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