[Sidenote: [1584-1682 A.D.]]
Ivan left two sons, Feodor and Dmitri, the first of whom, at twenty-two
years of age, succeeded him. The second, born in 1581, was sprung from
a seventh marriage, contracted by Ivan in contempt of the canons of the
Greek church, which recognises no union as legitimate after the fourth
widowhood. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the right of Dmitri to the
title of czarevitch was not disputed, and he was even regarded as the
presumptive heir to the crown, as the feeble health of Feodor rendered it
extremely probable that he would die without issue.
The character of the new czar contrasted strangely with that of his
father. Gentle and timid as a child, and devout even to superstition,
Feodor spent his days in prayer, or in listening to and commenting
upon pious legends. He was constantly to be seen in the churches, and
he frequently took delight in ringing the bells himself, to call the
faithful to divine service. “He is a sacristan,” said Ivan the Terrible,
“not a czarevitch.” When not engaged in devotional exercises, Feodor
used to shut himself up with his buffoons; or else, from a balcony, he
would watch his huntsmen combating with bears. To a mind so weak, the
cares of government were insupportable; and he therefore lost no time in
transferring them to one of his own favourites, the boyard Boris Godunov,
his brother-in-law. He first bestowed upon him the office of master of
the horse, and attached to that title many important duties and immense
power. Shortly afterwards, by a public confession of his own incapacity,
he appointed him _pravitel_, or regent of the empire.[b]
CHARACTER OF BORIS GODUNOV
From that time on, for eighteen years, the destiny of the Russian
monarchy and people was bound up with the personality of Boris Godunov.
His family traced its origin from the Tatar prince (_mourza_) Tchet,
who in the fourteenth century had been baptised in the horde by
the metropolitan Peter and had settled in Russia under the name of
Zacharias. The Ipatski monastery, erected by him near Kostroma, was
a monument of the piety of the newly baptised Tatar; it became the
holy place of his descendants, who provided for it by their offerings
and were buried there. The grandson of Zacharias, Ivan Godum, was the
forefather of that branch of the family of Prince Tchet which from the
appellation of Godum received the name of Godunov. The posterity of
Godum flourished remarkably; the Godunovs owned estates, but they did
not play an important rôle in Russian history until the time when one
of the great-grandsons of the first Godunov had the honour of becoming
the father-in-law of the czarevitch Feodor Ivanovitch. Then there
appeared at the court of Ivan the Terrible the brother of Feodor’s
wife, Boris, who was married to a daughter of the czar’s favourite,
Maluta Skuratov. Ivan liked him. The exaltation of persons and families
through relationship with the czaritsas was a very ordinary occurrence
in the history of Moscow, but such exaltation was often precarious. The
relatives of Ivan’s wives were destroyed as freely as the other victims
of his bloodthirstiness. Boris himself, by his nearness to the czar,
was in imminent peril, and it is reported that Ivan wounded him badly
with his staff when Boris interceded for the czarevitch Ivan, murdered
by his father. But the czar himself lamented his son and afterwards
showed Boris even greater favour for his boldness, which nevertheless
cost him some months’ illness. But towards the end of his life Ivan,
under the influence of other favourites, began to look askance at Boris,
and perhaps things might have gone badly with Godunov had not Ivan died
suddenly.
After Ivan’s death Boris found himself in a position such as had
never before been occupied by a subject in the empire of Moscow. The
feeble-minded Feodor had become czar, and as he could not in any case
have ruled himself, he was obliged to give up his power to that one among
his immediate entourage who proved himself the most capable and crafty.
Such a one in the court circles of that time was Boris. At the time of
Ivan’s death he was thirty-two years of age; of a handsome presence,
distinguished for his remarkable gift of speech, intelligent, prudent,
but egotistical to a high degree. All his activity was directed to the
serving of his own interests, to his enrichment, to the increase of his
power, to the exaltation of his family. He understood how to wait, to
take advantage of propitious moments, to remain in the shade or advance
to the front when either manœuvre seemed opportune, to put on the mask
of piety and of every virtue, to show kindness and mercy, and where it
was necessary severity and harshness. Ever deliberate, he never gave
way to enthusiastic impulses and always acted with reflection. Like all
such characters, he was ready to do good if good did not stand in the
way of his personal interests; neither did he stop at any wickedness or
crime if he considered it necessary for the furtherance of his personal
advantages, and least of all when it was a question of personal safety.
There was nothing creative in his nature. He was incapable of becoming
the propagator of any idea or the guide of men into new pathways;
egotistical natures are not fitted for such tasks. As regent of the state
he was not far-seeing, but only apprehended proximate circumstances,
and could only take advantage of them for close and pre-eminently
self-centered aims. The lack of a good education still further narrowed
the horizon of his vision, although his strong common sense enabled him
to understand the profitableness of acquaintance with the west for the
furtherance of his power. All the good of which his mind was capable
was frustrated by his narrow egotism and the extraordinary mendacity
that penetrated his whole being and was reflected in all his actions.
This last quality, however, had become a distinguishing characteristic
of the people of Moscow at that period. The seeds of this vice had long
existed, but they were in a very great measure fostered and developed by
the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who was himself falsehood personified.
By creating the _opritchniki_ Ivan had armed the Russians against one
another, and taught them to look for favour or safety in the ruin of
their neighbours; by punishments and executions for imaginary crimes, he
had taught them to give false information; and by perpetrating the most
inhuman villanies for pure diversion, he had educated those around him in
heartlessness and cruelty. Respect for right and morality vanished after
the czar, who according to the national ideal should be the guardian of
both, had organised before the eyes of his subjects such spectacles as
the baiting of innocent persons by bears or the public torture of naked
girls, while at the same time he observed the strictest rules of monastic
piety. In moments of personal danger everyone naturally thinks only of
himself; but when such moments were prolonged for Russians into decades,
it is comprehensible that a generation of self-seeking and hard-hearted
egotists must have arisen, whose whole thought and aspiration were
directed to the preservation of their own safety--a generation for whom,
in spite of the outward observance of the customary forms of piety,
lawfulness, and morality, there remained no inward righteousness. He who
was clever beyond the average, was bound to become a model of falsity;
it was an epoch when the mind, rivetted in the narrow fetters of the
self-interested motives inherent in the whole contemporary sphere of
existence, could only show its activity in the attainment of its personal
aims by means of deceit. Desperate diseases of human society, like
physical illnesses, are not quickly cured when the general conditions
of life contribute not to the cessation but rather to the prolongation
of the unhealthy state; the terrible phenomena of the “troubled times”
can be explained only as the outbreaking of the hidden corruptions
accumulated during the awful period of the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible.
The mendacity which constituted a feature of the period is powerfully
reflected in the contemporary Russian sources of information, and it
would be easy to fall into error and inaccurate inferences if we were
to trust to them and accept their guidance; fortunately the evident
contradictions and absurdities into which they fall sufficiently testify
to their untruthfulness.[c]
WAR WITH SWEDEN
[Sidenote: [1590 A.D.]]
Russia boasted of her power, having in reality the largest army in
Europe, yet a part of old Russia was in Sweden’s power. The peace
concluded with King John expired at the beginning of the year 1590. The
second interview with the ambassadors on the borders of the Plusa was
fruitless, the Swedes having refused to restore their conquests. Under
such circumstances no understanding could be arrived at. Sweden proposed
a mere exchange, giving up Koporie for Sumersk on the banks of the Neva.
John complained that the Russians annoyed Finland by incursions, ravaging
the land like tigers. Feodor reproached the voyevods for their brigandage
in the Zaonega, Olonetz, Ladoga, and Dvina countries. During the summer
of 1589 they came from Caianie to pillage the lands belonging to the
convents of Sklovetzk, Petchensk, Kola, Kereta, and Kovda, seizing as
booty more than half a million of silver roubles in cash. In engaging
the king to make concessions, the czar spoke to him of his great allies,
the emperor and the shah. But John answered ironically: “I am delighted
to see you now know your weakness and wait for help from others. We
shall see what kind of aid our relation Rudolph will give you. As for
ourselves, we do not need allies to finish you off.” Notwithstanding this
insolence, John asked for a third interview with the ambassadors. But
Feodor declared to him that neither peace nor a truce was wanted unless
the Swedes would yield, besides the lands belonging to Novgorod which
they had invaded, Revel and all Esthonia. In short, Russia declared war.
Up to that time, Godunov had only shone by his genius in interior and
exterior politics. Always prudent and inclined to peace, not warlike nor
aspiring to glory through arms, he yet wished to prove that his love of
peace did not arise from cowardice on this occasion when, without being
ashamed or failing in the sacred use of power, bloodshed could not be
avoided. To fulfil this duty he employed every means necessary to ensure
success. He put on the field (if one can credit official documents of the
time) nearly three hundred thousand fighters, infantry and cavalry, with
three hundred pieces of artillery. All the boyars, all the czarevitches
(Muhammed, Koul of Siberia, Rouslanei son of Kaiboula, and Ouraze Magmet
of the Kirghiz), the voyevods of countries near and far, towns and
hamlets where they lived in quiet, were obliged to be at a certain time
under the royal flag; for the pacific Feodor, having left--not without
regret--his religious occupations, himself headed his army. This was just
what Godunov needed to animate the troops and hinder senseless disputes
among the principal dignitaries concerning ancient lineage and precedence.
[Illustration: ESTHONIAN GIRL]
Prince Feodor Mstislavski commanded the grand army; the advance guard
was under Prince Dmitri Khvorostinin, a voyevod distinguished for
talent and courage. Godunov and Feodor Romanov-Turiev (descended from
the illustrious Philarete), the czar’s second cousin, were combined
with him under the title court voyevods. The czarina Irene followed
her husband from Moscow as far as Novgorod, where the monarch assigned
the destination of the troops. He ordered some to march to Flanders
beyond the Neva; others to Esthonia as far as the coast; he himself at
the head of the principal army set out on the 18th of January, 1590,
against Narva. It was a hard campaign on account of the severe cold,
but distinguished by the zeal of the troops. The Russians marched to
retake what was theirs, and, on the 27th of January, seized Jama. Twenty
thousand Swedes, as many cavalry as infantry, commanded by Gustav Banér,
met Prince Dmitri Khvorostinin near Narva, but were defeated and driven
back into the town, which was full of people but destitute of provisions.
That was why Banér, having left the necessary number of soldiers in the
fortress, fled during the night and went to Vesemberg, pursued by the
Russian Asiatic cavalry, and left all his baggage and artillery. Among
the prisoners were several Swedes of distinction.
On the 4th of February the Russians besieged Narva, and having managed
by a vigourous bombardment to make three breaches demanded a submission.
The commander, Charles Horn, called them on to the assault and valiantly
repulsed the enemy. The voyevods Saburov and Prince Ivan Tokmakov, as
well as certain boyar children, Strelitz, and Mordiren, and Tcherckess
women and soldiers perished in the breach. Nevertheless, this affair,
however brilliant for the Swedes, could not save the town: the cannonade
did not cease; walls were tottering and the Russian troops prepared
for a new assault on the 21st of February. Even at this epoch the
Russians ravaged Esthonia without opposition as far as Revel, and in
Finland as far as the Åbo, for King John had more pride than forces.
Then negotiations were opened. Russia demanded Narva and all Esthonia
in return for peace from the Swedes; but the czar, “yielding to the
Christian insistence of Godunov,” as it is said in official documents,
contented himself with re-establishing the former frontier.
On the 22nd of February Horn, in the king’s name, concluded a peace for
one year, yielding the czar Jama, Ivangorod, and Koporie, with all stores
and war ammunition. It was agreed to fix the fate of Esthonia at a nearby
meeting of Russians and Swedes, by promising to yield to Russia even
Karelia, Narva, and other Esthonian towns. Russia gained in glory by her
moderation. Feodor, after leaving the voyevods in the three fortresses
taken, hastened to return to Novgorod and his wife, and go thence with
her to Moscow to celebrate a victory over those same European powers with
which his father, doubtful of his military skill, had warned him not
to engage. The clergy, headed by the cross, came to meet the sovereign
outside the town; and the metropolitan, Job, in a pompous discourse
compared him to Constantine the Great and Vladimir, according him thanks
in the name of country and church for having driven the infidels from the
heart of Holy Russia, also for having re-established the altars of the
true God in the town of Ivan III and in the old Slav possessions of Ilmen.
Soon Swedish perfidy gave new and important success to the arms of the
pacific Feodor. King John, accusing Horn of cowardice, declared that the
convention signed by him was incriminating. He reinforced his troops in
Esthonia, and sent two seigneurs, lieutenants from Upsala and Vestergöt,
to the mouths of the Plusa, there to have an interview with Prince Feodor
Mstislavski and a member of the Pissemski council, not to give Esthonia
to Russia, but to exact that Jama, Ivangorod, and Koporie should be
returned. At this news not only Feodor’s ambassadors but even the Swiss
soldiers showed their discontent. Ranged on the other side of the Plusa
they called on the Russians, but Russia desired no more slaughter, and
they forced their plenipotentiaries to forego their pretentions, so that
nothing but peace was sought and they ended by consenting to yield all
Karelia to Russia. But she insisted on having Narva, and the ambassadors
separated.
That same night the Swiss general, Joran Boyé, treacherously besieged
Ivangorod whilst the terms of the Narva convention had not yet expired.
But the intrepid voyevod Ivan Saburov completely defeated by a vigourous
sortie not only General Boyé but the duke of Sudermania joined with him.
The principal Moscow army was at Novgorod but was not in time to help.
They found the fortress already delivered and saw only from a distance
the enemy fleeing.[d]
SERFDOM
It was Boris Godunov, to whom his contemporaries give the title
Lieutenant of the Empire, who in reality introduced into it the
attachment of serfs to the soil. Up till then the peasants, using and
abusing the faculty of passing from one estate to another, had changed
masters on every occasion; and many were the inconveniences which
resulted, notably this that they accustomed themselves to no given
situation with its climate, men, and accessories, were not attached
to the ground, and remained strangers to the locality they inhabited.
Boris was besieged with the landowners’ complaints on this subject, and
saw, besides, that the cultivators themselves, frequently deceived in
their hope of finding a better landlord, would then abandon themselves
to discouragement; and this engendered poverty, increased the number of
vagabonds and the lowest classes, and caused numerous habitations, well
suited to shelter field-labourers, to be deserted, become dilapidated,
and fall into ruin. Boris had favoured agriculture by releasing the
peasants on the czar’s estates, and perhaps those on his own, from the
tax. His intentions were doubtless benevolent: his aim was to unite
the labourers and the landlords as by a family tie, and to augment
the well-being of both, by establishing between them an indissoluble
community of interest to their mutual advantage. It was in this hope that
he instituted the law of 1592 or 1593, by which the peasant’s undisputed
right to liberty of removal (_vykhod_) was suppressed.
We may, however, believe that Boris had still another motive. In a
country of the extent of Russia and administered as she was, the
government had some difficulty in keeping up direct relations with
the peasants who were bound to pay it the tax and to provide for the
recruiting of the army, which had recently been transformed like the
rest. The government was then very glad to avail itself of the nobles as
intermediaries and enlightened executors of its orders. Consequently it
made them its delegates for the administration and police, an arrangement
which simplified the machinery; and the nobles, acting in their own most
apparent interests, must have afterwards pushed matters to extremes.
However that may be, the peasants were now inscribed in review books
and forbidden to go away from their commune except by the authority of
their lord. In spite of the discontent which this measure produced, it
was further strengthened by the ukase of the 21st of November, 1597,
relative to fugitive peasants, of which there were a great number in
consequence of these legal prescriptions, so evidently contrary to the
temperament and genius of the nations. Those who had hired themselves out
for a certain time were forbidden to redeem themselves from the effects
of this new _régime_, even by reimbursing the sum stipulated as the price
of hire. What was more, these peasants who had disposed of their persons
by contract were not the only ones affected by these laws of oppression:
they touched even the freemen who, without having signed any engagement,
happened to be in the service of the landlords. If they had been there
for more than three months, they were obliged to remain permanently, and
where their time of service was not so long all they gained was the power
of choosing between the last lord and another, but always renouncing the
right of being their own masters. A new ukase ordained that all boyars,
princes, nobles, the military and legal classes, etc., should present, on
account of the individuals in their service, present or in the course of
flight, their letters of serfdom, in order to have them inscribed in the
registers of the chamber for the regulation of serfs.
The measure once taken, Godunov, who wished to be agreeable to the
mass of the rural proprietors, gave it all the extension possible;
still, at the same time he declared the emancipated to be free forever,
as well as their wives and their children; this last, however, was a
very feeble amelioration of an evidently iniquitous law, which did not
fail to produce extreme indignation in the whole rural population. In
various places the peasants protested by flight against the tyranny
exercised over them by a power whose despotism had never gone so far.
Want was doubtless not long in bringing the greater part back to their
abandoned homes, or they were constrained to return by armed force; but
St. George’s day, the date when this law of enslavement was put into
execution, was graven in their memories as a day of ill-omen; the people
have never pardoned it for its disgrace and will perhaps continue to
curse it, although the day of reparation is come at last. But the peasant
was not the only one to suffer; the great number of men in flight gave
occasion to a thousand ruinous suits between landowners; they accused
each other of offering an asylum to the fugitives and of keeping them
in concealment. The evil was so great, says the historian upon whose
narratives ours is based, that Boris, though unwilling to abolish a law
passed from good motives, decided at least to declare that it should
be only temporary, and, by an ukase of the 21st of November, 1601, he
authorised the peasants of boyars’ children, and of other nobles of the
secondary classes, to return, within a fixed period, from one proprietor
to another of the same rank; not more than two at a time, however, and
exception being made of the Moscow district. On the other hand, he
ordered the peasants belonging to the boyars and other great nobles, and
those of the crown, the bishoprics, and the convents, not to stir during
this same year 1601, but to remain in their respective habitations.
Karamzin adds that the sensation produced by all this was such that
Boris was personally affected by it. It is asserted, he says, that the
abolition of the old _régime_ and the uncertainty of the new, a source
of discontent to so many, exercised a great influence over the fate of
the unfortunate Godunov. In the end he seems to have left the matter
in suspense, and it was Prince Chuïski who, raised to the throne under
the name of Vasili (V) Ivanovitch, consummated the social revolution
we are speaking of, by his ukase of the 9th of March, 1607, confirming
that of 1593 and, in addition, laying down the penalties to be inflicted
on whoever should give asylum to the fugitives. The lot was cast--the
peasant had lapsed into a serf attached to the soil.[e]
DEATH OF DMITRI (1591 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1591 A.D.]]
Boris desired above all things to be feared, but he did not disdain a
certain amount of popularity for his family; and he left no means untried
to render his sister Irene dear to the Russian people. All rigorous
measures were executed in the name of the czar, and by order of the
regent; but acts of clemency and favours of every kind were ascribed to
the intercession of the czarina Irene, who, indeed, was always a docile
instrument in the hands of her brother. She acted and thought only in
obedience to his inspirations, blending with great simplicity of heart
her respect and admiration of Boris with the passionate love which she
felt for Feodor.
The intimidated boyars were reduced to silence. Dmitri, still a child,
could cause no apprehension; but his mother, the czarina-dowager, Maria
Feodorovna, and his three uncles, Michael, Gregory, and Andrew Nagoi,
might perhaps attempt to avail themselves of their alliance with the
reigning family. Boris therefore banished them to the town of Uglitch,
which had been assigned as an appanage to young Dmitri by the will of
Ivan; and, under the pretext of intrusting them with the education of the
czarevitch, he kept them there in a kind of exile.
At Uglitch, in 1591, Dmitri, at ten years of age, had his little
court--his _jiltsy_ (children brought up with the young princes), and
his great officers, among whom the regent had doubtless introduced
many a spy. The pensions of the young prince and his family were paid
and controlled by a _deak_, or secretary of chancery, named Michael
Bitiagovski, a creature of Boris; and between this functionary and
the Nagoi there naturally arose frequent discussions, which increased
in bitterness from day to day. Strong in the authority with which the
regent had invested him, the secretary delighted to cavil at all the
pretensions of the family of the czarevitch. It seemed his constant aim,
by the incessant renewal of petty vexations, to make them feel that their
fortune had greatly declined since the death of Ivan the Terrible. To
the complaints which they laid before the czar, Bitiagovski replied by
denouncing any imprudent expressions that might have escaped from the
Nagoi during their exile. If we may believe the report of the secretary
of chancery, the czarevitch already exhibited the ferocious instincts and
cruel tastes of his father. He took pleasure in nothing, it was said, but
in seeing animals beaten, or else in mutilating them with a refinement of
barbarity. It is related that, one winter’s day, when playing with some
children of his own age, he constructed several figures of men out of the
snow in the courtyard of his palace. To each of these he gave the name of
one of the great functionaries of the empire; and the largest of all he
called Boris. Then seizing a wooden sabre, he knocked off either their
arms or their heads. “When I am a man,” said the child, “that is how I
will treat them.” These and similar anecdotes were carefully collected
and commented upon at Moscow. Perhaps they may have been invented by
the agents of Boris, in order to render the Nagoi odious to the Russian
nobility; or perhaps, educated as he was by servants and courtiers in
disgrace, the young prince repeated only too faithfully the lessons which
he was taught.
The hopes and fears occasioned by his education were, however, speedily
dissipated by the sudden death of Dmitri. His end was strange, and it
is difficult to say whether it was the result of an accident or of a
crime. On the 15th of May, 1591, the czarevitch, whom his mother had just
left for a moment, was amusing himself with four children, his pages or
_jiltsy_, in the courtyard of his palace--a spacious enclosure which
contained several separate dwelling houses, built irregularly in various
parts. He was still attended by Vasilissa Volokhov his governess, his
nurse, and a chambermaid. It is probable that they may have lost sight
of him for a moment. According to the unanimous testimony of the three
women and of the pages, he was holding a knife, which he was amusing
himself by sticking into the ground, or with which he was cutting a piece
of wood. On a sudden, the nurse looked around, and saw him weltering in
his blood. He had a large wound in his throat, and he expired without
uttering a word. On hearing the cries of the nurse, the czarina ran up,
and in the first transports of her despair exclaimed that her son had
been assassinated. She flew upon the governess, whose duty it was to
take care of him, and beat her furiously with a heavy stick, accusing
her of having admitted the murderers who had just slain her son. At the
same time, as her thoughts doubtless turned to her recent quarrels with
Bitiagovski, she invoked upon that man the vengeance of her brothers and
of the servants of her household.
Michael Nagoi now came up, having just left the dinner table, in a state
of intoxication, according to the testimony of several witnesses; in his
turn he began to beat the poor governess, and ordered that the alarm bell
should be rung at the church of the Saviour, which stood near the palace.
In an instant the courtyard was filled with inhabitants of Uglitch and
domestics, who ran up with pitchforks and hatchets, believing that the
palace of the czarevitch was on fire. With them arrived Bitiagovski,
accompanied by his son and by the gentlemen employed in his chancery. He
endeavoured to speak, to appease the tumult, and cried out at once that
the child had killed himself by falling on his knife in an epileptic
fit, from which it was well known that he frequently suffered. “Behold
the murderer!” exclaimed the czarina. A hundred arms were immediately
raised to strike him. He fled into one of the houses in the enclosure,
and barricaded the door; but it was soon burst open, and he was cut to
pieces. His son was slain at the same time. Whoever raised his voice in
his defence, whoever was known to be connected with him, was immediately
struck down and put to death. The governess Vasilissa, covered with blood
and half-killed by the blows she had received, lay on the ground near the
czarina, bareheaded, and with dishevelled hair; for the servants of the
Nagoi had taken off her cap--which was considered by the Russians, at
this period, a more infamous outrage even than blows. One of her serfs,
compassionating her disgrace, picked up her cap, and replaced it on her
head; he was instantly massacred. The furious crowd, still pursuing
and murdering those who were pointed out to its vengeance, carried the
bleeding body of the czarevitch into the church. Thither they dragged
Daniel Volokhov, the son of the governess, who was known to be intimate
with Bitiagovski. This was enough to procure his condemnation as an
accomplice in the crime; and he was immediately put to death before the
eyes of his mother, in front of the body of the young prince. It was
with great difficulty that the priests of the church of the Saviour
rescued Vasilissa and the daughters of Bitiagovski from the hands of the
multitude. All these women, however, were shut up in one of the buildings
adjoining the cathedral; and guards were placed at all the approaches.[b]
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.)
[Sidenote: [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.
[Illustration: BORIS GODUNOV, IN RETIREMENT AT THE MONASTERY, INTREATED
TO ACCEPT HIS ELECTION AS CZAR
(Painted for the HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Thure de Thulstrup)]
For three years a famine fell upon Russia, paralysing the efforts of
industry, and spreading misery and distress over the whole empire.
Throughout the whole of this calamitous period, Boris incessantly
employed himself in devising modes of relief, and levying from the
surplus funds of the rich a treasury of alms to alleviate the wants of
the poor. Out of his own abundant coffers he daily distributed several
thousand rubles, and he forced the nobility and the clergy, who, with
a grasping avariciousness, kept aloof from the miseries that surrounded
them, to open their granaries, and to sell him their stores of corn
at half price, that he might distribute it gratuitously amongst the
impoverished people. These exactions depressed the wealthy, and won the
gratitude of the needy; but still they were insufficient to meet the
whole demand of poverty. Great numbers died, and Boris, unable to provide
sustenance for them while living, caused them to be buried with respect,
furnishing to each corpse a suit of linen grave-clothes.
These benevolent exertions of Boris were viewed with distrust and malice
by the nobility, who clearly enough discerned the policy that lay at the
bottom. Their murmurs arose in private, and gradually assumed a sterner
expression in public. At the feasts, and even in the court itself,
the signs and words of disaffection could not be misunderstood. The
insecurity of his position urged Boris to protect himself by a machinery
of terror. Into a small space of time he crowded a number of executions,
and consigned several of the discontented grandees to imprisonment and
exile. His alarm magnified his danger, and supplied him with expedients
of cruelty. At his own banquets he did not hesitate to rise up and
denounce particular individuals, who were immediately seized upon by his
adherents, and either put to death or cast into dungeons, or banished,
and their properties confiscated to the state. Despotism penetrated to
all classes; the peasantry, bound to the soil, were further oppressed by
penal laws.
Amongst other sanguinary provisions, it was enacted that all the
individuals of a family were held to be involved in the punishment of
a single member. It was also declared that every Russian who passed
beyond the frontiers was a rebel to his country and a heretic. A father
was invested with all the powers of a despot in his hut, and allowed to
inflict summary punishment upon his wife and children, the latter of whom
he was permitted to sell four times; and this regulation was annulled
only by the bondage to the fief, which substituted a worse tyranny for
the domestic slavery. The merciless rule of Boris may be regarded as
the consequence of his situation, which exposed him to hazards from
which he could not escape except by some such decisive and terrible
measures. The iron sway pressed down the expiring spirit of licentious
freedom. The wandering minstrels who had hitherto travelled through the
country, perpetuating in their songs the historical glories of Russia,
and inspiring the people with proud sentiments of national emulation,
disappeared. The metrical chronicles perished in the general dismay.
The immediate result of this struggle to preserve the object of his
guilty ambition was an extensive emigration of the peasantry, who fled
from the scene of misery to embrace the wild freedom of the Cossacks or
seek protection from the king of Poland; and an atrocious _jacquerie_
succeeded, which was, for a short time, triumphant.[g]
Never had the government of Boris met with fewer obstacles; never had
the authority of a czar appeared more firmly established. At peace with
foreign powers, and quietly watching the conflicts of his neighbours,
he applied himself to the task of civilising his people, of encouraging
commerce, and of establishing an exact system of police in all the
provinces of his empire. Every one of his acts was received with
submission and executed with alacrity; but, nevertheless, all minds were
agitated by a secret disquietude. The czar could not conceal from himself
the aversion with which he was regarded by the Russians; all classes,
nobles and serfs, alike detested him. He saw all his intentions, all his
decrees interpreted as violations of the laws of the country. At this
period of benighted ignorance the Russians, even of the higher classes,
regarded foreigners with a kind of superstitious horror. They made no
difference between a foreigner and an infidel, and applied the name of
“pagan” indiscriminately to the idolatrous Tcheremiss, the Mussulman
Tatar, and the Lutheran or Catholic German. Love of their country, or,
to speak more correctly, of their native soil, was confounded by them
with their attachment to their national religion. They called themselves
the “orthodox people,” and their country Holy Russia. Elsewhere than
in that privileged land it was impossible, they believed, to obtain
salvation. The early troubles of the Reformation in Germany had brought
into Russia a large number of poor adventurers, who had sought to turn
their superior knowledge to account. The people were not slow to perceive
the pre-eminence of these foreigners in the arts and industry, but they
only detested them the more on this account. The Germans were continually
charged by the vulgar herd with a desire to corrupt the national faith,
and to appropriate to themselves the wealth of the country. Boris,
indeed, flattered them and invited them into his dominions, feeling
that he had need of them to guide his subjects towards a higher stage
of civilisation. But the commercial privileges and facilities which he
granted to Livonian and German merchants only served as a pretext to the
most terrible accusation which could be brought against a sovereign--that
of betraying his country and his religion. He sent eighteen young
gentlemen to study in Germany, France, and England; their families
lamented them as doomed victims. On either side of the frontier all
contact with foreigners was deemed a pollution.[b]
_The False Dmitri Appears_
[Sidenote: [1603 A.D.]]
[Illustration: A FEMALE OSTIAK]
Suddenly, a surprising rumour was brought from the frontiers of
Lithuania, and spread with incredible rapidity through all the provinces
of the empire. The czarevitch Dmitri, who was believed to have been
assassinated at Uglitch, was still living in Poland. Having been
favourably received by a palatine, he had made himself known to the
principal nobles of the republic, and was preparing to reclaim his
hereditary throne. It was related that he had wandered for some time
in Russia, concealed beneath the frock of a monk. The archimandrite of
the convent of the Saviour at Novgorod Seversk had given him a lodging
without recognising him. The prince had proceeded thence to Kiev, leaving
in his cell a note, in which he declared that he was Dmitri, the son of
Ivan the Terrible, and that he would one day recompense the hospitality
of the archimandrite. On the other hand it was stated that the persons
worthy of belief had seen the czarevitch among the Zaparogian Cossacks,
taking part in their military expeditions and distinguishing himself
by his courage and address in all warlike exercises. The name of the
ataman under whose orders he had enrolled himself was also given. Other
authorities declared that they had seen the same person at the same time
studying Latin at Huszcza, a small town in Volhinia. Though reports were
contradictory as to details, they all agreed on this one point--that
Dmitri was still living, and that he intended to call the usurper to
account for all his crimes.[b]
Who was the personage whom the Russian historians have called the “false
Dmitri.” Was he really the son of Ivan the Terrible, saved by the
foresight of the Nogai from the assassins’ knife and replaced in the
coffin, as he related, by the son of a pope (Russian parish priest)?
Was he, as the czar and the patriarch proclaimed him, a certain Gregori
Otrepiev, a vagabond monk who was for a time secretary to the patriarch
Job and was thus enabled to surprise state secrets--who in his nomadic
life afterwards appeared amongst the Zaparogians, where he is said to
have become an accomplished rider and an intrepid Cossack? To all these
questions, in the present state of our information, no absolutely certain
answer can be given. Kostomarov compared the handwriting of the pretender
with that of the monk Otrepiev and affirms that they do not resemble each
other. Captain Margeret knew people who conversed with Otrepiev after the
pretender’s death. Not to prejudge the solution we will give this last
not the name of Dmitri but that of Demetrius, with which he signed his
letters to the pope.
About the year 1603 a young man entered the service of the Polish _pan_,
Adam Vichnevetski. He fell or feigned to fall ill, sent for a Catholic
priest, and under the seal of professional secrecy revealed to him
that he was the czarevitch Dmitri, who had escaped from the assassins
of Uglitch. He showed, suspended from his neck, a cross enriched with
precious stones, which he asserted that he had received from Prince
Mstislavski, the godfather of Dmitri. The priest dared not keep such a
secret to himself. Demetrius was recognised by his master Vichnevetski as
the legitimate heir of Ivan the Terrible. Mniszek, palatine of Sandomir,
promised him his help. Demetrius had already fallen in love with Marina,
the eldest daughter of Mniszek, and swore to make her czarina of Moscow;
the father and the young girl accepted the proposal of marriage.
Meantime the strange tidings of the resuscitation of Dmitri spread
through the whole kingdom of Poland. Mniszek and Vichnevetski conducted
Demetrius to Cracow and presented him to the king. The papal nuncio
interested himself in his behalf; the Jesuits and Franciscans worked in
concert for his conversion; in secret he abjured orthodoxy and promised
to bring Moscow within the pale of the Roman church. He corresponded with
Clement VIII whose least servant, _infimus cliens_, he declared himself
to be. Thus he was recognised by the king, the nuncio, the Jesuits, and
the pope. Did they really believe in his legitimacy? It is probable
that they saw in him a formidable instrument of disturbance; the king
flattered himself that he would be able to turn it against Russia and
the Jesuits--that they might use it against orthodoxy. Sigismund dared
not take upon himself to break the truce concluded with Boris and expose
himself to Muscovite vengeance. He treated Demetrius as czarevitch, but
only in private; he refused to place the royal troops at his disposal,
but authorised the nobles who were touched by the misfortunes of the
young prince to aid him as they might desire.
The pans had no need of a royal authorisation; many of them, with the
light-heartedness and love of adventure which characterised the Polish
nobility, took arms.
[Sidenote: [1604-1605 A.D.]]
No revolution, be it the wisest and most necessary, is accomplished
without setting in motion the dregs of society, without coming into
collision with many interests and creating a multitude of outcasts. The
transformation then being accomplished in Russia for the creation of
the modern unitary state had awakened formidable elements of disorder.
The peasant, whom the laws of Boris had just attached to the glebe, was
everywhere covertly hostile. The petty nobility, to whose profit this
innovation had been made, could only with great difficulty live by their
estates: the czar’s service had become ruinous; many were inclined to
make up for the inadequacy of their revenues by brigandage. The boyars
and the higher nobility were profoundly demoralised and were ready for
any treason. The military republics of the Cossacks of the Don and
Dnieper, the bands of serfs or fugitive peasants which infested the
country districts, were only waiting an opportunity to devastate Moscow.
The ignorance of the masses was profound, their minds greedy of marvels
and of change: no nation has allowed itself to be so often captured by
the same fable--the sudden reappearance of a prince believed to be dead.
The archives of the secret chancery show us that there were in Russia,
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hundreds of impostors,
of false Dmitris, false Alexises, false Peters II, false Peters III. It
might be thought that the Russian people, the most Asiatic of European
peoples, had not renounced the oriental dogma of reincarnations and
_avatars_.
So long as power was in the hands of the skilful and energetic Godunov,
he succeeded in maintaining order, in restraining the fomenters of
disturbance, and in discouraging Demetrius. The patriarch Job, and Vasili
Shuiski, who had directed the inquiry at Uglitch, made proclamations
to the people and affirmed that Dmitri was indeed dead and that the
pretender was no other than Otrepiev. Messengers were despatched bearing
the same affirmations to the king and the diet of Poland. Finally troops
were set on foot and a cordon was established along the western frontier.
But already the towns of Severia were agitated by the approach of the
czarevitch; the boyars ventured to say publicly that it was “difficult to
bear arms against a legitimate sovereign”; at Moscow the health of the
czar Dmitri was drunk at festive gatherings. In October, 1604, Demetrius
crossed the frontier with a host of Poles, and banished Russians,
German mercenaries, and Zaparogians. Severia immediately broke out into
insurrection, but Novgorod Seversk resisted. After Severia, the towns of
Ukraine joined in defection. Prince Mstislavski tried to arrest Demetrius
by giving battle; but his soldiers were seized with the idea that the man
against whom they were fighting was the real Dmitri. “They had no arms
to strike with,” says Margeret. Twelve thousand Little-Russian Cossacks
hastened to join the pretender’s standard. Vasili Shuiski, the successor
of Mstislavski, did his best to restore their _morale_; this time
Demetrius was vanquished at Dobrinitchi. Boris fancied that the war was
ended: it was only beginning. Four thousand Don Cossacks came to join the
brigand. The inaction of the Muscovite voyevods announced that the spirit
of treason was gaining the higher nobility.
In 1605 Boris died, after recommending his innocent son to Basmanov, the
boyars, the patriarch, and the people of Moscow. All took the oath to
Feodor Borissovitch. But Basmanov had no sooner taken command of the army
of Severia than he was in a position to convince himself that neither the
soldiers nor their leaders intended to fight for a Godunov. Rather than
be the victim of an act of treason he preferred to be its perpetrator;
the man in whom the dying Boris had placed all his confidence joined
Galitzin and Soltikov, the secret partisans of Demetrius. He solemnly
announced to the troops that the latter was indeed the son of Ivan the
Terrible and the legitimate master of Russia; he was the first to throw
himself at the feet of the pretender, who was immediately proclaimed by
the troops. Demetrius marched on Moscow. At his approach his partisans
rose: the son and the wife of Godunov were massacred. Such was the
sanguinary end of the dynasty which Boris had thought to found in the
blood of a czarevitch.
Let us bear in mind that in 1586 had appeared the narrative of Jean
Sauvage, sailor and merchant of Dieppe, who had come to reconnoitre the
harbours of the White Sea and prepare the way for French traffic. The
same year the czar Feodor Ivanovitch sent to Henry III a Frenchman of
Moscow, Pierre Ragon, to notify him of his accession; at Moscow appeared
the first ambassador sent there by France, François de Carle. In 1587 a
company of Parisian merchants obtained a commercial charter from the same
czar. Henry IV was in correspondence with the czars Feodor Ivanovitch and
Boris.
CAREER AND MURDER OF DEMETRIUS (1606 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1606 A.D.]]
What was now taking place in Russia is one of the most extraordinary
events of which the annals of the world make mention. An unknown man was
making his triumphal entry into Moscow and the Kremlin (June 20th-30th).
All the people wept for joy, thinking they beheld the scion of so many
princes. One man alone dared to affirm that he had seen Dmitri murdered
and that the new czar was an impostor; this was Vasili Shuiski, one of
those who had superintended the inquiry of Uglitch and who, at the battle
of Dobrinitchi, had defeated the pretender. Denounced by Basmanov, he
was condemned to death by an assembly of the three orders. His head was
already on the block, when the czar sent an express bearing his pardon.
The son of the terrible czar was not recognisable in this act of mercy.
Later on Demetrius was to repent of it. Job, the creature of Godunov, was
replaced in the patriarchate by a creature of the new prince, the Greek
Ignatius. The czar had an interview with his pretended mother, Marie
Nagoi, the widow of Ivan IV: whether because she wished to complete the
work of an avenger, or because she was glad to recover all her honours,
Marie recognised Demetrius as her son and publicly embraced him. He
heaped favours on the Nagoi as his maternal relatives: the Romanovs also
were recalled from exile and Philaret was made metropolitan of Rostov.
The czar presided regularly at the douma; the boyars admired the
correctness of his judgment and the variety of his knowledge. Demetrius
was a man of learning, brave and skilful in all bodily exercises. He was
fond of foreigners and spoke of sending the Russian nobles to study in
the west. This taste for foreigners was not unaccompanied by a certain
contempt for the national ignorance and rudeness. He offended the boyars
by his mockeries; he alienated the people and the clergy by his contempt
for Russian religious rites and usages. He ate veal, did not sleep after
dinner, did not frequent the baths, borrowed money from the convents,
turned the monks into ridicule, opposed the hunting with bears, paid
familiar visits to foreign jewellers and artisans, took no heed of the
strict etiquette of the palace, himself pointed cannon, organised sham
fights between the national and foreign troops, took pleasure in seeing
the Russians beaten by the Germans, surrounded himself with a European
guard at the head of which were found men like Margeret, Knutzen, Van
Dennen. A conflict having broken out between the clergy and the pope’s
legate on the occasion of his entry into Moscow, two bishops were
exiled. No one thanked him for resisting the pope and the king of Poland,
refusing to the one to occupy himself in the cause of the reunion of the
two churches, declaring to the other that he would not yield an inch of
Russian territory. The arrival of his wife, the Catholic Marina, with a
suite of Polish noblemen, who affected insolence towards the Russians,
completed the irritation of the Muscovites. Less than a year after the
entry of Demetrius [or as we may henceforth call him, Dmitri] into the
Kremlin, men’s minds were ripe for a revolution.[f]
_The False Dmitri; Marriage and Death_
It is difficult to understand why, though as unscrupulous as most
adventurers, Demetrius persisted in his determination to espouse a
Catholic Pole, although he was well aware that such a union would
be highly distasteful to his people. When compelled to solicit the
assistance of the palatines of Lithuania by all means in his power, it
was not surprising that he eagerly sought to ally himself with Mniszek:
but now that he was seated upon the throne of the czars, such an alliance
could not be otherwise than prejudicial to his interests. Yet he was the
first to remember his promise, and as soon as he had been crowned at
Moscow he sent to invite Marina to share his throne. When he signed the
promise of marriage in Poland, he was, doubtless, under the influence
of Marina’s charms, but at Moscow we cannot ascribe his impatience
to conclude the projected union to the eagerness of love. For whilst
Vlassiev, bearing magnificent presents for the bride and all her family,
was on his way to Cracow to hasten their departure for Russia, the czar
had an acknowledged mistress, who resided with him in the Kremlin, and
this mistress was no other than the daughter of Boris.
“Xenia,” writes a contemporary author, “was a girl of the greatest
intelligence; her complexion was pink and white, and her black eyes
sparkled with vivacity. When grief caused her to shed tears, they
shone with a still greater radiance. Her eyebrows joined; her body
was formed with perfect symmetry, and was so white that it seemed to
have been moulded with cream. She was an accomplished person, speaking
more elegantly than a book. Her voice was melodious, and it was a real
pleasure to hear her sing songs.”
This beauty was fatal to Xenia. After witnessing the death of her mother
and brother, she took refuge first of all in a convent, or, according to
some annalists, she found an asylum in the house of Prince Mstislavski.
Soon afterwards she entered the palace of the enemy of her family, and
for some months she was the favourite mistress of the czar. It was
probably to her influence that several of the Godunovs were indebted for
their lives, and even for some degree of favour. Whether she yielded to
seduction or to violence, as some modern authors have asserted, it is
impossible to discover at the present day. It is no less impossible to
decide whether Dmitri allowed himself to be subdued by the charms of his
captive, or whether, like a pitiless conqueror, he sacrificed her to his
arrogant vanity, and desired, with a refinement of vengeance, to inflict
the greatest dishonour on the enemy’s family. At all events, it appears
certain that for some time Xenia exercised such marked influence over
him that Mniszek grew alarmed, and seriously remonstrated with the czar.
It was only when Marina was actually on her way to Moscow that Dmitri
dismissed his captive. He sent her into a monastery, according to the
usage of the time. She took the vows in the convent of St. Sergius, at
Moscow, under the name of Olga, and died there in 1622.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN WEDDING FEAST OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
(From the painting by C. Makovski)
_Original and copyright owned by Messrs. Schumann’s Sons, N. Y._]
These singular amours, this fidelity to his engagements in the midst
of inconstancy and even of debauchery, this boldness in attempting a
desperate enterprise, this imperturbable coolness in maintaining an
audacious imposture, this gracefulness in acting the part of a legitimate
monarch, so many brilliant qualities united with puerile vanity and the
most imprudent levity--such are the contrasts presented by the character
of Dmitri, which are perhaps explicable by his extreme youth and his
adventurer’s education. Nothing, however, is more rare than a character
all the parts of which are in perfect harmony. Contradiction is the
characteristic of most men, and there are very few whose lives correspond
to the projects which they have formed or to the hopes to which they
have given rise. Who can say that the pleasure of exhibiting himself in
all the splendour of his high fortune before the eyes of those who had
witnessed his poverty had not the greatest share in the resolutions of
Dmitri? Mniszek and Marina were probably the first persons whose esteem
appeared precious to him. To obtain the approbation of a few Polish
palatines, he risked his crown; but does not every man believe that the
world’s opinion is that of the little circle in which he is accustomed to
move?[b]
The security of the pretender was, however, but seeming. Vasili Shuiski,
whom Dmitri had pardoned, presently organised a plot for his destruction.
The czar’s extreme confidence was his ruin. One night the boyars assailed
the Kremlin where no guard was kept. Demetrius was flung from a window
and slaughtered in the courtyard of the palace. Basmanov, who had tried
to defend him, was killed at his side. The corpse of Demetrius was taken
up, a fool’s mask was placed on the face, and the body exposed in the
place of executions between a bagpipe and a flute. The father-in-law
and the widow of Dmitri, the envoys of the Polish king and the Poles
who had come to attend the imperial nuptials were spared but retained
as prisoners by the boyars. The corpse of the “sorcerer” was burned; a
cannon, turned in the direction of Poland, was charged with the ashes and
scattered them to the winds (May, 1606).[f]
VASILI IVANOVITCH SHUISKI (1606-1610 A.D.)
Immediately after the death of Demetrius, the boyars concerted measures
for convoking deputies from all the towns and proceeding to the election
of a new sovereign; but they were not allowed to accomplish their
design. The throne had been but four days vacant when Shuiski directed
his partisans to proclaim himself. They led him forth into the public
place, named him czar by acclamation, and immediately escorted him to the
cathedral. There, in order to ingratiate himself with his new subjects
and make them forget the illegality of his election, he took a solemn
oath not to punish anyone without the advice and consent of the boyars;
not to visit the offences of the fathers on the children; and that he
would never revenge himself in any way on those who had offended him in
the time of Boris. Since Novgorod lost its privileges, this was the first
time that a sovereign of Russia had pledged himself to any convention
with his subjects; but Shuiski’s oath was no guarantee for its fulfilment.
Having good reason to dread the resentment of the Polish nation,
Shuiski sent Prince Volkonski on an embassy to them, to represent the
late czar as an impostor, who had deluded both Poland and Russia; but
the ambassador was not even listened to. Sigismund and his subjects
were resolved to be revenged on the Russians, and to profit by the
disturbances which they foresaw would soon break out among them. Shuiski
was not liked by the Russian nobles, many of whom might have competed
with him for the throne had the choice of the nation been free; and his
conduct after his elevation augmented the number of his enemies. In spite
of his oath he could not forget any of his old grudges; and he ventured
to indulge them just enough to exasperate their objects without depriving
them of the power of retaliation. Moscow was the only city in the empire
on the allegiance of which he could rely; but even there the people had
imbibed from their late excesses an alarming propensity to disorder and
mutiny. To meet all the dangers thickening round him Shuiski had neither
an army nor money; for Dmitri’s profusions and the pillage of the Kremlin
had exhausted the imperial treasury. His chief strength lay in his renown
for orthodoxy, which insured him the favour of the clergy. The more to
strengthen his interests in that direction, he made it his first business
to depose and send to a monastery the heretic patriarch Ignatius, who had
been appointed by Dmitri, and to nominate in his stead Hermogenes, bishop
of Kasan, an aged prelate whose simplicity rendered him a useful tool in
the hands of the crafty czar.
Rumours began to be rife in the provinces, and even in Moscow, that
Dmitri was not dead. Many of those who had seen his mangled body exposed
denied its identity, and believed that one of the czar’s officers had
been massacred instead of him. Four swift horses were missing from the
imperial stables; and it was surmised that by means of them Dmitri had
escaped in the midst of the tumult. Three strangers in Russian costume,
but speaking Polish, crossed the Oka in a boat, and one of them gave the
ferryman six ducats, saying, “You have ferried the czar; when he comes
back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget this service.” The
same party held similar language in a German inn a little farther on.
It was afterwards known that one of them was Prince Shakhovskoi, who,
immediately upon the death of Dmitri, had, with singular promptitude,
conceived the idea of finding a new impostor to personate the dead one.
To put an end to the alarming rumours, Shuiski sent to Uglitch for the
body of the real czarevitch, that with the help of the patriarch he might
make a saint of him. When the grave was opened the body of the young
prince was found in a perfect state of preservation, with the fresh hue
of life upon it, and still holding in his hands some nuts as miraculously
preserved as itself. It is curious that Shuiski should have forgotten
that nothing was said of these nuts in the report of the inquest at
Uglitch signed by himself. That document only stated that at the moment
of his death the czarevitch was amusing himself with sticking his knife
in the ground. Notwithstanding this oversight, the act of canonisation
was good policy; for if the czarevitch became an object of veneration for
the people, if it was notorious that his body worked miracles on earth,
and consequently that his soul was in heaven, then anyone assuming his
name could be nothing but an impostor. The czar took pains to make known
far and wide what prodigies were effected by the relics of the blessed
martyr. But the credit of the new saint was of short duration: Shuiski
himself damaged it by a gross blunder in permitting the pompous removal
to the monastery of Troitsa of the remains of Boris Godunov, whom but
a few days before he had named as the murderer of the sainted Dmitri.
No doubt he hoped in this way to conciliate the partisans of a still
powerful family; but his enemies immediately accused him of blasphemous
wickedness, alleging that he had substituted the body of a newly murdered
boy for the decomposed corpse of the real Dmitri.
The public retractations of the dowager czaritza obtained no more credit
than the miracles imputed to her son. In a letter signed by her, and
immediately published by Vasili, she declared that the impostor Grishka
Otrepiev had threatened her with death to herself and all her family
if she did not recognise him as her son. But who could believe in her
sincerity after so many contradictory avowals and disavowals? Her
declaration that she had been compelled by fear to yield to the threats
of a man whose aversion to cruelty was notorious, suggested to everybody
the idea that she acted at that moment under the coercion of threats and
fear.