Doubtless the Varangian leaders and their military companions, subsequently known as the drujni of the Russian princes, gave to the Slav character love of enterprise and power to initiate—traits which have always distinguished Russian nobles from the peasantry. Again, the “Russkaia Pravda” of the tenth century is contemporary with and akin to “Knut’s Code,” which the English usually, but wrongly, attribute to King Alfred. One other point tells in favour of Scandinavian dominion: the freedom accorded to women and the high position some of them took in the state. But their privileges and influence declined with the ascendency of the Slav, and the seclusion of women in the Asiatic manner subsequently obtained in Moscow and lasted there until the days of Peter the Great.
The Northmen introduced into Russia their system of succession, the odelsret that still prevails in Norway. The descendants of Rurik, with their military comrades, fought against each other for the throne of Kief, or the inheritance of other possessions. As with each succeeding generation the princely family multiplied, the country was rent with dissensions. Now the ruler of Kief, then he of Novgorod became paramount; in 1158 the reigning prince of Vladimir succeeded, and, for the time, Kief became of second importance. The history of Russia during the tenth and succeeding centuries is a story of strife and disaster. Wars, with varying success, against Poles, Swedes, Lithuanians, and the predatory tribes on the south and east; fires, famine, pestilence, succeeded each other and re-occurred. In 1124 Kief, the opulent and sacred city, was destroyed by fire; some years later Novgorod was depopulated by famine; robbers exacted blackmail from voyagers on the great waterways; trade decayed. In 1224 the Russians made common cause with their enemy the Polovtsi to repel an invasion of Tartars; they were beaten and Kief fell—50,000 of its inhabitants being put to the sword. Thirteen years later a second invasion of the Tartars resulted in the fall of Vladimir and the subjection of southern and eastern Russia to Mongol rule. Livonians, Swedes and Danes attacked Novgorod, but were repulsed. Pressed on these sides the Russians could extend only towards the inhospitable north. In these times and with this environment Moscow was founded, and nursed; became a rallying point for the Slav race; grew strong and rich; and, by the genius of its rulers, dominated Russia.
Slowly but surely the Scandinavian element was absorbed; with Ivan I. (1328-1341) the time of transition practically ended. A new policy of aggrandisement was adopted and the Muscovite was evolved from the Slav race. Round Moscow, subject to the Tartar yoke, the people became patient and resigned; born to endure bad fortune, they could profit by good. The princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue, by corruption, by the purchase of consciences, by servility to the Tartar Khans, by perfidy to their equals, by murder and treachery. “Politic and persevering, prudent and pitiless, it is their honour to have created the living germ which became great Russia.”
CHAPTER II
Origin and Early History
“Away in the depths of the primeval forest, where one heard the low chanting of the solitary hermit in his retreat, arises the glorious Kremlin of Moscow town.”
M. Dmitriev.
IT is generally believed that the word Moscow is of Finnish origin; in an old dialect kva means water, the exact significance of Mos is undecided, probably Moskva implies “the-way,” simply—the water-route to some trading point reached by this river from the Volga and Oka. It was the name by which the river was known, and from time immemorial there have been villages on the banks of the stream near the present town of Moscow.
In the ninth century the hill which the Kremlin now covers was virgin forest. According to tradition Bookal, a hermit, was living there in 882, when Oleg, on his return to Novgorod from Kief, paused there and laid the first stone of the city. Sulkhovski, who had access to the archives of Moscow prior to their removal on the French invasion, asserts that there was documentary proof of this then in existence, but his statement lacks confirmation.
The chroniclers make no mention of Moscow until 1147. Between the foundation of the Rurik dynasty and this date the dominion of the Northmen had extended, and, divided and subdivided as generation succeeded generation, was split up into many districts, each ruled by a descendant of Rurik. These princes all claimed kinship, admitted the rights of their elders and the rule of the head of the house in Kief. In addition to the residences of the princes, their drujni, that is “war companions” or friends, had “halls,” and held, subject to their prince, one or more villages. In the twelfth century one Stephen Kutchko had his hall near the Chisty Prud in Moscow, and the villages between the Moskva and the Yauza, with others, were within his lordship.
In 1147 Yuri Dolgoruki, the Prince of Suzdal, in whose country Moscow was situated, agreed to meet his kinsmen Sviatoslaf and Oleg of Novgorod on the banks of the Moskva river, and thither they came with their drujni, and others, all of whom were so sumptuously entertained by Yuri, that the fame of Moscow and of Yuri was noised abroad.