THIRD PERIOD, FROM THE TIME OF IVÁN THE TERRIBLE, 1530, TO THE MIDDLE OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Political events had tended to concentrate absolute power in the hands
of the Grand Princes of Moscow, beginning with Iván III. But no
counterbalancing power had arisen in Russian society; there was no
independent life, no respect for the individual, no public opinion to
counteract the abuse of power. In the beginning of the sixteenth
century, Russian society had reached the extreme limits of development
possible to it under its unfavorable conditions. The time for the
Russian Renaissance had arrived. It is well to remember that at this
time in other parts of Europe also the spirit of despotism and
intolerance was holding individual liberty in check. This was the age of
Henry VIII., of Catherine de Medici, of the Inquisition, and of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
In this century of transition, the sixteenth, the man who exerted over
the spirit of the age more influence than any other was Maxím the Greek
(1480-1556), a learned scholar, a monk of Mt. Athos, educated chiefly in
Italy. He was invited to Russia by Grand Prince Vasíly Ivánovitch, for
the purpose of cataloguing a rich store of Greek manuscripts in the
library of the Grand Prince. To his influence is due one of the most
noteworthy books of the sixteenth century, the "Stogláva," or "Hundred
Chapters," a set of regulations adopted by the young Tzar Iván
Vasílievitch (afterwards known as Iván the Terrible), the son of Vasíly,
and by the most enlightened nobles of his time at a council held in
1551. Their object was to reform the decadent morals of the clergy, and
various ecclesiastical and social disorders, and in particular, the
absolute illiteracy arising from the lack of schools. Another famous
work of the same century is the "Domostróy," or "House-Regulator,"
attributed to Pope (priest) Sylvester, the celebrated confessor and
counselor of Iván the Terrible in his youth. In an introduction and
sixty-three chapters Sylvester sets forth the principles which should
regulate the life of every layman, the management of his household and
family, his relations to his neighbors, his manners in church, his
conduct towards his sovereign and the authorities, his duties towards
his servants and subordinates, and so forth. The most curious part of
the work deals with the minute details of domestic economy--one
injunction being, that all men shall live in accordance with their means
or their salary--and family relations, in the course of which the
position of woman in Russia of the sixteenth century is clearly defined.
This portion is also of interest as the forerunner of a whole series of
articles in Russian literature on women, wherein the latter are depicted
in the most absurd manner, the most gloomy colors--articles known as
"About Evil Women"--and founded on an admiration for Byzantine
asceticism. In his Household Regulations Sylvester thus defines the
duties of woman:
"She goeth to church according to opportunity and the counsel of her
husband. Husbands must instruct their wives with care and judicious
chastisement. If a wife live not according to the precepts of her
husband, her husband must reprove her in private, and after that he hath
so reproved her, he must pardon her, and lay upon her his further
injunctions; but they must not be wroth one with the other.... And only
when wife, son, or daughter accept not reproof shall he flog them with a
whip, but he must not beat them in the presence of people, but in
private; and he shall not strike them on the ear, or in the face, or
under the heart with his fist, nor shall he kick them, or thrash them
with a cudgel, or with any object of iron or wood. But if the fault be
great, then, removing the offender's shirt, he shall beat him (or her)
courteously with a whip," and so forth.
We have seen that Iván IV. (the Terrible) took the initiative in
reforms. After the conquest of Kazán he established many churches in
that territory and elsewhere in Russia, and purchased an immense
quantity of manuscript service-books for their use, many of which turned
out to be utterly useless, on account of the ignorance and carelessness
of the copyists. This circumstance is said to have enforced upon Iván's
attention the advisability of establishing printing-presses in Russia;
though there is reason to believe that Maxím the Greek had, long before,
suggested the idea to the Tzar. Accordingly, the erection of a
printing-house was begun in 1543, but it was only in April, 1563, that
printing could be begun, and in March, 1564, the first book was
completed--The Acts of the Apostles. The first book printed in Slavonic,
however, is the "Októikh," or "Book of the Eight Canonical Tones,"
containing the Hymns for Vespers, Matins, and kindred church services,
which was printed in Cracow seventy years earlier; and thirty years
earlier, Venice was producing printed books in the Slavonic languages,
while even in Lithuania and White Russia printed books were known
earlier than in Moscow. After printing a second book, the "Book of
Hours" (the Tchasoslóff)--also connected with Vespers, Matins, kindred
services, and the Liturgy, in addition--in 1565, the printers, both
Russians, were accused of heresy, of spoiling the book, and were
compelled to flee from Moscow. In 1568 other printers produced in Moscow
the Psalter, and other books. In 1580, in Ostróg, Government of
Volhýnia, in a printing-house founded by Prince Konstantín
Konstantínovitch Ostrózhsky, was printed the famous Ostrózhsky Bible,
which was as handsome as any product of the contemporary press anywhere
in Europe.
Nevertheless, manuscripts continued to circulate side by side with
printed books, even during the reign of Peter the Great.
During the reign of Iván the Terrible, secular literature and authors
from the highest classes of society again made their appearance; in
fact, they had never wholly disappeared during the interval. Iván the
Terrible himself headed the list, and Prince Andréi Mikháilovitch
Kúrbsky was almost his equal in rank, and more than his equal in
importance from a literary point of view. Iván the Terrible's writings
show the influence of his epoch, his oppressed and agitated childhood,
his defective education; and like his character, they are the perfectly
legitimate expression of all that had taken place in the kingdom of
Moscow.
The most striking characteristic of Iván's writings is his malicious,
biting irony, concealed beneath an external aspect of calmness; and it
is most noticeable in his principal works, his "Correspondence with
Prince Kúrbsky," and his "Epistle to Kozmá, Abbot of the
Kiríllo-Byelózersk Monastery." They display him as a very well-read man,
intimately acquainted with the Scriptures, and the translations from the
Fathers of the Church, and the Russian Chronicles, as well as with
general history. Abbot Kozmá had complained to the Tzar concerning the
conduct of certain great nobles who had become inmates of his monastery,
some voluntarily, others by compulsion, as exiles from court, and who
were exerting a pernicious influence over the monks. Iván seized the
opportunity thus presented to him, to pour out all the gall of his irony
on the monks, who had forsaken the lofty, spiritual traditions of the
great holy men of Russia.
Of much greater importance, as illustrating Iván's literary talent, is
his "Correspondence with Prince Kúrbsky" (1563-1579), a warrior of birth
as good as Iván's own, a former favorite of his, who, in 1563, probably
in consequence of the profound change in Iván's conduct, which had taken
place, and weighed so heavily upon the remainder of his reign, fled to
Iván's enemy, the King of Poland. The abuses of confidence and power,
with the final treachery of Priest Sylvester (Iván's adviser in
ecclesiastical affairs), and of Adásheff (his adviser in temporal
matters), had changed the Tzar from a mild, almost benevolent,
sovereign, into a raging despot. On arriving in Poland, Prince Kúrbsky
promptly wrote to Iván announcing his defection, and plainly stating the
reasons therefor. When Iván received this epistle--the first in the
celebrated and valuable historical correspondence which ensued--he
thrust his iron-shod staff through the foot of the bearer, at the bottom
of the Red (or Beautiful) Staircase in the Kremlin, and leaning heavily
upon it, had the letter read to him, the messenger making no sign of his
suffering the while. Kúrbsky asserted the rights of the individual, as
against the sovereign power, and accused Iván of misusing his power.
Iván, on his side, asserted his omnipotent rights, ascribed to his own
credit all the noteworthy events of his reign, accused Kúrbsky of
treason, and demonstrated to the Prince (with abundant Scriptural
quotations), that he had not only ruined his own soul, but also the
souls of his ancestors--a truly Oriental point of view. "If thou art
upright and pious," he writes, "why wert not thou willing to suffer at
the hands of me, thy refractory sovereign lord, and receive from me the
crown of life?... Thou hast destroyed thy soul for the sake of thy body
... and hast waxed wroth not against a man, but against God."
Kúrbsky's letters reveal in him a far more cultivated man, with more
sense of decency and self control, and even elegance of diction, than
the Tzar. He even reproaches the latter, in one letter, for his
ignorance of the proper way to write, and for his lack of culture, and
tells him he ought to be ashamed of himself, comparing the Tzar's
literary style with "the ravings of women," and accusing him of writing
"barbarously."
In addition to these letters, Kúrbsky wrote a remarkable history of Iván
the Terrible's reign, entitled, "A History of the Grand Principality of
Moscow, Concerning the Deeds Which We Have Heard from Trustworthy Men,
and Have also Beheld with Our Own Eyes." It is brought down to the year
1578. This history is important as the first work in Russian literature
in which a completely successful attempt was made to write a fluent
historical narrative (instead of setting forth facts in the style of
the Chronicles), and link facts to preceding facts in logical sequence,
deducing effects from causes.
To the reign of Iván the Terrible belong, also, "A History of the
Kingdom of Kazán," by Priest Ioánn Glazátly; and the "Memoirs of Alexéi
Adásheff"--the most ancient memoirs in the Russian language.
In the mean time, during this same sixteenth century, a new culture was
springing up in southwestern Russia, and in western Russia, then under
the rule of Poland, and under the influence of the Jesuits. Many
Russians had joined the Roman Church, or the "Union" (1596), by which
numerous eastern orthodox along the western frontier acknowledged the
supremacy of the Pope of Rome, on condition of being allowed to retain
their own rites and vernacular in the church services. In the end, they
were gradually deprived of these, almost entirely; and curiously enough,
the solution of this problem has been found, within the last decade, in
the United States, where the immigrant Uniates are returning by the
thousand to the Russian Church. In order to counteract the education and
the wiles of the Jesuits, philanthropic "Brotherhoods" were formed among
the orthodox Christians of southwest Russia, and these brotherhoods
founded schools in which instruction was given in the Greek, Slavonic,
Latin, and Polish languages; and rhetoric, dialectics, poetics,
theology, and many other branches were taught. One of these schools in
Kíeff was presided over by Peter Moghíla (1597-1646), the famous son of
the Voevóda of Wallachia, who was brilliantly educated on the Continent,
and at one time had been in the military service of Poland. Thus he
thoroughly understood the situation when, later on (1625), he became a
monk in the Kíeff Catacombs Monastery, and eventually the archimandrite
or abbot, and devoted his wealth and his life to the dissemination of
education among his fellow-believers of the Orthodox Eastern Catholic
Church. The influence of this man and of his Academy on Russia was
immense. The earliest school-books were here composed. Peter Moghíla's
own "Shorter Catechism" is still referred to. The Slavonic grammar and
lexicon of Lavrénty Zizánie-Tustanóvsky and Melénty Smotrítzky continued
in use until supplanted by those of Lomonósoff one hundred and fifty
years later. The most important factor, next to the foundation of the
famous Academy, was, that towards the middle of the seventeenth century
learned Kievlyanins, like Simeón Polótzky, attained to the highest
ecclesiastical rank in the country, and imported the new ideas in
education, which had been evolved in Kíeff, to Moscow, where they
prepared the first stable foundations for the future sweeping reforms of
Peter the Great.
Literature continued to bear an ecclesiastical imprint; but there were
some works of a different sort. One of the compositions which presents a
picture of life in the seventeenth century--among the higher and
governing classes only, it is true--is Grigóry Kotoshíkin's "Concerning
Russia in the Reign of Alexéi Mikháilovitch." Kotoshíkin was well
qualified to deal with the subject, having been secretary in the foreign
office, and attached to the service of Voevóda (field marshal), Prince
Dolgorúky, in 1666-1667. Among other things, he points out that the
"women of the kingdom of Moscow are illiterate," and deduces the
conclusion that the chief cause of all contemporary troubles in the
kingdom is excessive ignorance. He declares, "We must learn from
foreigners, and send our children abroad for instruction"--precisely
Peter the Great's policy, it will be observed.
Another writer, Yúry Krizhánitz, must have exerted a very considerable
influence upon Peter the Great, as it is known that the latter owned his
work on "The Kingdom of Russia in the Middle of the Seventeenth
Century." This book contains a discussion as to the proper means for
changing the condition of affairs then prevailing; as to the degree in
which foreign influence should be permitted; and precisely what measures
should be adopted to combat this or that social abuse or defect. The
programme of reforms, which he therein laid down, was, to proceed from
the highest source, by administrative process, and without regard to the
opposition of the masses. This programme Peter the Great carried out
most effectually later on.
Battle was also waged with the old order of things in the spiritual
realm by the famous Patriarch Níkon (1605-1681), who, as a peasant lad
of twelve, ran away from his father's house to a monastery. Although
compelled by his parents to return home and to marry, he soon went back
and became a monk in a monastery in the White Sea. Eventually he rose
not only to the highest ecclesiastical post in the kingdom, but became
almost more powerful than the Tzar himself. He may be classed with the
great literary forces of the land, in that he caused the correction of
the Slavonic Church Service-books directly from the Greek originals, and
eliminated from them innumerable and gross errors, which the
carelessness and ignorance of scribes and proof-readers had allowed to
creep into them. The far-reaching effects of this necessary and
important step, the resulting schism in the church, which still endures,
Níkon's quarrels with the Tzar Alexéi Mikháilovitch, Peter the Great's
father, are familiar matters of history; as is also the fact that the
power he won and the course he held were the decisive factors in Peter
the Great's resolve to have no more Patriarchs, and to intrust the
government of the church to a College, now the Most Holy Governing
Synod.
When Níkon passed from power, lesser men took up the battle. Chief among
these was Archimandrite Simeón Polótzky (already mentioned), who lived
from 1626-1681, and was the first learned man to become tutor to a
Tzarévitch. The spirit of the times no longer permitted the heir to the
throne to be taught merely to read and write from the primer, the
Psalter, and the "Book of Hours"; and Alexéi Mikháilovitch appointed
Simeón Polótzky instructor to the Tzarévitch Feódor.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1. What unfavorable conditions do we find in Russian society at
the beginning of the sixteenth century?
2. Who was Maxím the Greek, and what service did he render to
his times?
3. What was the purpose of the "House-Regulator" of Pope
Sylvester?
4. How does he define the duties of woman?
5. What early attempts at printing were made in Russia?
6. What qualities of Iván the Terrible may be seen in his
writings?
7. Describe his correspondence with Prince Kúrbsky.
8. How do Kúrbsky's qualities compare with those of the Tzar,
as shown in this correspondence?
9. Why is Kúrbsky's history of Moscow a remarkable work?
10. What great work was done by Moghíla and his Academy?
11. How did his influence prove very far-reaching?
12. What did other writers of this time say of the need for
better education in Russia?
13. Describe the career of the famous Patriarch Níkon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_History of Russia._ Rambaud, Chapter XV., Iván the Terrible,
also Chapters XVI.-XX.
_The Story of Russia._ W. R. Morfill.