Russia. The task of bringing into the heart of Europe this semi-Asiatic country was to devolve on another dynasty.[f]

THE REIGN OF BORIS (1598-1605 A.D.)

[1598 A.D.]

In 1598 Boris Godunov, by the voice of the electors and through the intrigues of his friends, ascended the throne of Russia. A crown obtained by indirect and fraudulent measures could not be preserved without tyranny. Boris, conscious of the jealousies which his elevation engendered in the minds of the nobles, and especially in the family of the Romanovs, who were allied to the race of Rurik but not to the Moscow line, was constantly haunted by apprehensions, and sought to lose them in the revel, and to propitiate them by the sacrifice of all persons whom he suspected. Had he been a legitimate sovereign he would have conferred lasting benefits upon his country, because he was a wise and paternal ruler in all matters apart from his personal affairs. He bestowed considerable pains on many laudable measures of improvement; but these were so sullied by acts of merciless revenge, to which he was moved by the danger in which he was placed by his usurpation, that it is difficult to separate his merits from his crimes.

The Tatars of the Crimea, immediately after Boris was proclaimed czar, exhibited a disposition to renew their old hostilities; but Boris promptly turned his attention to that part of the empire, and, assembling a numerous army, availed himself of the opportunity of ingratiating himself with the troops. The descent of the Tatars was merely an idle threat; but the occasion was one which contributed considerably to enlarge the popularity of Boris. He exceeded all his predecessors in the splendour and hospitality of his entertainments, in the frequency of the amusements which he provided for the soldiery and the citizens, and the general amenity and condescension of his bearing in public. It seems to have been the policy of the tyrants of Russia to conciliate the lower orders, in order that they might, with the greater facility, crush the aristocracy, from whom they chiefly dreaded opposition; and Boris was eminently successful in his attempts to ensnare the affections of the multitude, although he had actually deprived them of the only fragment of liberty they possessed.

In the commencement of his reign he evinced a strong desire to cultivate the friendship of the different powers of Europe, from whom severally he received ambassadors at his court; to extend to all his subjects in common the means of procuring cheap and rapid justice, in the fulfilment of which he gave audiences for the purpose of receiving and redressing complaints; and to diffuse abroad a taste for European knowledge and instruction in those arts and sciences which had hitherto been neglected and despised. In some of these wise projects he met great resistance from the clergy, who, released from the presence of a sovereign who ruled them by a mission from heaven, began to exhibit uneasiness and impatience of control. Thus constantly thrown back upon the uncertain tenure of his power, and reminded that he was not a legitimate master, Boris was forced to exert arbitrary and unjust means to maintain his authority. The current of the official and privileged classes was running against him, and he was compelled to erect such defences as the necessities of the occasion required. But even out of this difficulty he contrived to extract some benefits for the country.

BORIS GODUNOV, IN RETIREMENT AT THE MONASTERY, INTREATED TO ACCEPT HIS ELECTION AS CZAR

(Painted for the Historians’ History of the World by Thure de Thulstrup)

For three years a famine fell upon Russia, paralysing the efforts of industry, and spreading misery and distress over the whole empire. Throughout the whole of this calamitous period, Boris incessantly employed himself in devising modes of relief, and levying from the surplus funds of the rich a treasury of alms to alleviate the wants of the poor. Out of his own abundant coffers he daily distributed several thousand rubles, and he forced the nobility and the clergy, who, with a grasping avariciousness, kept aloof from the miseries that surrounded them, to open their granaries, and to sell him their stores of corn at half price, that he might distribute it gratuitously amongst the impoverished people. These exactions depressed the wealthy, and won the gratitude of the needy; but still they were insufficient to meet the whole demand of poverty. Great numbers died, and Boris, unable to provide sustenance for them while living, caused them to be buried with respect, furnishing to each corpse a suit of linen grave-clothes.

These benevolent exertions of Boris were viewed with distrust and malice by the nobility, who clearly enough discerned the policy that lay at the bottom. Their murmurs arose in private, and gradually assumed a sterner expression in public. At the feasts, and even in the court itself, the signs and words of disaffection could not be misunderstood. The insecurity of his position urged Boris to protect himself by a machinery of terror. Into a small space of time he crowded a number of executions, and consigned several of the discontented grandees to imprisonment and exile. His alarm magnified his danger, and supplied him with expedients of cruelty. At his own banquets he did not hesitate to rise up and denounce particular individuals, who were immediately seized upon by his adherents, and either put to death or cast into dungeons, or banished, and their properties confiscated to the state. Despotism penetrated to all classes; the peasantry, bound to the soil, were further oppressed by penal laws.

Amongst other sanguinary provisions, it was enacted that all the individuals of a family were held to be involved in the punishment of a single member. It was also declared that every Russian who passed beyond the frontiers was a rebel to his country and a heretic. A father was invested with all the powers of a despot in his hut, and allowed to inflict summary punishment upon his wife and children, the latter of whom he was permitted to sell four times; and this regulation was annulled only by the bondage to the fief, which substituted a worse tyranny for the domestic slavery. The merciless rule of Boris may be regarded as the consequence of his situation, which exposed him to hazards from which he could not escape except by some such decisive and terrible measures. The iron sway pressed down the expiring spirit of licentious freedom. The wandering minstrels who had hitherto travelled through the country, perpetuating in their songs the historical glories of Russia, and inspiring the people with proud sentiments of national emulation, disappeared. The metrical chronicles perished in the general dismay. The immediate result of this struggle to preserve the object of his guilty ambition was an extensive emigration of the peasantry, who fled from the scene of misery to embrace the wild freedom of the Cossacks or seek protection from the king of Poland; and an atrocious jacquerie succeeded, which was, for a short time, triumphant.[g]

Never had the government of Boris met with fewer obstacles; never had the authority of a czar appeared more firmly established. At peace with foreign powers, and quietly watching the conflicts of his neighbours, he applied himself to the task of civilising his people, of encouraging commerce, and of establishing an exact system of police in all the provinces of his empire. Every one of his acts was received with submission and executed with alacrity; but, nevertheless, all minds were agitated by a secret disquietude. The czar could not conceal from himself the aversion with which he was regarded by the Russians; all classes, nobles and serfs, alike detested him. He saw all his intentions, all his decrees interpreted as violations of the laws of the country. At this period of benighted ignorance the Russians, even of the higher classes, regarded foreigners with a kind of superstitious horror. They made no difference between a foreigner and an infidel, and applied the name of “pagan” indiscriminately to the idolatrous Tcheremiss, the Mussulman Tatar, and the Lutheran or Catholic German. Love of their country, or, to speak more correctly, of their native soil, was confounded by them with their attachment to their national religion. They called themselves the “orthodox people,” and their country Holy Russia. Elsewhere than in that privileged land it was impossible, they believed, to obtain salvation. The early troubles of the Reformation in Germany had brought into Russia a large number of poor adventurers, who had sought to turn their superior knowledge to account. The people were not slow to perceive the pre-eminence of these foreigners in the arts and industry, but they only detested them the more on this account. The Germans were continually charged by the vulgar herd with a desire to corrupt the national faith, and to appropriate to themselves the wealth of the country. Boris, indeed, flattered them and invited them into his dominions, feeling that he had need of them to guide his subjects towards a higher stage of civilisation. But the commercial privileges and facilities which he granted to Livonian and German merchants only served as a pretext to the most terrible accusation which could be brought against a sovereign—that of betraying his country and his religion. He sent eighteen young gentlemen to study in Germany, France, and England; their families lamented them as doomed victims. On either side of the frontier all contact with foreigners was deemed a pollution.[b]

The False Dmitri Appears

[1603 A.D.]

A Female Ostiak

Suddenly, a surprising rumour was brought from the frontiers of Lithuania, and spread with incredible rapidity through all the provinces of the empire. The czarevitch Dmitri, who was believed to have been assassinated at Uglitch, was still living in Poland. Having been favourably received by a palatine, he had made himself known to the principal nobles of the republic, and was preparing to reclaim his hereditary throne. It was related that he had wandered for some time in Russia, concealed beneath the frock of a monk. The archimandrite of the convent of the Saviour at Novgorod Seversk had given him a lodging without recognising him. The prince had proceeded thence to Kiev, leaving in his cell a note, in which he declared that he was Dmitri, the son of Ivan the Terrible, and that he would one day recompense the hospitality of the archimandrite. On the other hand it was stated that the persons worthy of belief had seen the czarevitch among the Zaparogian Cossacks, taking part in their military expeditions and distinguishing himself by his courage and address in all warlike exercises. The name of the ataman under whose orders he had enrolled himself was also given. Other authorities declared that they had seen the same person at the same time studying Latin at Huszcza, a small town in Volhinia. Though reports were contradictory as to details, they all agreed on this one point—that Dmitri was still living, and that he intended to call the usurper to account for all his crimes.[b]

Who was the personage whom the Russian historians have called the “false Dmitri.” Was he really the son of Ivan the Terrible, saved by the foresight of the Nogai from the assassins’ knife and replaced in the coffin, as he related, by the son of a pope (Russian parish priest)? Was he, as the czar and the patriarch proclaimed him, a certain Gregori Otrepiev, a vagabond monk who was for a time secretary to the patriarch Job and was thus enabled to surprise state secrets—who in his nomadic life afterwards appeared amongst the Zaparogians, where he is said to have become an accomplished rider and an intrepid Cossack? To all these questions, in the present state of our information, no absolutely certain answer can be given. Kostomarov compared the handwriting of the pretender with that of the monk Otrepiev and affirms that they do not resemble each other. Captain Margeret knew people who conversed with Otrepiev after the pretender’s death. Not to prejudge the solution we will give this last not the name of Dmitri but that of Demetrius, with which he signed his letters to the pope.

About the year 1603 a young man entered the service of the Polish pan, Adam Vichnevetski. He fell or feigned to fall ill, sent for a Catholic priest, and under the seal of professional secrecy revealed to him that he was the czarevitch Dmitri, who had escaped from the assassins of Uglitch. He showed, suspended from his neck, a cross enriched with precious stones, which he asserted that he had received from Prince Mstislavski, the godfather of Dmitri. The priest dared not keep such a secret to himself. Demetrius was recognised by his master Vichnevetski as the legitimate heir of Ivan the Terrible. Mniszek, palatine of Sandomir, promised him his help. Demetrius had already fallen in love with Marina, the eldest daughter of Mniszek, and swore to make her czarina of Moscow; the father and the young girl accepted the proposal of marriage.

Meantime the strange tidings of the resuscitation of Dmitri spread through the whole kingdom of Poland. Mniszek and Vichnevetski conducted Demetrius to Cracow and presented him to the king. The papal nuncio interested himself in his behalf; the Jesuits and Franciscans worked in concert for his conversion; in secret he abjured orthodoxy and promised to bring Moscow within the pale of the Roman church. He corresponded with Clement VIII whose least servant, infimus cliens, he declared himself to be. Thus he was recognised by the king, the nuncio, the Jesuits, and the pope. Did they really believe in his legitimacy? It is probable that they saw in him a formidable instrument of disturbance; the king flattered himself that he would be able to turn it against Russia and the Jesuits—that they might use it against orthodoxy. Sigismund dared not take upon himself to break the truce concluded with Boris and expose himself to Muscovite vengeance. He treated Demetrius as czarevitch, but only in private; he refused to place the royal troops at his disposal, but authorised the nobles who were touched by the misfortunes of the young prince to aid him as they might desire.

The pans had no need of a royal authorisation; many of them, with the light-heartedness and love of adventure which characterised the Polish nobility, took arms.

[1604-1605 A.D.]

No revolution, be it the wisest and most necessary, is accomplished without setting in motion the dregs of society, without coming into collision with many interests and creating a multitude of outcasts. The transformation then being accomplished in Russia for the creation of the modern unitary state had awakened formidable elements of disorder. The peasant, whom the laws of Boris had just attached to the glebe, was everywhere covertly hostile. The petty nobility, to whose profit this innovation had been made, could only with great difficulty live by their estates: the czar’s service had become ruinous; many were inclined to make up for the inadequacy of their revenues by brigandage. The boyars and the higher nobility were profoundly demoralised and were ready for any treason. The military republics of the Cossacks of the Don and Dnieper, the bands of serfs or fugitive peasants which infested the country districts, were only waiting an opportunity to devastate Moscow. The ignorance of the masses was profound, their minds greedy of marvels and of change: no nation has allowed itself to be so often captured by the same fable—the sudden reappearance of a prince believed to be dead. The archives of the secret chancery show us that there were in Russia, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hundreds of impostors, of false Dmitris, false Alexises, false Peters II, false Peters III. It might be thought that the Russian people, the most Asiatic of European peoples, had not renounced the oriental dogma of reincarnations and avatars.

So long as power was in the hands of the skilful and energetic Godunov, he succeeded in maintaining order, in restraining the fomenters of disturbance, and in discouraging Demetrius. The patriarch Job, and Vasili Shuiski, who had directed the inquiry at Uglitch, made proclamations to the people and affirmed that Dmitri was indeed dead and that the pretender was no other than Otrepiev. Messengers were despatched bearing the same affirmations to the king and the diet of Poland. Finally troops were set on foot and a cordon was established along the western frontier. But already the towns of Severia were agitated by the approach of the czarevitch; the boyars ventured to say publicly that it was “difficult to bear arms against a legitimate sovereign”; at Moscow the health of the czar Dmitri was drunk at festive gatherings. In October, 1604, Demetrius crossed the frontier with a host of Poles, and banished Russians, German mercenaries, and Zaparogians. Severia immediately broke out into insurrection, but Novgorod Seversk resisted. After Severia, the towns of Ukraine joined in defection. Prince Mstislavski tried to arrest Demetrius by giving battle; but his soldiers were seized with the idea that the man against whom they were fighting was the real Dmitri. “They had no arms to strike with,” says Margeret. Twelve thousand Little-Russian Cossacks hastened to join the pretender’s standard. Vasili Shuiski, the successor of Mstislavski, did his best to restore their morale; this time Demetrius was vanquished at Dobrinitchi. Boris fancied that the war was ended: it was only beginning. Four thousand Don Cossacks came to join the brigand. The inaction of the Muscovite voyevods announced that the spirit of treason was gaining the higher nobility.

In 1605 Boris died, after recommending his innocent son to Basmanov, the boyars, the patriarch, and the people of Moscow. All took the oath to Feodor Borissovitch. But Basmanov had no sooner taken command of the army of Severia than he was in a position to convince himself that neither the soldiers nor their leaders intended to fight for a Godunov. Rather than be the victim of an act of treason he preferred to be its perpetrator; the man in whom the dying Boris had placed all his confidence joined Galitzin and Soltikov, the secret partisans of Demetrius. He solemnly announced to the troops that the latter was indeed the son of Ivan the Terrible and the legitimate master of Russia; he was the first to throw himself at the feet of the pretender, who was immediately proclaimed by the troops. Demetrius marched on Moscow. At his approach his partisans rose: the son and the wife of Godunov were massacred. Such was the sanguinary end of the dynasty which Boris had thought to found in the blood of a czarevitch.

Let us bear in mind that in 1586 had appeared the narrative of Jean Sauvage, sailor and merchant of Dieppe, who had come to reconnoitre the harbours of the White Sea and prepare the way for French traffic. The same year the czar Feodor Ivanovitch sent to Henry III a Frenchman of Moscow, Pierre Ragon, to notify him of his accession; at Moscow appeared the first ambassador sent there by France, François de Carle. In 1587 a company of Parisian merchants obtained a commercial charter from the same czar. Henry IV was in correspondence with the czars Feodor Ivanovitch and Boris.

CAREER AND MURDER OF DEMETRIUS (1606 A.D.)

[1606 A.D.]

What was now taking place in Russia is one of the most extraordinary events of which the annals of the world make mention. An unknown man was making his triumphal entry into Moscow and the Kremlin (June 20th-30th). All the people wept for joy, thinking they beheld the scion of so many princes. One man alone dared to affirm that he had seen Dmitri murdered and that the new czar was an impostor; this was Vasili Shuiski, one of those who had superintended the inquiry of Uglitch and who, at the battle of Dobrinitchi, had defeated the pretender. Denounced by Basmanov, he was condemned to death by an assembly of the three orders. His head was already on the block, when the czar sent an express bearing his pardon.

The son of the terrible czar was not recognisable in this act of mercy. Later on Demetrius was to repent of it. Job, the creature of Godunov, was replaced in the patriarchate by a creature of the new prince, the Greek Ignatius. The czar had an interview with his pretended mother, Marie Nagoi, the widow of Ivan IV: whether because she wished to complete the work of an avenger, or because she was glad to recover all her honours, Marie recognised Demetrius as her son and publicly embraced him. He heaped favours on the Nagoi as his maternal relatives: the Romanovs also were recalled from exile and Philaret was made metropolitan of Rostov.

The czar presided regularly at the douma; the boyars admired the correctness of his judgment and the variety of his knowledge. Demetrius was a man of learning, brave and skilful in all bodily exercises. He was fond of foreigners and spoke of sending the Russian nobles to study in the west. This taste for foreigners was not unaccompanied by a certain contempt for the national ignorance and rudeness. He offended the boyars by his mockeries; he alienated the people and the clergy by his contempt for Russian religious rites and usages. He ate veal, did not sleep after dinner, did not frequent the baths, borrowed money from the convents, turned the monks into ridicule, opposed the hunting with bears, paid familiar visits to foreign jewellers and artisans, took no heed of the strict etiquette of the palace, himself pointed cannon, organised sham fights between the national and foreign troops, took pleasure in seeing the Russians beaten by the Germans, surrounded himself with a European guard at the head of which were found men like Margeret, Knutzen, Van Dennen. A conflict having broken out between the clergy and the pope’s legate on the occasion of his entry into Moscow, two bishops were exiled. No one thanked him for resisting the pope and the king of Poland, refusing to the one to occupy himself in the cause of the reunion of the two churches, declaring to the other that he would not yield an inch of Russian territory. The arrival of his wife, the Catholic Marina, with a suite of Polish noblemen, who affected insolence towards the Russians, completed the irritation of the Muscovites. Less than a year after the entry of Demetrius [or as we may henceforth call him, Dmitri] into the Kremlin, men’s minds were ripe for a revolution.[f]

The False Dmitri; Marriage and Death

It is difficult to understand why, though as unscrupulous as most adventurers, Demetrius persisted in his determination to espouse a Catholic Pole, although he was well aware that such a union would be highly distasteful to his people. When compelled to solicit the assistance of the palatines of Lithuania by all means in his power, it was not surprising that he eagerly sought to ally himself with Mniszek: but now that he was seated upon the throne of the czars, such an alliance could not be otherwise than prejudicial to his interests. Yet he was the first to remember his promise, and as soon as he had been crowned at Moscow he sent to invite Marina to share his throne. When he signed the promise of marriage in Poland, he was, doubtless, under the influence of Marina’s charms, but at Moscow we cannot ascribe his impatience to conclude the projected union to the eagerness of love. For whilst Vlassiev, bearing magnificent presents for the bride and all her family, was on his way to Cracow to hasten their departure for Russia, the czar had an acknowledged mistress, who resided with him in the Kremlin, and this mistress was no other than the daughter of Boris.

“Xenia,” writes a contemporary author, “was a girl of the greatest intelligence; her complexion was pink and white, and her black eyes sparkled with vivacity. When grief caused her to shed tears, they shone with a still greater radiance. Her eyebrows joined; her body was formed with perfect symmetry, and was so white that it seemed to have been moulded with cream. She was an accomplished person, speaking more elegantly than a book. Her voice was melodious, and it was a real pleasure to hear her sing songs.”

This beauty was fatal to Xenia. After witnessing the death of her mother and brother, she took refuge first of all in a convent, or, according to some annalists, she found an asylum in the house of Prince Mstislavski. Soon afterwards she entered the palace of the enemy of her family, and for some months she was the favourite mistress of the czar. It was probably to her influence that several of the Godunovs were indebted for their lives, and even for some degree of favour. Whether she yielded to seduction or to violence, as some modern authors have asserted, it is impossible to discover at the present day. It is no less impossible to decide whether Dmitri allowed himself to be subdued by the charms of his captive, or whether, like a pitiless conqueror, he sacrificed her to his arrogant vanity, and desired, with a refinement of vengeance, to inflict the greatest dishonour on the enemy’s family. At all events, it appears certain that for some time Xenia exercised such marked influence over him that Mniszek grew alarmed, and seriously remonstrated with the czar. It was only when Marina was actually on her way to Moscow that Dmitri dismissed his captive. He sent her into a monastery, according to the usage of the time. She took the vows in the convent of St. Sergius, at Moscow, under the name of Olga, and died there in 1622.

RUSSIAN WEDDING FEAST OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

(From the painting by C. Makovski)

Original and copyright owned by Messrs. Schumann’s Sons, N. Y.

These singular amours, this fidelity to his engagements in the midst of inconstancy and even of debauchery, this boldness in attempting a desperate enterprise, this imperturbable coolness in maintaining an audacious imposture, this gracefulness in acting the part of a legitimate monarch, so many brilliant qualities united with puerile vanity and the most imprudent levity—such are the contrasts presented by the character of Dmitri, which are perhaps explicable by his extreme youth and his adventurer’s education. Nothing, however, is more rare than a character all the parts of which are in perfect harmony. Contradiction is the characteristic of most men, and there are very few whose lives correspond to the projects which they have formed or to the hopes to which they have given rise. Who can say that the pleasure of exhibiting himself in all the splendour of his high fortune before the eyes of those who had witnessed his poverty had not the greatest share in the resolutions of Dmitri? Mniszek and Marina were probably the first persons whose esteem appeared precious to him. To obtain the approbation of a few Polish palatines, he risked his crown; but does not every man believe that the world’s opinion is that of the little circle in which he is accustomed to move?[b]

The security of the pretender was, however, but seeming. Vasili Shuiski, whom Dmitri had pardoned, presently organised a plot for his destruction. The czar’s extreme confidence was his ruin. One night the boyars assailed the Kremlin where no guard was kept. Demetrius was flung from a window and slaughtered in the courtyard of the palace. Basmanov, who had tried to defend him, was killed at his side. The corpse of Demetrius was taken up, a fool’s mask was placed on the face, and the body exposed in the place of executions between a bagpipe and a flute. The father-in-law and the widow of Dmitri, the envoys of the Polish king and the Poles who had come to attend the imperial nuptials were spared but retained as prisoners by the boyars. The corpse of the “sorcerer” was burned; a cannon, turned in the direction of Poland, was charged with the ashes and scattered them to the winds (May, 1606).[f]

VASILI IVANOVITCH SHUISKI (1606-1610 A.D.)

Immediately after the death of Demetrius, the boyars concerted measures for convoking deputies from all the towns and proceeding to the election of a new sovereign; but they were not allowed to accomplish their design. The throne had been but four days vacant when Shuiski directed his partisans to proclaim himself. They led him forth into the public place, named him czar by acclamation, and immediately escorted him to the cathedral. There, in order to ingratiate himself with his new subjects and make them forget the illegality of his election, he took a solemn oath not to punish anyone without the advice and consent of the boyars; not to visit the offences of the fathers on the children; and that he would never revenge himself in any way on those who had offended him in the time of Boris. Since Novgorod lost its privileges, this was the first time that a sovereign of Russia had pledged himself to any convention with his subjects; but Shuiski’s oath was no guarantee for its fulfilment.

Having good reason to dread the resentment of the Polish nation, Shuiski sent Prince Volkonski on an embassy to them, to represent the late czar as an impostor, who had deluded both Poland and Russia; but the ambassador was not even listened to. Sigismund and his subjects were resolved to be revenged on the Russians, and to profit by the disturbances which they foresaw would soon break out among them. Shuiski was not liked by the Russian nobles, many of whom might have competed with him for the throne had the choice of the nation been free; and his conduct after his elevation augmented the number of his enemies. In spite of his oath he could not forget any of his old grudges; and he ventured to indulge them just enough to exasperate their objects without depriving them of the power of retaliation. Moscow was the only city in the empire on the allegiance of which he could rely; but even there the people had imbibed from their late excesses an alarming propensity to disorder and mutiny. To meet all the dangers thickening round him Shuiski had neither an army nor money; for Dmitri’s profusions and the pillage of the Kremlin had exhausted the imperial treasury. His chief strength lay in his renown for orthodoxy, which insured him the favour of the clergy. The more to strengthen his interests in that direction, he made it his first business to depose and send to a monastery the heretic patriarch Ignatius, who had been appointed by Dmitri, and to nominate in his stead Hermogenes, bishop of Kasan, an aged prelate whose simplicity rendered him a useful tool in the hands of the crafty czar.

Rumours began to be rife in the provinces, and even in Moscow, that Dmitri was not dead. Many of those who had seen his mangled body exposed denied its identity, and believed that one of the czar’s officers had been massacred instead of him. Four swift horses were missing from the imperial stables; and it was surmised that by means of them Dmitri had escaped in the midst of the tumult. Three strangers in Russian costume, but speaking Polish, crossed the Oka in a boat, and one of them gave the ferryman six ducats, saying, “You have ferried the czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget this service.” The same party held similar language in a German inn a little farther on. It was afterwards known that one of them was Prince Shakhovskoi, who, immediately upon the death of Dmitri, had, with singular promptitude, conceived the idea of finding a new impostor to personate the dead one.

To put an end to the alarming rumours, Shuiski sent to Uglitch for the body of the real czarevitch, that with the help of the patriarch he might make a saint of him. When the grave was opened the body of the young prince was found in a perfect state of preservation, with the fresh hue of life upon it, and still holding in his hands some nuts as miraculously preserved as itself. It is curious that Shuiski should have forgotten that nothing was said of these nuts in the report of the inquest at Uglitch signed by himself. That document only stated that at the moment of his death the czarevitch was amusing himself with sticking his knife in the ground. Notwithstanding this oversight, the act of canonisation was good policy; for if the czarevitch became an object of veneration for the people, if it was notorious that his body worked miracles on earth, and consequently that his soul was in heaven, then anyone assuming his name could be nothing but an impostor. The czar took pains to make known far and wide what prodigies were effected by the relics of the blessed martyr. But the credit of the new saint was of short duration: Shuiski himself damaged it by a gross blunder in permitting the pompous removal to the monastery of Troitsa of the remains of Boris Godunov, whom but a few days before he had named as the murderer of the sainted Dmitri. No doubt he hoped in this way to conciliate the partisans of a still powerful family; but his enemies immediately accused him of blasphemous wickedness, alleging that he had substituted the body of a newly murdered boy for the decomposed corpse of the real Dmitri.

The public retractations of the dowager czaritza obtained no more credit than the miracles imputed to her son. In a letter signed by her, and immediately published by Vasili, she declared that the impostor Grishka Otrepiev had threatened her with death to herself and all her family if she did not recognise him as her son. But who could believe in her sincerity after so many contradictory avowals and disavowals? Her declaration that she had been compelled by fear to yield to the threats of a man whose aversion to cruelty was notorious, suggested to everybody the idea that she acted at that moment under the coercion of threats and fear.

Civil war began. Prince Shakhovskoi had raised the inhabitants of Putivle, and in a few days assembled a great number of Cossacks and peasants, who routed the forces sent against them. The insurrection spread rapidly; but still the prince, twice miraculously saved, did not make his expected appearance. Instead of him there came from Poland a general with a commission bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. This was an adventurer named Ivan Bolotnikov, originally a serf to Prince Teliatevski. He had been a prisoner among the Turks, and having escaped to Venice had probably acquired some military experience in the service of the republic. His commission was recognised at Putivle; he took the command of the insurgents, defeated Shuiski’s forces in two engagements, and pursued them to within seven versts of the capital. But the inexplicable absence of the prince for whom they fought damped the ardour of Bolotnikov’s men; for they could not believe that if Dmitri was alive he would delay to put himself at their head. The ataman of the Cossacks, too, was mortified at being supplanted in the command by an adventurer, and suffered himself to be corrupted by Shuiski. Deserted by a part of his army, Bolotnikov was defeated by Skopin Shuiski, the czar’s nephew, and forced to shelter himself in the fortress of Kaluga.

[1607 A.D.]

It is probable that all this while Shakhovskoi and the Poles were looking about for a fit person to play the part of Dmitri; but it required time to find him, and to put him through training. In this conjuncture the false Peter Feodorovitch, who had made a brief appearance in the former reign, repaired to Putivle, and offered himself to Shakhovskoi and the people as regent in the absence of his uncle. The rebel cause stood in need of the prestige of a royal name, and the czarevitch Peter was eagerly welcomed. Presently, the czar having marched against him in person, the impostor and Shakhovskoi shut themselves up in the strongly fortified town of Tula, where they were joined by Bolotnikov. Vasili laid siege to the town with an army of a hundred thousand men; but the besieged, who had no mercy to expect if taken, fought more earnestly for their own lives than did Shuiski’s soldiers for the rights of a master to whom they were but little attached. Seeing the light progress he made, the czar began to doubt the success of an enterprise to fail in which would be ruin.

While he was in this anxious state, an obscure ecclesiastic, named Kravkov, presented himself before the czar and his council, and undertook, if his directions were followed, to drown all the people of Tula. They laughed at him at first as an idle braggart, but he reiterated his assertion with such confidence that the czar at last desired him to explain his plan. Tula is situated in a valley, and the little river Upa flows through the town. Kravkov proposed to dam the stream below the town, and engaged to answer for it with his head if in a few hours after the execution of that work the whole town was not laid under water. All the millers in the army, men accustomed to such operations, were immediately put under his orders, and the rest of the soldiers were employed in carrying sacks of earth to the spot chosen for the dam. The water soon rose in the town, inundated the streets, and destroyed a great number of houses; but the garrison still fought for several months with unabated courage, though decimated by famine, and afterwards by a terrible epidemic. All the efforts both of the besiegers and the besieged were concentrated about the dam, the former labouring to raise and maintain it, the latter to break it down. The inhabitants of Tula were persuaded that magic must have had some share in raising so prodigious a work with such rapidity, and magic was not neglected among the means by which they sought to destroy it. A monk, who boasted his proficiency in that art, offered to effect the desired object for a reward of a hundred roubles. His terms being accepted by Bolotnikov, he stripped, plunged into the river, and disappeared. An hour afterwards, when everyone had given him up for dead, he rose to the surface, with his body covered with scratches. “I have just had to do,” he said, “with the twelve thousand devils at work on Shuiski’s dam. I have settled six thousand of them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give in.”

For a long time the inhabitants of Tula continued to fight against men and devils, encouraged by letters they received in Dmitri’s name, with promises of succour which never came. Shakhovskoi, the chief instigator of the rebellion, was the first to propose a capitulation, and was thrust into a dungeon by the Cossacks. At last, when the besieged had eaten their horses, dogs, and all other carrion, and had not so much as an oxhide left to gnaw, Bolotnikov and Peter offered to capitulate on condition of amnesty for their heroic garrison. They asked nothing for themselves, but declared that unless their soldiers obtained honourable conditions they were resolved to die with arms in their hands, and even to eat each other, rather than surrender at discretion. Vasili accepted these terms, and the gates were opened to him (October, 1607). Bolotnikov advanced before the czar with undaunted mien, and presenting his sword, with the edge laid against his neck, offered himself as a victim, saying, “I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightfully or wrongfully, calls himself Dmitri. Deserted by him, I am in thy power. Cut off my head if thou wilt; or if thou wilt spare my life, I will serve thee as I served him.” Shuiski, who did not pique himself on generosity, sent Bolotnikov to Kargopol, where he soon after had him drowned. The false Peter Feodorovitch was hanged; but Shakhovskoi, the most guilty of the three, was more fortunate. The victor found him in chains when he entered Tula, and Shakhovskoi made a merit of his sufferings at the hands of the obstinate rebels whom he had urged to submit to their sovereign. He obtained his liberty; but the first use he made of it was to rekindle the flames of insurrection.

Before Shuiski had terminated the siege of Tula, and whilst the issue of his conflict with one pretender was still dubious, another, assuming the name of Dmitri, appeared in the frontier town of Starodub, where he was hailed with enthusiasm. Bolotnikov sent an officer to him from Tula, to acquaint him with the desperate condition of the town. This envoy was a Polish adventurer, named Zarucki, who had become one of the atamans of the Don Cossacks, had fought bravely for the first Demetrius, and been distinguished by his favour. Although the first glance must have satisfied Zarucki that the new pretender was an imposter, he affected without the least hesitation to recognise him as his former master. Another false witness of this identity was the Pane Miechaviecki, a Pole, who was well known for the eminent position he had held at the court of the first Demetrius, and who was now the secret instructor of his successor in what we may call the histrionic details belonging to his assumed character.

The pupil profited but badly by the lessons he received; for in everything but profusion he was the reverse of his prototype, and the least attentive observer could see that he was a coarse, ignorant, vulgar knave, qualified only by his impudence for the part he had undertaken. The Cossacks were not such fastidious critics as to be shocked by his uncourtly manners; but the Poles, whilst treating him as a sovereign for their own ends, were by no means the dupes of his gross imposture. Baer states that he was originally a schoolmaster of Sokol, in White Russia; but, according to the Polish writers, who had better opportunities of learning the truth, he was a Lithuanian Jew, named Michael Moltchanov.

[1608 A.D.]

The adherents of Dmitri, as we may continue to call him, increased so rapidly in numbers that he was able to defeat a detachment of Vasili’s army sent against him from Tula, and to make himself master of the town of Kozelsk on the road to the capital. When the fall of Tula had left the czar at liberty to act against him with all his forces, Dmitri retreated to Novgorod Seversk. There he was joined by unexpected reinforcements led by Rozynckil Sapieha, Tiszkievicz, Lissovski, and others, the flower of the Polish and Lithuanian chivalry. Prince Adam Viszinoviecki, the patron of the first false Dmitri, came in person to the aid of his successor at the head of two thousand horse. The Don Cossacks brought in chains to him another schemer, who had tried to put himself at their head. All that is known of the man is that he called himself Feodor Feodorovitch, and pretended to be the son of the czar Feodor. His more prosperous rival in imposture condemned him to death.

Dmitri’s army, commanded by the veteran prince Roman Rozinski, defeated that of the czar with great havoc near Volkhov, on the 24th of April 1608. All the vanquished who escaped the lances of the Poles and Cossacks fled in disorder to Moscow, and had the victors pressed their advantage, the capital would have fallen into their hands. Possibly the Polish leaders were in secret unwilling to let their protégé triumph too soon or too completely, or to give up Moscow to pillage, which is always more profitable to the soldier than to the general; but, whatever was the reason, they halted at the village of Tushino, twelve versts from Moscow, which the impostor made his headquarters, and there he held his court for seventeen months.

With a view to prevail on Sigismund to recall the Polish volunteers in Dmitri’s service, Vasili resolved to liberate the ambassadors, the palatine of Sendomir and his daughter, and the other Poles whom he had kept in captivity since the massacre of Moscow. With their liberty he bestowed on them indemnifications for their losses, and only exacted from them a pledge that they would not bear arms against Russia, or in any way favour the new pretender. Thus, after having made sport of the most solemn oaths, Vasili expected to find in men, so deeply provoked, scruples of conscience which he had never known himself. He sent Mniszek and his daughter away under charge of an escort; but they were intercepted by a detachment of Poles, and carried to Dmitri’s camp.

They had been prepared for this event by a letter previously received by the palatine from his pretended son-in-law, which contained this remarkable phrase: “Come both of you to me, instead of going to hide yourselves in Poland from the world’s scorn.” He could hardly have dropped a hint more adapted to move a woman of Marina’s character. Rather than go back to encounter ridicule at Sendomir, she was willing to share the bed of a bandit who might bestow a crown upon her. It is said, however, that in their first interview with Dmitri neither she nor her father testified all the emotion befitting so touching an occasion, nor could quite conceal their surprise at the sight of a man not at all like him whose name he bore. But after a few days the scene of meeting was played over again with more success, and the whole camp was witness of Marina’s demonstrations of tenderness for her husband. In apology for her previous coldness it was said that, having so long believed her Dmitri was dead, she durst not yield to the delight of seeing him alive again until she had received the most certain proofs that it was not a delusion. This clumsy excuse was admitted; Marina’s recognition of the impostor brought over to him numbers who had doubted till then; and, the news being soon spread abroad, almost all Russia declared for him, except Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.

This was the culminating point of his fortunes: their decline was rapid. The mutual jealousy of the Polish commanders rose to such a pitch that it became necessary to divide the army; and Sapieha quitted the camp of Tushino, with thirty thousand men and sixty cannon, to lay siege to the famous monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, which was at the same time a powerful fortress and the most revered sanctuary of Russian orthodoxy. The support which Shuiski received from the monks was worth more to him than an army; for besides large subsidies he derived from them a moral force which still kept many of his subjects true to their allegiance. The loss of such auxiliaries would have consummated his ruin; therefore the capture of the monastery was of extreme importance to the impostor. But in spite of the most strenuous efforts, continued for six weeks, Sapieha was unable to obtain the least advantage over a garrison whose courage was exalted by religious enthusiasm; and meanwhile the Poles had to sustain a harassing and murderous guerilla warfare, waged against them by the plundered peasants, whom they had made desperate. These partisan bands were about to be supported by a more formidable army, led by Skopin Skuiski and by James de la Gardie, who brought five thousand Swedish auxiliaries to Vasili’s aid.

[1609-1610 A.D.]

Early in 1609 these two generals began a brilliant campaign in the north; the Poles and the partisans of the impostor were beaten in several encounters, and in a few months the whole aspect of the war was changed. Finally, Sapieha himself was defeated in an obstinate engagement, forced ignominiously to raise the siege of the monastery, and shut himself up with the remnant of his force in Dmitrov. Skopin entered Moscow in triumph; but Vasili’s jealousy kept him there inactive for two months until he died suddenly, in his twenty-fourth year. Vasili, to whose cause the young hero’s death was fatal, was accused by public rumour of having effected it by poison.

For some months before this time there had been a new champion in the field, whose appearance was equally to be dreaded by Shuiski and Dmitri. About the end of September, 1609, Sigismund, king of Poland, laid siege to Smolensk, with an army of twelve thousand men, and immediately summoned to his standard the Poles who served under Dmitri. The greater part of them complied, and the impostor fled to Kaluga. In the spring of 1610 Russia presented a most deplorable spectacle, being devastated by three great armies, all opposed to one another. In the west, Sigismund was pressing the siege of Smolensk; in the south, Dmitri was in possession of Kaluga, Tula, and some other towns. Some of the Poles who had quitted the impostor’s service had established themselves on the banks of the Ugra, in a fertile country, which had not yet experienced the sufferings of war; and there, under the command of their new leader, John Sapieha, they offered their services simultaneously to Sigismund and the false Dmitri, being ready to join whichever of them bid highest. Nor was this all: one of the Russian princes, Procope Liapunov, took advantage of the general confusion to raise a new banner. He proclaimed himself the defender of the faith, and, at the head of a considerable force, waged a war of extermination against the Poles and the Russians who recognised either Dmitri or Vasili. A chronicler applies to him the phrase which had served to characterise Attila—“No grass grew where his horse’s hoof had been.” And, as if all these armies were not enough for the desolation of the land, the Tatars of the Crimea had crossed the Oka, under pretence of succouring Vasili, their ally, but in reality to plunder the villages, and make multitudes of captives, whom they carried off into slavery.

Such was the condition of Russia at the moment of Skopin’s death. Vasili still derived some hope from the division of his enemies, and turned his whole attention against the most formidable among them. He despatched to the relief of Smolensk an army of nearly sixty thousand men, consisting partly of foreign mercenaries, under James de la Gardie; but he gave the chief command to his brother, Dmitri Shuiski, who was neither liked nor respected by the soldiers. Chiefly in consequence of this fatal appointment the whole army was defeated at Klushino, by a force of only three thousand horse and two hundred infantry, led by the veteran Zolkiewski, and was forced to lay down its arms. But for the enormous blunders subsequently committed by Sigismund, the battle of Klushino might have determined forever the preponderance of Poland in the north.

A Woman of Tschutski

The defeat of Klushino was immediately followed by an insurrection at Moscow. Vasili Shuiski was deposed, and forced to become a monk; and being soon after delivered up to Sigismund, he ended his days in a Polish prison. The same event was equally disastrous to the false Dmitri. Deserted by Sapieha and his Poles, he lost all hope of ascending the throne of Moscow; he lived as a robber in Kaluga, at the head of his ferocious gangs of Cossacks and Tatars, until he was murdered by the latter in December, 1610, in revenge for the death of one of their countrymen whom he had drowned. Marina was far advanced in pregnancy when she lost her second husband. She was delivered of a son, who received the name of Ivan, and to whom the little court of Kaluga swore fealty. Zarucki declared himself the protector of the mother and the child, and put himself at the head of the still numerous remnant of the faction that remained obstinately attached to the name of Dmitri. But the cause was hopeless; for Zarucki was neither a general nor a statesman—his talents were those only of a bold leader of Cossack marauders.

Russia was without a sovereign, and the capital was in the hands of the Polish marshal. Zolkiewski used his advantages with wise moderation, and easily prevailed on the weary and afflicted Muscovites to resign themselves to the foreign yoke, and agree to offer the throne to Wladislaw, the son of Sigismund. One word from the latter’s lips might have reversed the subsequent fortunes of Russia and Poland; but in his selfish vanity he preferred the appearance of power to its reality, and claimed the crown of the czars, not for his son but for himself. Philaretes, bishop of Rostov, and other ambassadors, were sent to him at his camp before Smolensk, to make known the resolution of the Russians in favour of Wladislaw. Sigismund insisted that they should at once put him in possession of Smolensk, which he had been besieging for a year; and, this being refused, he seized the ambassadors, and afterwards carried them away to Poland, where they remained nine years in captivity.

Zolkiewski, foreseeing the consequences of his master’s folly, against which he had remonstrated in vain, retired from the government of Moscow, leaving Gonsiewski as his successor. The Polish troops seized the principal towns, proclaimed Sigismund, and observed none of that discretion by which the great marshal had won the confidence and esteem of the vanquished. National feeling awoke again among the Russians; eagerly responding to the call of their revered patriarch, Hermogenes, they took up arms in all parts of the empire, and war was renewed with more fury than ever.

[1612-1613 A.D.]

Smolensk fell after an obstinate resistance of eighteen months; but at the moment of the last assault the explosion of a powder magazine set fire to the city, and Sigismund found himself master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, assailed by the Russians, secured themselves in the Kremlin, after burning down the greater part of the city, and massacring a hundred thousand of the inhabitants. They were besieged by an immense levy from the provinces, consisting of three armies; but these seemed more disposed to fight with each other than to force the Poles in their intrenchments. One of them consisted chiefly of vagabonds escaped from the camp at Tushino, and was commanded by Prince Trubetskoi. Zarucki led another in the name of Marina’s son; the third army, and the only one, perhaps, whose commander sincerely desired the independence of his country, was that of Prince Procope Liapunov; but that brave leader was assassinated, and the besiegers, disheartened by his death, immediately dispersed. About the same time the patriarch Hermogenes, the soul of the national insurrection, died in his prison in the Kremlin, to which he had been consigned by the Poles.

Anarchy was rampant in Russia; every town usurped the right to act in the name of the whole empire, and set up chiefs whom they deposed a few days afterwards. Kazan and Viatka proclaimed the son of Marina; Novgorod, rather than open its gates to the Poles, called in the Swedes, and tendered the crown to Charles Philip, second son of the reigning king of Sweden, and brother of Gustavus Adolphus. Another imposter assumed the name of Dmitri, and kept his state for awhile at Pskov; but being at last identified as one Isidore, a fugitive monk, he was hanged. When all seemed lost in irretrievable disorder, the country was saved by an obscure citizen of Nijni-Novgorod. He was a butcher, named Kozma Minin, distinguished by nothing but the possession of a sound head and a brave, honest unselfish heart. Roused by his words and his example, his fellow-citizens took up arms, and resolved to devote all their wealth to the last fraction to the maintenance of an army for the deliverance of their country. From Nijni-Novgorod the same spirit spread to other towns, and Prince Pojarski who had been lieutenant to the brave Liapunov, was soon able to take the field at the head of a considerable force, whilst Minin, whom the popular voice styled the elect of the whole Russian Empire, ably seconded him in an administrative capacity.

Pojarski drove the Poles before him from town to town; and having at length arrived under the walls of the Kremlin, in August, 1612, he sustained for three days a hot contest against Chodkiewicz, the successor of Gonsiewski, defeated him, and put him to flight. Part of the Polish troops, under the command of Colonel Nicholas Struss, returned to the citadel and defended it for some weeks longer. At the end of that time, being pressed by famine, they capitulated; and on the 22nd of October, 1612, the princes Pojarski and Dmitri Trubetzkoi entered together into that inclosure which is the heart of the country, and sacred in the eyes of all true Russians. The assistance of Sigismund came too late to arrest the flight of the Poles.

Upon the first successes obtained by Prince Pojarski the phantom of Dmitri, and all the subaltern pretenders, disappeared as if by magic. Zarucki, feeling that an irresistible power was about to overwhelm him, was anxious only to secure himself a refuge. Carrying Marina and her son with him, he made ineffectual efforts to raise the Don Cossacks. After suffering a defeat near Voroneje, he reached the Volga, and took possession of Astrakhan, with the intention of fortifying himself there; but the generals of Michael Romanov, the newly elected czar, did not allow him time. Driven from that city, and pursued by superior forces, he was preparing to reach the eastern shore of the Caspian, when he was surprised, in the beginning of July, 1614, on the banks of the Iaïk, and delivered up to the Muscovite generals, along with Marina and the son of the second Dmitri. They were immediately taken to Moscow, where Zarucki was impaled; Ivan, who was but three years old, was hanged; and Marina was shut up in prison, where she ended her days.

ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF ROMANOV (1613 A.D.)

The deliverance of Moscow had alone been awaited in order to fill the vacant throne by a free election. This could not properly take place except in that revered sanctuary of the imperial power, the Kremlin, where the sovereigns were crowned at their accession, and where their ashes reposed after their death. Delivered now from all foreign influence, the boyars of the council, in November, 1612, despatched letters or mandates to every town in the empire, commanding the clergy, nobility, and citizens to send deputies immediately to Moscow, endowed with full power to meet in the national council (zemskii soveth), and proceed to the election of a new czar. At the same time, to invoke the blessing of God upon this important act, a fast of three days was commanded. These orders were received with great enthusiasm throughout the whole country: the fast was so rigorously observed, according to contemporary records, that no person took the least nourishment during that interval, and mothers even refused the breast to their infants.

The election day came: it was in Lent, in the year 1613. The debates were long and stormy. The princes Mstislavski and Pojarski, it appears, refused the crown; the election of Prince Dmitri Trubetskoi failed, and the other candidates were set aside for various reasons. After much hesitation the name of Michael Romanov was put forward; a young man sixteen years of age, personally unknown, but recommended by the virtues of his father, Philaretes, and in whose behalf the boyars had been canvassed by the patriarch Hermogenes, the holy martyr to the national cause. The Romanovs were connected through the female branch with this ancient dynasty. The ancestors of Michael had filled the highest offices in the state. He fulfilled, moreover, the required conditions. “There were but three surviving members in his family,” says Strahlenberg; “he had not been implicated in the preceding troubles; his father was an ecclesiastic, and in consequence naturally more disposed to secure peace and union than to mix himself up in turbulent projects.”

The name of the new candidate, supported by the metropolitan of Moscow,[37] was hailed with acclamation, and after some discussion he was elected. The unanimous voice of the assembly raised Michael Feodorovitch to the throne. Before he ascended he was required to swear to the following conditions: that he would protect religion; that he would pardon and forget all that had been done to his father; that he would make no new laws, nor alter the old, unless circumstances imperatively required it; and that, in important causes, he would decide nothing by himself, but that the existing laws and the usual forms of trial should remain in force; that he would not at his own pleasure make either war or peace with his neighbours; and that, to avoid all suits with individuals, he would resign his estates to his family, or incorporate them with the crown domains. Strahlenberg adds that Alexis, on his accession, swore to observe the same conditions.

These forms, however futile they may have been, are remarkable: not because they render sacred a right which stands in no need of them, but because they recall it to mind; and also because they prove that, even on the soil most favourable to despotism, a charter which should give absolute power to a monarch would appear such a gross absurdity that we know not that an instance of the kind ever existed.

Nothing could be more critical than the state of the empire at the moment when its destinies were confided to a youth of seventeen. Disorder and anarchy everywhere prevailed. Ustrialov gives us the following picture: “The strongholds on the frontier which should have served to defend his dominions were in the hands of external or internal enemies. The Swedes possessed Kexholm, Oresheck, Koporie, and even Novgorod. The Poles ruled in Smolensk, Dorogobuje, Putivle, and Tchernigov; the country around Pskov was in the power of Lisovski; Raisin, Kashira, and Tula struggled feebly against the Tatars of the Crimea and the Nogai; Sarutzki (Zarucki) was established in Astrakhan; Kazan was in revolt. At home bands of Cossacks from the Don, and the Zaparogians, and whole divisions of Poles and Tatars ravaged the villages and the convents that were still entire, when there were hopes of finding booty. The country was wasted, soldiers were dying of hunger, the land-tax was no longer collected, and not a kopeck was in the treasury. The state jewels, crowns of great price, sceptres, precious stones, vases—all had been plundered and carried into Poland.

“The young prince was surrounded by courtiers belonging to twenty different factions. There were to be found the friends of Godunov, the defenders of Shuiski, the companions of Wladislaw, and even partisans of the brigand of Tushino—in a word, men professing the most various opinions and aims, but all equally ambitious, and incapable of yielding the smallest point as regarded precedence. The lower class, irritated by ten years of misery, had become habituated to anarchy, and it was not without difficulty and resistance on their part that they were reduced to obedience.” Such, then, was the situation of the country; but Michael found means to redeem it.

[1617-1627 A.D.]

Notwithstanding the desperate state of his finances, the insubordination of his troops, the ill-will of the diets, and the confederations continually springing up against him, Sigismund did not abandon his attempts upon Russia; but the negotiations which ensued in consequence, upon various occasions, produced no result. Wladislaw, at the head of an army, once more crossed the frontiers, and appeared for the second time, in 1617, under the walls of Moscow, which he assaulted and whence he was repulsed. Deceived in the expectation which the intelligence he kept up with various chiefs had induced him to form, harassed by his troops, who were clamorous for pay, he consented to renounce the title of czar, which he had up to that period assumed, and concluded, on the 1st of December, 1618, an armistice for fourteen years. The Peace of Stolbovna, January 26th, 1617, had terminated the preceding year the war with Sweden, and was purchased by the surrender of Ingria, Karelia, and the whole country between Ingria and Novgorod; besides the formal renunciation of Livonia and Esthonia, and the payment of a sum of money.

The captivity of Philarete had now lasted nine years; from Warsaw he had been removed to the castle of Marienburg, and it was from that place, as it is asserted, that he found means to communicate with the council of the boyars, and use his influence in the election of the czar, never dreaming that it would fall upon his son. The cessation of hostilities restored him to freedom. He returned to Moscow on the 14th of June, 1619, and was immediately elevated to the patriarchal chair, which had remained vacant from the death of Hermogenes, in 1613. His son made him co-regent, and the ukases of that date are all headed “Michael Feodorovitch, sovereign, czar, and grand prince of all the Russias, and his father Philarete, mighty lord and most holy patriarch of all the Russias, order,” etc. There exist, moreover, ukases issued in the sole name of the patriarch, thus called out of his usual sphere of action, and placed in one in which absolute power was granted him. He took part in all political affairs; all foreign ambassadors were presented to him, as well as to the czar: and at those solemn audiences, as well as at table, he occupied the right of the sovereign. He held his own court, composed of stolnicks and other officers; in a word, he shared with his son all the prerogatives of supreme power. From this period dates the splendour of the patriarchate, which at a later epoch excited the jealousy of the czar Peter the Great, who was induced to suppress it in 1721.

Philarete always gave wise advice to his son, and the influence he exercised over him was always happily directed. A general census, of which he originated the idea, produced great improvement in the revenue; but, perhaps without intending it, he contributed by this measure to give fixity to the system of bondage to the soil. In the performance of his duty as head pastor, he directed all his efforts to re-establish a press at Moscow,[38] which had been abandoned during the troubles of the interregnum; and he had the satisfaction of seeing, after 1624, many copies of the Liturgy issue from it.[h]

THE COSSACKS

[1627 A.D.]

In the year 1627 the Cossacks of the Don, in one of their periodical uprisings, conquered Azov, which they offered to the czar, but which he did not accept. As we shall meet the Cossacks again from time to time, it is worth while to interrupt our main narrative to make inquiry as to the antecedents of this peculiar people.[a]

Soloviev gives the following definition of the term “cossacks”: “At the end of the first half of the fifteenth century we encounter for the first time the name of Cossack, principally the Cossacks of Riazan. Our ancestors understood by this name, in general, men without homes, celibates obliged to earn their bread by working for others. In this way the name “cossack” took the meaning of day-labourer. They formed a class altogether opposed to land owners; that is, the villagers. The steppes, so agreeable to live on, not lacking fertility, watered by rivers filled with fish, attracted in these countries the more hardy, namely the Cossacks; the people who could not stay in villages, those who were pursued for some crime, fugitive serfs, united with each other; it is this group of individuals who formed the population of the frontiers and were known under the name of Cossacks. The Cossacks were therefore of great importance; being an enterprising people they were the first to lead the way to the great solitudes which they peopled. It was not difficult for a Russian to become a Cossack; in going to the steppes he did not enter a strange country, nor did he cease to be a Russian; there among the Cossacks he felt at home. The Cossacks who remained near the frontier recognised the right of the Russian government over them in all things, but obeyed it only when it would prove useful to them. They depended somewhat on the government, while those who lived far away were more independent.”[i]

Polish authors have acquainted western Europe with the name and the fact of the existence of the Cossacks. This name (in Russian kazak) has passed into other languages, by the writings of the seventeenth century, with the Polish pronunciation. The etymology of this word long exercised the sagacity of northern savants. Some derive it from the Slavonic koza “goat”—the Cossacks, they argued, wandered about like goats. Others believe it comes from kossa, which signifies “tress of hair,” “scythe,” “body of land projecting into a river.” Justifications are not wanting for these different acceptations, since (1) the Cossacks were formerly in the habit of wearing long braids; (2) they used scythes to make hay, as well as in battle; (3) their first colonies were on the river banks, which abounded in promontories. In these days, when etymological study has made such great progress, the word cossack is generally accepted as derived from the Turkish. In that language cazak signifies marauder, plunderer, soldier of fortune. Such were in effect the first Cossacks established on the banks of the Dnieper and its tributaries, between the Polish, the Tatar, and the Muscovite territories. Their customs greatly resembled those of the inhabitants on the Border, or Scottish frontier; and the name of the country where they first appeared, Ukrania (Pokraina) signifies border, frontier, in the Slavonic dialects.

The Cossacks have never formed a distinct nationality, but their manners and institutions separate them from the rest of the Russian people. The Cossackry—to translate by a single word all that the Russians understand by Kazatchestvo—is the species of society, government, political organisation which the Russian peasant understands by instinct, so to speak, to which he conforms most easily and which he probably regards as the best. The different fractions of the Cossacks were designated as armies according to the provinces which they occupied. There was the army of the Dnieper, the army of the Don, that of the Iaïk (Ural), etc. Each of these armies was divided into small camps or villages, called stanitsas. The ground round the stanitsa, the flocks which grazed on its meadows, formed the undivided property of the commune. At regular intervals equal partitions took place for cultivation; but each gathered the fruit of his own labour and could increase his share in the common fund by his private industry. Every man was a soldier and bound to take up arms at the word of the chief whom the public suffrage had designated. There was one of these for each expedition and he bore the name of “errant captain,” ataman kotchévoï, which was distinct from the ataman or political chief for life of the whole army. This captain had under his orders an adjutant or lieutenant, iéssaoul, then centurions, commanders of fifties, and commanders of tens. During peace the administration of each stanitsa belonged to the elders, startchini; but every resolution of any importance had to be submitted to a discussion in which all the men of the community could take part and vote. The political or administrative assembly was called the circle, kroug. There were no written laws, the circle being the living law, preserving and adding to the traditions. It left, moreover, complete liberty to the individual, so long as this was not harmful to the community. As to the foreigner, anything, or almost anything, was permitted. Such institutions find fanatics amongst men in appearance the most rebellious against all discipline. The filibusters at the end of the seventeenth century had similar ones.

We are ignorant of the period of the first organisation of the Cossacks; it appears, however, very probable that it is contemporary with the Tatar conquest. The little republic of the Zaparogians in the islands and on the banks of the Dnieper seems to be the model on which the other Cossack governments were formed; for their dialect, the Little Russian, has left traces amongst the Cossacks most remote from Ukraine. There is no doubt that the first soldiers who established themselves in the islands of the Dnieper were animated by patriotic and religious sentiments. Their first exploits against the Tatars and Turks were a protest of the conquered Christians against their Mussulman oppressors. In consequence of having fought for their faith they loved war for its own sake and pillage became the principal object of their expeditions. In default of Tatars their Russian or Polish neighbours were mercilessly despoiled.

Michael Romanov

Formerly the Cossacks had been recruited by volunteers arriving on the borders of the Dnieper—some from Great Russia, others from Lithuania or Poland. The association spread. It colonised the banks of the Don and there instituted the rule of the stanitsas and the circle. The czars of Muscovy, while they sometimes suffered from the violence of the newcomers, beheld, with pleasure the formation on their frontiers of an army which fought for them, cost them nothing, and founded cities of soldiers in desolate steppes.

From the Don the Cossacks carried colonies along the Volga, to the Terek, to the Ural; they conquered Siberia. In 1865 descendants of these same men were encamped at the mouths of the Amur and fringed the Chinese frontier. The Don Cossacks, conquerors of a country subdued by the Tatars, submitted to Russia in 1549, but they enjoyed a real independence. It is true that in war-time they furnished a body of troops to the czar; but war was their trade and a means of acquiring fortune. They appointed their own atamans, governed themselves according to their own customs, and scarcely permitted the Moscow government to interfere at all in their affairs. They even claimed the right to make war without command of the czar, and in spite of his injunctions devoted themselves to piracy on the Black Sea and even on the Caspian Sea. In 1593, when Boris Godunov instituted serfdom in Russia, by a ukase which forbade the peasants to change their lord or their domicile, the Cossacks received immense additions to their numbers. All those who wished to live in freedom took refuge in a stanitsa, where they were sure of finding an asylum. In their ideas of honour, the atamans considered it their first duty to protect fugitives. Consequently the most usual subject of disputes between the government of Moscow and the hordes of the Don was the restoration of serfs. At times exacted by the czars, when they had no foreign enemy to fear, it was evaded by the atamans; at times it was in some sort forgotten, whenever the services of the Cossacks became necessary. Practically it was considered impossible to get back a serf once he had procured his adoption into a stanitsa.

There were always two parties among the Cossacks, which might be called the aristocratic party and the democratic faction, although there was no nobility amongst them. The old-established Cossacks, possessing a fortune acquired either by raids or industry, did not look with a friendly eye on the newcomers, who were strangers to the country. They first preached in the circle respect of treaties and obedience to the czar; the others, on the contrary, declared themselves in favour of every violent course, supported those bold spirits who were meditating some hazardous expedition, and troubled themselves little concerning the danger of compromising the privileges of the army of the Don by abusing them. The old Cossacks in contempt called the newcomers gole (nakedness, trash), and this name, like that of gueux in Flanders, had ended by being borne proudly by the opposite faction.

The class of poor Cossacks, which was unceasingly recruited from fugitives, hated the Russian government and obtained the sympathy of the serfs who dared not break their chain. The condition of the latter was deplorable; at a time when the life of a freeman was held of small account, a slave was less than a beast of burden and certainly more miserable. The savagery of manners, the harshness of the masters, was equalled only by the ferocity of the laws. One example will be enough to show what the legislation of this epoch was like. The serf was responsible for his master’s debts. If the lord did not pay his creditors the serf was put in prison and daily beaten before the courts of justice until the debtor had paid or the creditors had abandoned their claims. In their wretchedness the serfs were witnesses of the liberty of the Cossacks, who spoke the same language as themselves and who had the same origin. We need not be astonished if, in their despair, they were disposed to accept as their liberators the Cossacks who came to pillage their masters. A slave rarely dares to conceive the idea of conquering his liberty; but he is always ready to aid the freeman who declares himself his protector. Thus it is to be noted that all the great insurrections of serfs which broke out in Russia were organised by Cossacks. The False Dmitri, Stenka Radzin, and Pugatchev furnish the proof of this.[b]

LAST YEARS OF MICHAEL

The peace with Poland being only for a stated term of years, Michael endeavoured, before its expiration, to have his troops placed in such a condition by foreign officers that he might be able to reconquer the countries ceded to the Poles. Nay, on the death of Sigismund, ere the armistice had expired, he began the attempt to recover these territories, under the idle pretext that he had concluded a peace with Sigismund and not with his successor. But the Russian commander, Michael Schein, the very same who had valiantly defended Smolensk with a small number of troops against the Poles, now lay two whole years indolently before that town, with an army of fifty thousand men and provided with good artillery, and at length retreated on capitulation, a retreat for which he and his friends were brought to answer with their heads. The Russian nation were so dissatisfied with this campaign, and the king of Sweden, whom Michael wanted to engage in an alliance with him against the Poles, showed so little inclination to comply, that the czar was fain to return to the former amicable relation with Poland. Peace was therefore again agreed on, and matters remained as they were before.

During his reign, which continued till 1645, Michael had employment enough in endeavouring to heal the wounds which the spirit of faction had inflicted on his country; to compose the disorders that had arisen; to restore the administration which had been so often disjointed and relaxed; to give new vigour and activity to the laws, disobeyed and inefficient during the general confusions; and to communicate fresh life to expiring commerce. It redounds greatly to his honour that he proceeded in all these respects with prudence and moderation, and brought the disorganised machine of government again into play. More than this, the restoration of the old order of things, was not to be expected of him. Much that he was unable to effect was accomplished by his son and successor, Alexis.

ALEXIS (1645-1676 A.D.)

[1645 A.D.]

The administration, however, of the boyar Boris Morosov, to whom Michael at his death committed the education of Alexis, then in his sixteenth year, well-nigh destroyed the tranquillity which had so lately been restored. Morosov trod in the footsteps of Boris Godunov, put himself, as that favourite of the czar had done, into the highest posts, and thus acquired the most extensive authority in the state, turned out all that stood in his way, distributed offices and dignities as they fell vacant among his friends and creatures, and even became, like Boris, a near relation of the czar Alexis, by marrying a sister of the czaritza. Like his prototype, indeed, Morosov effected much good, particularly by making the army a main object of his concern, by strengthening the frontiers against Poland and Sweden, erecting manufactories for arms, taking a number of foreigners into pay for the better disciplining of the army, and diligently exercising the troops himself.

But these important services to the state could not render the people insensible to the numerous acts of injustice and oppression which were practised with impunity by the party protected by this minion of the czar. The most flagrant enormities were committed, more particularly in the administration of justice. The sentence of the judge was warped to either side by presents; witnesses were to be bought; several of the magistrates, however incredible it may seem, kept a number of scoundrels in readiness to corroborate or to oppugn, for a sum of money, whatever they were required to confirm or to deny. Such profligates were particularly employed in order to get rich persons into custody on charges of any species of delinquency sworn against them by false witnesses, to condemn them to death, and then to seize upon their property, as the accumulation of wealth seemed to be the general object of all men in office. From the same corrupt fountain flowed a multitude of monopolies and excessive taxes on the prime necessaries of life. The consequence of all this was the oppression of the people by privileged extortioners and murmurs against injustice and the exhorbitance of imposts. In addition to this, those grandees who had now the reins of government in their hands assumed a haughty, austere behaviour towards the subjects, whereas Michael and his father had been friendly and indulgent, and their gentleness communicated itself to all who at that time took part in the administration.

From these several causes arose discontents in the nation; such great men as were neglected and disappointed contributed what they could to fan these discontents, and to bring them to overt act. Moscow, the seat of the principal magistrate, who, himself in the highest degree unjust, connived at the iniquities of his subordinate judges, was the place where the people first applied for redress. They began by presenting petitions to the czar, implored the removal of these disorders, and exposed to him in plain terms the abuses committed by the favourite and his adherents. But these petitions were of no avail, as none of the courtiers would venture to put them into the hand of the czar, for fear of Morosov’s long arm. The populace therefore, once stopped the czar, as he was returning from church to his palace, calling aloud for righteous judges. Alexis promised them to make strict inquiry into their grievances, and to inflict punishment on the guilty; the people, however, had not patience to wait this tardy process, but proceeded to plunder the houses of such of the great as were most obnoxious to them. At length they were pacified only on condition that the authors of their oppressions should be brought to condign punishment. Not, however, till they had killed the principal magistrate, and other obnoxious persons, and forced from the czar the abolition of some of the new taxes and the death of another nefarious judge, could they be induced to spare the life of Morosov, though the czar himself entreated for him with tears. Thenceforth Morosov ceased to be the sole adviser of his sovereign, though he continued to enjoy his favour and affection.

Tatar Girl of the Teleut Tribe

Some time after these events, disturbances not less violent occurred in Pleskov and Novgorod, and were not quelled until much mischief had been done. The pacification of Novgorod was mainly due to the wisdom and intrepidity of the celebrated Nicon, who was afterwards patriarch.

While the nation was in this restless and angry mood, another false Dmitri thought to avail himself of an opportunity apparently so favourable to gather a party. He was the son of a draper in the Ukraine, and was prompted to his imposture by a Polish nobleman, named Danilovski. One day, when the young man was bathing, marks were observed on his back which were thought to resemble letters of some unknown tongue. Danilovski, hearing of this freak of nature, determined to build a plot upon it. He sent for the young man, and had the marks examined by a Greek pope whom he had suborned. The pope cried out, “A miracle!” and declared that the letters were Russian, and formed distinctly these words: Dmitri, son of the czar Dmitri. The public murder of Marina’s infant son was notorious; but that difficulty was met by the common device of an alleged change of children, and the Poles were invited to lend their aid to the true prince thus miraculously identified. They were willing enough to do so; but the trick was too stale to impose on the Russians. The impostor found no adherents among them; and after a wretched life of vagrancy and crime, he fell into the hands of Alexis, and was quartered alive.

Alexis soon had an opportunity to repay in a more substantial manner the ill will borne to him by the Poles, who had further offended him by rejecting him as a candidate for their throne, and electing John Casimir. The cruel oppressions exercised by the Poles upon the Cossacks of the Ukraine had roused the latter to revolt, and a furious war ensued, in which the enraged Cossacks avenged their wrongs in the most ruthless and indiscriminate manner. At last, after many vicissitudes, being deserted by their Tatar allies, the Cossacks appealed for aid to Alexis, offering to acknowledge him as their suzerain. With such auxiliaries the czar could now renew with better prospects the attempt made by his father to recover the territories wrested from Russia by her inveterate foe. He declared war against Poland; his conquests were rapid and numerous, and would probably have terminated in the complete subjugation of Poland, had he not been compelled to pause before the march of a still more successful invader of that country, Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden.

[1658-1662 A.D.]

Incensed at seeing his prey thus snatched from him when he had nearly hunted it down, Alexis fell upon the king of Sweden’s own dominions during his absence; but from this enterprise he reaped neither advantage nor credit; and he was glad to conclude, in 1658, a three years’ truce with Sweden, and subsequently a peace, which was an exact renewal of the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617. The war in Poland ended more honourably for Russia. An armistice for thirteen years, agreed upon at Andnissov, in Lithuania, and afterwards prolonged from time to time, was the forerunner of a complete pacification, which was brought to effect in 1686, and restored to the empire Smolensk, Severia, Tchernigov, and Kiev, that primeval principality of the Russian sovereigns. The king of Poland likewise relinquished to the czar the supremacy he had till then asserted over the Cossacks of the Ukraine.

Russia had as much need as Poland of repose; for the empire was suffering under an accumulation of evils—an exhausted treasury, commercial distress, pestilence and famine, all aggravated by the unwise means adopted to relieve them. To supply the place of the silver money, which had disappeared, copper of the same nominal value was coined and put in circulation. At first these tokens were received with confidence, and no inconvenience was experienced; but ere long the court itself destroyed that confidence by its audacious efforts to secure to itself all the sterling money, and leave only the new coin for the use of commerce. The cupidity displayed in transactions of this kind, especially by Ilia Miloslavski, the czar’s father-in-law, taught the public to dislike the copper coinage; it became immensely depreciated, and extreme general distress ensued. A rebellion broke out in consequence in Moscow (1662), and though it was speedily put down it was punished in the most atrocious manner in the persons of thousands of wretches whose misery had driven them to crime; whilst the authors of their woe escaped with impunity. The prisoners were hanged by hundreds, tortured, burned, mutilated, or thrown by night, with their hands bound, into the river. The number who suffered death in consequence of this arbitrary alteration of the currency was estimated at more than seven thousand; the tortured and maimed, at upwards of fifteen thousand.

[1665-1671 A.D.]

The conduct of the Don Cossacks was soon such as to make it questionable whether the acquisition of these new subjects was not rather a loss than a gain to the empire. At the end of the campaign of 1665 the Cossacks were refused permission to disband as usual and to return to their homes. They mutinied; and several of them were punished with death. Among those who were executed was an officer, whose brother, Stenka Radzin, had no difficulty in rousing his countrymen to revenge this violation of their privileges, and at the same time to gratify their insatiable appetite for havoc and plunder.

He began his depredations on the Volga by seizing a fleet of boats belonging to the czar, which was on its way to Astrakhan, massacring part of the crews, and pressing all the rest into his service. Having devastated the whole country of the Volga, he descended into the Caspian, and having swept its shores, returned to the Volga laden with booty. For three years this flagitious ruffian continued his murderous career, repeatedly defeating the forces sent against him. At last, having lost a great number of men in his piratical incursions into Persia, he was hemmed in by the troops of the governor of Astrakhan, and forced to sue for pardon. The imperial commander thought it more prudent to accept Radzin’s voluntary submission than to risk an engagement with desperate wretches whose numbers were still formidable. Radzin was taken to Astrakhan, and the voyevod went to Moscow, to learn the czar’s pleasure respecting him. Alexis honourably confirmed the promise made by his general in his name, and accepted Radzin’s oath of allegiance; but instead of dispersing the pardoned rebels over regions where they would have been useful to the empire, he had the imprudence to send them all back to the country of the Don, without despoiling them of their ill-gotten wealth, or taking any other security for their good behaviour.

The brigand was soon at his old work again on the Volga, murdering and torturing with more wanton ferocity than ever. To give to his enormities the colour of a war on behalf of an oppressed class, he proclaimed himself the enemy of the nobles and the restorer of the liberty of the people. As many of the Russians still adhered to the patriarch Nicon, who had been deposed and sent to a monastery, he spread it abroad that Nicon was with him; that the czar’s second son (who had died at Moscow, January 16th, 1670) was not dead, but had put himself under his protection; and that he had even been requested by the czar himself to come to Moscow, and rid him of those unpatriotic grandees by whom he was unhappily surrounded.

These artifices, together with the unlimited license to plunder which Radzin granted to everyone who joined his standard, operated so strongly that the rebel found himself, at length, at the head of two hundred thousand men. The czar’s soldiers murdered their officers, and went over to him; Astrakhan betrayed its governor, and received him; he was master of the whole country of the lower Volga; and on the upper course of the river, from Nijni-Novgorod to Kazan, the peasants rose to a man and murdered their lords. Had Stenka Radzin been anything better than a vulgar robber and cut-throat, he might have revolutionised Russia; but he was utterly without the qualities most requisite for success in such an enterprise. Disasters overtook him in the autumn of 1670: a division of his army was cut to pieces; twelve thousand of his followers were gibbeted on the high-road, and he himself was taken in the beginning of the following year, carried to Moscow, and executed.

THE ANSWER OF ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS TO SULTAN MUHAMMED IV

(From the painting by Elias Repin)

The Turks had by this time made war on Poland, and Alexis was bound by the Treaty of Andnissov, as well as by regard for the safety of his own dominions, to support the latter power. In 1671 the Turks made themselves masters of the important town of Kaminitz, and the Cossacks of the Ukraine, ever averse to subjection, could not tell whether they belonged to Turkey, Poland, or Russia. Sultan Muhammed IV, who had subdued and lately imposed a tribute on the Poles, insisted, with all the insolence of an Ottoman and of a conqueror, that the czar should evacuate his several possessions in the Ukraine, but received as haughty a denial. The sultan in his letter treated the sovereign of the Russias only as a Christian gospodin (hospodar), and entitled himself Most Glorious Majesty, King of the World. The czar made answer that he was above submitting to a Mohammedan dog, but that his sabre was as good as the grand seignior’s scimitar.

[1676 A.D.]

Alexis sent ambassadors to the pope, and to almost all the great sovereigns in Europe, except France, which was allied to the Turks, in order to establish a league against the Porte. His ambassadors had no other success at Rome than not being obliged to kiss the pope’s toe; everywhere else they met with nothing but good wishes, the Christian princes being generally prevented by their quarrels and jarring interests from uniting against the common enemy of their religion. Alexis did not live to see the termination of the war with Turkey. His death happened in 1676, in his forty-eighth year, after a reign of thirty-one years.

FEODOR (1676-1682 A.D.)

Alexis was succeeded by his eldest son, Feodor, a youth in his nineteenth year, and of very feeble temperament. The most pressing task that devolved on him was the prosecution of the war with Turkey, which, as far as Russia was interested, had regard chiefly to the question whether the country of the Zaparogian Cossacks should be under the sovereignty of the czar or of the sultan. The contest was terminated, three years after Feodor’s accession, by a treaty which established his right over the disputed territory. Only one other memorable event distinguished his brief reign.

Nothing could equal the care with which the noble families kept the books of their pedigrees, in which were set down not only every one of their ancestors but also the posts and offices which each had held at court, in the army, or in the civil department. Had these genealogies and registers of descent been confined to the purpose of determining the ancestry and relationship of families no objection could be alleged against them. But these books of record were carried to the most absurd abuse, attended with a host of pernicious consequences. If a nobleman were appointed to a post in the army, or at court, or to some civil station, and it appeared that the person to whom he was now subordinate numbered fewer ancestors than he, it was with the utmost difficulty that he could be brought to accept of the office to which he was called. Nay, this folly was carried to still greater lengths: a man would even refuse to take upon him an employ, if thereby he would be subordinate to one whose ancestors had formerly stood in that position towards his own.

It is easy to imagine that a prejudice of this kind must have been productive of the most disagreeable effects, and that discontents, murmurs at slights and trifling neglects, disputes, quarrels, and disorders in the service must have been its natural attendants. It was, therefore, become indispensably necessary that a particular office should be instituted at court in which exact copies of the genealogical tables and service-registers of the noble families were deposited; and this office was incessantly employed in settling the numberless disputes that arose from this inveterate prejudice. Feodor, observing the pernicious effects of this fond conceit—that the father’s capacity must necessarily devolve on the son, and that consequently he ought to inherit his posts—wished to put a stop to it; and with the advice of his sagacious minister, Prince Vasili Galitzin, fell upon the following method. He caused it to be proclaimed that all the families should deliver into court faithful copies of their service-rolls, in order that they might be cleared of a number of errors that had crept into them. This delivery being made, he convoked the great men and the superior clergy before him. In the midst of these heads of the nobles, the patriarch concluded an animated harangue by inveighing against their prerogatives. “They are,” said he, “a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good grain; they have introduced, even into the heart of families, dissensions, confusion, and hatred; but the pontiff comprehends the grand design of his czar. God alone can have inspired it!”

[1682 A.D.]

At these words, and by anticipation, all the grandees blindly hastened to express their approval; and, suddenly, Feodor, whom this generous unanimity seemed to enrapture, arose and proclaimed, in a simulated burst of holy enthusiasm, the abolition of all their hereditary pretensions—“To extinguish even the recollection of them,” said he, “let all the papers relative to those titles be instantly consumed!” And as the fire was ready, he ordered them to be thrown into the flames before the dismayed eyes of the nobles, who strove to conceal their anguish by dastardly acclamations. By way of conclusion to this singular ceremony, the patriarch pronounced an anathema against everyone who should presume to contravene this ordinance of the czar; and the justice of the sentence was ratified by the assembly in a general shout of “Amen!” It was by no means Feodor’s intention to efface nobility; and, accordingly, he ordered new books to be made, in which the noble families were inscribed; but thus was abolished that extremely pernicious custom which made it a disgrace to be under the orders of another if his ancestry did not reach so high, or even—in case of equal pedigree—if a forefather of the commander had once been subordinate in the service to the progenitor of him who was now to acknowledge him for his superior. Feodor died in February, 1682, after a reign of five years and a half, leaving no issue.[h]

FOOTNOTES

[37] There was no patriarch at that time.

[38] Established in 1560. The first book printed in Moscow, The Evangelist, appeared in the month of March, 1564.