Ivan the Great had already been described in church service as "the ruler and autocrat of all Russia, the new Tsar Constantine [Footnote: The last Cæsar of the Græco-Roman Empire, Constantine XI, had perished in 1453 in vain defense of Constantinople against the Turks. It was a significant fact that the Russian rulers, who owed their Christianity and their nation's culture to the Greeks, should now revive the title of Caesar (Russian form, tsar or czar).] in the new city of Constantine, Moscow." His successors invariably had themselves crowned as tsars and autocrats of all Russia. By military might they maintained their control over the ever-widening territories of the Russian people; with racial pride and religious fervor, the distant emigrants regarded their royal family at Moscow. The power of the tsars kept pace with the expansion of the state.
[Sidenote: Oriental Characteristics of Russia]
Yet this greater Russia remained essentially Oriental. Its form of Christianity was derived from the East rather than from the West. Its social customs savored more of Asia than of Europe. Its nobles and even its tsars were rated by western Christendom as little better than barbarians. In fact, the Russian state was looked upon in the seventeenth century in much the same way as China was regarded in the nineteenth century.
The reasons for this relative backwardness are not hard to ascertain. In the first place, the religion of the state was a direct heritage of the expiring Eastern Empire and was different from either the Catholicism or the Protestantism of western Europe. Secondly, long and close contact with the conquering Mongols or Tatars of Asia had saturated the Russian people with Oriental customs and habits.[Footnote: See above, pp. 21 f.] Thirdly, the nature of the country tended to exalt agriculture and to discourage industry and foreign commerce, and at the same time to turn emigration and expansion eastward rather than westward. Finally, so long as the neighboring western states of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey remained powerful and retained the entire coast of the Baltic and Black seas, Russia was deprived of seaports that would enable her to engage in traffic with western Europe and thus to partake of the common culture of Christendom.
Not until Russia was modernized and westernized, and had made considerable headway against one or all of her western neighbors, could she hope to become a European Power. Not until the accession of the Romanov dynasty did she enter seriously upon this twofold policy.
[Sidenote: The "Troublous Times">[
The direct line of Ivan the Great had died out at the close of the sixteenth century, and there ensued what in Russian history are known as "the troublous times." Disputes over the succession led to a series of civil wars, and the consequent anarchy invited foreign intervention. For a time the Poles harassed the country and even occupied the Kremlin, or citadel, of Moscow. The Swedes, also, took advantage of the troublous times in Russia to enlarge their conquests on the eastern shore of the Baltic and to seize the important trading center of Novgorod. In the south, the Turks warred with the Cossacks and brought many of the Crimean principalities under their control.
[Sidenote: The Accession of the Romanovs, 1613]
Under these discouraging circumstances a great national assembly met at Moscow in 1613 to elect a tsar, and their choice fell upon one of their own number, a certain Michael Romanov, whose family had been connected by marriage ties with the ancient royal line. It is an interesting fact that the present autocrat of Russia is a lineal descendant of the Romanov who was thus popularly elected to supreme authority in 1613.
Michael Romanov proved an excellent choice. Accepted by all classes, he reestablished order and security throughout the country and successfully resisted foreign encroachments. He founded several fortified towns in the south against the Tatars and the Turks. He recovered Novgorod from the Swedes. During the reign of his son, Polish depredations were stopped and the Dnieper River was fixed upon [Footnote: Treaty of Andrussovo (1667), in accordance with which Poland ceded to Russia Kiev, Smolensk, and eastern Ukraine.] as the general dividing line between Poland and Russia.