The Empire of Russia: From the Remotest Periods to the Present Time

by John S. C. Abbott

The metropolitan bishop, the grand dignitaries of the court, the princes and lords occupied splendid mansions of wood reared by Grecian and Italian architects in the environs of the Kremlin. On wide and beautiful streets there were a large number of very magnificent churches also built of wood. The bazaars or shops, filled with the rich merchandise of Europe and of Asia, were collected in one quarter of the city, and were surrounded by a high stone wall as a protection against the armies, domestic or foreign, which were ever sweeping over the land.

From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, slavery may be said to have been universal in Russia. Absolutely every man but the monarch was a slave. The highest nobles and princes avowed themselves the slaves of the monarch. There was no law but the will of the sovereign. He could deprive any one of property and of life, and there was no power to call him to account but the poignard of the assassin or the sword of rebellion. In like manner the peasant serfs were

slaves of the nobles, with no privileges whatever, except such as the humanity or the selfishness of their lords might grant But gradually custom, controlling public opinion, assumed almost the form of law. The kings established certain rules for the promotion of industry and the regulation of commerce. Merchants and scholars attained a degree of practical independence which was based on indulgence rather than any constitutional right, and, during the reign of Vassili, the law alone could doom the serf to death, and he began to be regarded as a man, as a citizen protected by the laws.[8] From this time we begin to see the progress of humanity and of higher conceptions of social life. It is, perhaps, worthy of record that anciently the peasants or serfs were universally designated by the name smerdi, which simply means smelling offensively. Is the exhalation of an offensive odor the necessary property of a people imbruted by poverty and filth? In America that unpleasant effluvium has generally been considered a peculiarity pertaining to the colored race. Philosophic observation may show that it is a disease, the result of uncleanliness, but, like other diseases, often transmitted from the guilty parent to the unoffending child. We have known white people who were exceedingly offensive in this respect, and colored people who were not so at all.

The pride of illustrious birth was carried to the greatest extreme, and a noble would blush to enter into any friendly relations whatever with a plebeian. The nobles considered all business degrading excepting war, and spent the weary months, when not under arms, in indolence in their castles. The young women of the higher families were in a deplorable state of captivity. Etiquette did not allow them to mingle with society, or even to be seen except by their parents, and they had no employment except sewing or knitting, no mental culture and no sources of amusement. It was not the custom for the young men to choose their wives, but the father of

the maiden selected some eligible match for his daughter, and made propositions to the family of his contemplated son-in-law, stating the dowry he would confer upon the bride, and the parties were frequently married without ever having previously seen each other.

The death of Vassili transmitted the crown to his only son, Ivan, an infant but three years of age. By the will of the dying monarch, the regency, during the minority of the child, was placed in the hands of the youthful mother, the princess Hélène. The brothers of Vassili and twenty nobles of distinction were appointed as counselors for the queen regent. Two men, however, in concert with Hélène, soon took the reins of government into their own hands. One of these was a sturdy, ambitious old noble, Michel Glinsky, an uncle of Hélène; the other was a young and handsome prince, Ivan Telennef, who was suspected of tender liaisons with his royal mistress.

The first act of the new government was to assemble all the higher clergy in the church of the Assumption, where the metropolitan bishop gave his benediction to the child destined to reign over Russia, and who was there declared to be accountable to God only for his actions. At the same time embassadors were sent to all the courts of Europe to announce the death of Vassili and the accession of Ivan IV. to the throne.

But a week passed after these ceremonies ere the prince Youri, one of the brothers of Vassili, was arrested, charged with conspiracy to wrest the crown from his young nephew. He was thrown into prison, where he was left to perish by the slow torture of starvation. This severity excited great terror in Moscow. The Russians, ever strongly attached to their sovereigns, now found themselves under the reign of an oligarchy which they detested. Conspiracies and rumors of conspiracies agitated the court. Many were arrested upon suspicion alone, and, cruelly chained, were thrown into dungeons.

Michel Glinsky, indignant at the shameful intimacy evidently existing between Hélène and Telennef, ventured to remonstrate with the regent boldly and earnestly, assuring her that the eyes of the court were scrutinizing her conduct, and that such vice, disgraceful anywhere, was peculiarly hideous upon a throne, where all looked for examples of virtue. The audacious noble, though president of the council, was immediately arrested under an accusation of treason, and was thrown into a dungeon, where, soon after, he was assassinated. A reign of terror now commenced, and imprisonment and death awaited all those who undertook in any way to thwart the plans of Hélène and Telennef.

André, the youngest of the brothers of Vassili, a man of feeble character, now alone remained of the royal princes at court. He was nominally the tutor of his nephew, the young emperor, Ivan IV., and though a prominent member of the council which Vassili had established, he had no influence in the government which had been grasped so energetically and despotically by Hélène and her paramour Telennef. At length André, trembling for his own life, timidly raised the banners of revolt, and gathered quite an army around him. But he had no energy to conduct a war. He was speedily taken, and, loaded with chains, was thrown into a dungeon, where, after a few weeks of most cruel deprivations, he miserably perished. Thirty of the lords, implicated with him in the rebellion, were hung upon the trees around Novgorod. Many others were put to torture and perished on the rack. Hélène, surrendering herself to the dominion of guilty love, developed the ferocity of a tigress.