In 1328, upon his return from Sarai, Ivan and the other princes met in Novgorod, for they had to find Alexander. They decided to send envoys to that prince, and say, “The Khan summons thee to judgment; wilt thou suffer for the Russian land like a warrior of Christ, or survive alone, and give the whole Russian land to destruction?” The envoys returned with the declaration that the Pskoff men would not yield Alexander. They had agreed and kissed the cross not to forsake him. He and they would stand or fall in one company. The princes moved now on Pskoff with strong forces. Besides Ivan’s army, he commanded Tver troops with the troops of other princes, and men of Novgorod also. Wishing no harm to Pskoff, he pitched his camp at some distance [[315]]and negotiated. He sent the Novgorod bishop with the Novgorod commander to the prince, and strove to act with kindness. Alexander was moved to tears and answered that he was willing to stand before Uzbek, but the Pskoff men swore that they would not allow him to go from their city. Alexander sent this message from himself: “It is better that I die for all, than that all should perish for me. But ye might defend your own brothers and not yield them to pagans. Ye do just the opposite, and with you ye bring Mongols.”
“It is impossible to take the prince from Pskoff or drive him from the city.” These words were current in the camp of the allies. Ivan knew much more of the true state of affairs than could be gathered from camp reports, or the words of Alexander. He knew that Pskoff hoped to be independent of Novgorod, that it wished for its own prince, and thought that it had one now in Alexander. He knew also that Livonia supported the city in secret, understanding well that if alone it would be weaker and more easily subjected, while Lithuania supported Pskoff openly and roused the city to resistance. Alexander, consciously or not, was the helper of Gedimin. Ivan knew, perhaps, of a treaty made by Pskoff and Alexander with Livonia. “The Germans are near them, and they expect aid from them,” said Ivan in council. It was difficult for him to act. In those straits he remembered that when Yuri, his brother, was struggling with Tver, Maxim, the metropolitan, made peace at the outset. There was still another case, even more memorable. At the time when Dmitri of the Terrible Eyes, intending to war against Yuri, was leading his troops to Nizni, and had reached Vladimir, Pyotr, the bishop, stopped him by refusing to give him his blessing, and Dmitri, after waiting three weeks, returned home without meeting Yuri. Ivan turned now to Feognost, the metropolitan, and begged for his assistance.
Feognost consented immediately, and was ready to utter a curse on the Pskoff prince if he would not stand before Uzbek, and on all the Pskoff people unless they surrendered him. Envoys were sent to the city declaring that unless they submitted an interdict would be issued, and services stopped in the churches. All people would be excommunicated.
“Brothers and friends,” said Alexander to the people, on hearing [[316]]this message, “let your oath to me, and my oath to you lose their value. I will go from your city so that no harm may strike you. I will find refuge with the Germans or in Lithuania,” and he departed. Pskoff then informed Ivan that Alexander was no longer with them, and added: “Pskoff pays thee homage as its Grand Prince.”
Thus Ivan was the first Moscow prince who gave peace to Pskoff in the old fashion, as he would to his own principality. The metropolitan blessed the Pskoff people, and Ivan marched homeward with the princes. After Ivan had reached Moscow, Gedimin proposed that Novgorod should take as prince his son Narimont, and give him Oraihovo and Ladoga, with a part of Karelia, as inheritance. Moscow learned then for the first time that since Ivan had left Pskoff, Alexander had returned, and was prince there, supported by Gedimin. It was not this return alone which roused Novgorod, but the treason of the Pskoff men. The city had accepted Alexander as prince from Lithuania, and were striving now for church separation. When Vassili, the new archbishop, went from Novgorod for ordination, Gedimin of Lithuania and Alexander of Pskoff sent envoys to Feognost, Metropolitan of Russia, then in Volynia. These envoys took with them Arseni to be bishop in Pskoff. Gedimin had given Pskoff a prince in Alexander, and would now give a bishop. Feognost ordained Vassili as Archbishop of Novgorod, but refused to ordain Arseni, and Alexander’s envoys returned without a bishop. Gedimin, enraged by the Novgorod success, and the failure of Arseni, sent men to seize Vassili, but, warned by a messenger from Feognost, he escaped the Lithuanians, and returned in safety to Novgorod.
Alexander managed Pskoff for ten years, while Constantine and Vassili, his brothers, ruled the Tver region,—the first in Tver, the chief city, the second in Kashin in the northern part of the Tver principality. Ivan had reconciled the Tver princes with Uzbek, and as they were friendly and obedient their position was easy. Ivan asked of them only to leave the road free between Moscow and Novgorod,—Tver held the way between those two cities. Vladimir, the capital of the principality, was occupied by Alexander, the Suzdal prince, not as a capital, but as a possession. Ivan lived at all times in Moscow, which had become the real capital of Russia. Uzbek, as stated already, gave him many [[317]]lands in addition, giving Vladimir meanwhile to the Suzdal prince.
Several princes found themselves tied to Ivan through relationship. He gave one of his daughters to Vassili, Prince of Yaroslavl, another to Constantine of Rostoff. Those princes, fearing to disobey their father-in-law, had worked with him loyally thus far.
Besides having the Khan’s confidence, Ivan was strong through the tribute. No other Grand Prince had given the Khan such an income; and no prince held such uncontrolled management of tribute. This gave Ivan unique power and position. Of all princes in that day he was the only one, or at least the only one known to us, who had a fixed object. He took no part in local quarrels in favor of one or another region. He strove for Russia, and when prince only in Moscow he saw all Russia far in the future. This was clearly shown in his every act, not merely in the title which he assumed, “Grand Prince of Moscow and All Russia,” but in his relations with other princes and with Novgorod, and even with Uzbek. To preserve the Russian land in its integrity was, by the very working of fate, to preserve the Khan’s lordship, and support it for a season. There is no doubt that Ivan explained always to Uzbek the harmful growth of Lithuania, and as he himself warred with that power, so he roused Uzbek to war with it. He showed the Khan, too, the immense wealth of Novgorod in the distant lands of the East and the Pechora, to which Novgorod admitted no Grand Prince. Uzbek rewarded and honored his untiring assistant, and Ivan all the more easily reached his object, calling himself with deep reason Grand Prince, not of Moscow alone, but of all Russia.
Throughout his whole reign, Ivan had no personal quarrels; he deprived no prince of his inheritance, he made war on no rival. Still he kept all in obedience. At that epoch Alexander, the Tver prince, was beyond doubt the most important of the princes. Owing to Ivan’s non-interference, Alexander reigned ten years in Pskoff without annoyance; neither with arms nor with words did Ivan disturb him, but he watched Alexander’s connections with Gedimin and with Livonia, and forgot no intrigue of his.
Novgorod, fearing the power of Ivan, sought his good-will, offered friendship, and did not refuse to send Moscow more tribute than it had sent Vladimir. As Prince of Novgorod he might have been satisfied with the tribute, and the honor with [[318]]which Novgorod strove to placate him, but as chief of all Russia he was not content with this; he demanded what the city owed to all Russia. Ivan would never yield to Novgorod when it claimed single ownership of regions beyond the Volok, nor would he pardon its boyars for threatening to favor Lithuania. On those points he warred with the city at all times. During his reign he made Novgorod feel very clearly that he did not ask an extra thousand of grievens to build up Moscow, but that the boundaries fixed from the days of Yuri Dolgoruki, Andrei Bogolyubski, and Big Nest must be given to Vladimir. Besides he showed the Novgorod men that not to their city alone, but to all Russia, was open the road to the whole northern country. And the region beyond the Ural Mountains, the Kamen, as it was then called (beyond the Kamen meant Siberia) was, as Ivan considered it, the property, not of Novgorod alone, but of all Russia. Novgorod, however, insisted most stubbornly that those regions belonged to her exclusively. The Moscow prince would not concede this claim, and watched with the utmost care those relations which then began between Novgorod and Lithuania.