Iuri Dolgoruki gave form and name to this dominion of the frontier forests, but he spent most of his time and energy upon the conquest of Kief. To his son, Andrei Bogoliubski, was left the care of developing the incipient state, and of indicating in his own character and temper the type of the future rulers of the Russias. Andrei, ill at ease in the cities of the Dnieper, where the freedom of the citizens sometimes conflicted with the will of the princes, withdrew from his palace at Virishegorod and established himself upon the Kliasma, at Vladimir, which he enlarged by a suburb, named from its princely builder, Bogoliuboro. A successful campaign against the Russian Bulgarians, a compulsory alliance of several of the minor princes under his standards, and his destruction of Kief, caused him rightfully to be regarded as the strongest, the foremost of all the princes. After the violation of the mother of Russian cities, he turned his arms against Novgorod the Great, capital of the glorious principality of that name, the state that had chosen and called Rurik, the mighty republic of the north. But the subjugation of this powerful city was another affair from that of Kief. “The Kievans, accustomed to a change of masters, fought only for the honor of their princes,” writes Karamsin, “while the Novgorodians were to shed their blood in defense of the laws, the institutions, the liberties founded for them by their ancestors.” When Mstislaf Andreivitch, captain of the army that had pillaged “the holy city” of Kief, appeared at the gates of the free city of Novgorod, the inhabitants took oath to die for Saint Sophia, the citadel of their faith and their freedom. Their Archbishop, Ivan, bearing aloft an image of the Mother of God, moved at the head of a solemn procession around the ramparts. Tradition tells us that the beloved Ikon, struck by a Suzdalian arrow, turned her face toward her city, and moistened the episcopal vestments with her tears. An ecstasy of rage seized the freemen. A panic smote the besiegers. “Novgorod! Saint Sophia!” a sharp cry rushed as in a whirlwind around the ramparts. The Suzdalians fell as falls the flock of small birds beneath the swoop of the eagle. After the victory, the markets of Novgorod were so crowded with Suzdalian slaves that any number could be bought for a marten’s skin.
Yet in time, even the Novgorodians made terms with their powerful subtle neighbor. Suzdal controlled the Volga, by whose waters came the corn supplies for the great, free city. Its citizens, “of their own free will,” according to the invariable phrasing of their documents, agreed to accept for their prince one of Andrei’s choosing.
The princes of Smolensk had been forced into an alliance with the autocratic Andrei, but chafed under his despotic rigors. The brother princes, Rurik, David, and Mstislaf, disregarding his menaces, possessed themselves of Kief, whither soon came a herald of Andrei, with the message: “You are rebels. The principality of Kief is mine. I order Rurik to return to his patrimony: David shall go to Berlad; and as for Mstislaf, the guiltiest of you all, I will no longer endure his presence in Russia.” Now the chronicles aver that Mstislaf the Brave “had fear of no mortal being: he feared none but God.” He cropped the hair and beard of the herald—a mark of ignominy—and bade him take to Andrei this response: “Up to this time we have respected you as a father; but since you do not blush to treat us shamefully, since you forget that you have to deal with princes, we will pay no heed to your menaces. Execute them if you can. We appeal to the judgment of God.” Twenty vassals of Andrei were sent “to demonstrate the judgment of God” under the walls of Virishegorod. Mstislaf ingeniously succeeded in dividing the assailants, and by a sudden sortie put them to flight.
Andrei so far cast off the Slavic customs of his ancestors as to decline sharing his domains with any of the members of his family, although the testamentary provisions of his father, Iuri, had included these. Iuri’s widow, a Greek princess, with her three remaining sons, was compelled to leave Russia, and take refuge at the court of her kinsmen, the Emperor Manuel. Nor did this first of Russian autocrats adhere to the Variag custom of fellowship with his drujïna. Properly speaking, he had none. His boyars were his subjects, bound to accomplish his will, but never consulted. If they chafed under their servitude, they were banished from the country. Nor did he regard with greater favor the ancient municipal liberties of the great cities; liberties time-honored, and dating back to the original occupancy of the Slav race. The Vetché, or assembly of citizens, he would in no way recognize. His violation of Kief, and his attack upon Novgorod the Great, sufficiently indicated his hostility to their liberal institutions. In like manner Rostof and Suzdal, the two chief cities of his State, were obnoxious to him on account of their Vetché. At the risk of alienating the more powerful of his boyars, he held his residence in the suburb or town of his own founding, alleging a divinely inspired dream and a miraculous interposition as directing him to this spot. He essayed to develop a new Kief out of his city, Vladimir on the Kliasma, by crowding it with monasteries, erecting a golden gate, and a Church of the Tithe, decorated by Byzantine and western artists. Recognizing the priesthood as a strong force in the civilization of a nation, he conferred wealth and honors upon it, and propitiated its favor. He made assumptions of unusual piety; practiced ostentatious vigils, and gave large alms in public. Commemorative feasts were established on the days of his more signal victories; and strenuous efforts were made to procure the religious supremacy of Suzdal, by instituting a Metropolitan at Vladimir. The Patriarch of Constantinople would not consent to this act, but later the Metropolitan for the Russia of the Forests was secured. The designs of Andrei were vast and premature. Ten generations of princes, ruling through four successive centuries, were required for their ultimate accomplishment. He outlined in the twelfth century what was executed in the sixteenth by Ivan the Fourth, the Terrible. Like the despots who were to spring from his loins, he had implacable enemies; and he was overtaken by the fate ever impending over the autocrats of the Orient and of Russia. His boyars, exasperated beyond measure by his iron tyranny, assassinated him in his favorite residence of Bogoliuboro (1174).
[To be continued.]
When a thought presents itself to our minds as a profound discovery, and when we take the trouble to examine it, we often find it to be a truth that all the world knows.—Vauvenargues.