Putivle, and in a few days assembled a great number of Cossacks and
peasants, who routed the forces sent against them. The insurrection
spread rapidly; but still the prince, twice miraculously saved, did not
make his expected appearance. Instead of him there came from Poland a
general with a commission bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. This
was an adventurer named Ivan Bolotnikov, originally a serf to Prince
Teliatevski. He had been a prisoner among the Turks, and having escaped
to Venice had probably acquired some military experience in the service
of the republic. His commission was recognised at Putivle; he took the
command of the insurgents, defeated Shuiski’s forces in two engagements,
and pursued them to within seven versts of the capital. But the
inexplicable absence of the prince for whom they fought damped the ardour
of Bolotnikov’s men; for they could not believe that if Dmitri was alive
he would delay to put himself at their head. The ataman of the Cossacks,
too, was mortified at being supplanted in the command by an adventurer,
and suffered himself to be corrupted by Shuiski. Deserted by a part of
his army, Bolotnikov was defeated by Skopin Shuiski, the czar’s nephew,
and forced to shelter himself in the fortress of Kaluga.
[Sidenote: [1607 A.D.]]
It is probable that all this while Shakhovskoi and the Poles were looking
about for a fit person to play the part of Dmitri; but it required time
to find him, and to put him through training. In this conjuncture the
false Peter Feodorovitch, who had made a brief appearance in the former
reign, repaired to Putivle, and offered himself to Shakhovskoi and the
people as regent in the absence of his uncle. The rebel cause stood
in need of the prestige of a royal name, and the czarevitch Peter was
eagerly welcomed. Presently, the czar having marched against him in
person, the impostor and Shakhovskoi shut themselves up in the strongly
fortified town of Tula, where they were joined by Bolotnikov. Vasili
laid siege to the town with an army of a hundred thousand men; but the
besieged, who had no mercy to expect if taken, fought more earnestly for
their own lives than did Shuiski’s soldiers for the rights of a master to
whom they were but little attached. Seeing the light progress he made,
the czar began to doubt the success of an enterprise to fail in which
would be ruin.
While he was in this anxious state, an obscure ecclesiastic, named
Kravkov, presented himself before the czar and his council, and
undertook, if his directions were followed, to drown all the people
of Tula. They laughed at him at first as an idle braggart, but he
reiterated his assertion with such confidence that the czar at last
desired him to explain his plan. Tula is situated in a valley, and the
little river Upa flows through the town. Kravkov proposed to dam the
stream below the town, and engaged to answer for it with his head if
in a few hours after the execution of that work the whole town was not
laid under water. All the millers in the army, men accustomed to such
operations, were immediately put under his orders, and the rest of the
soldiers were employed in carrying sacks of earth to the spot chosen for
the dam. The water soon rose in the town, inundated the streets, and
destroyed a great number of houses; but the garrison still fought for
several months with unabated courage, though decimated by famine, and
afterwards by a terrible epidemic. All the efforts both of the besiegers
and the besieged were concentrated about the dam, the former labouring
to raise and maintain it, the latter to break it down. The inhabitants
of Tula were persuaded that magic must have had some share in raising
so prodigious a work with such rapidity, and magic was not neglected
among the means by which they sought to destroy it. A monk, who boasted
his proficiency in that art, offered to effect the desired object for a
reward of a hundred roubles. His terms being accepted by Bolotnikov, he
stripped, plunged into the river, and disappeared. An hour afterwards,
when everyone had given him up for dead, he rose to the surface, with
his body covered with scratches. “I have just had to do,” he said, “with
the twelve thousand devils at work on Shuiski’s dam. I have settled six
thousand of them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and
will not give in.”
For a long time the inhabitants of Tula continued to fight against men
and devils, encouraged by letters they received in Dmitri’s name, with
promises of succour which never came. Shakhovskoi, the chief instigator
of the rebellion, was the first to propose a capitulation, and was
thrust into a dungeon by the Cossacks. At last, when the besieged had
eaten their horses, dogs, and all other carrion, and had not so much as
an oxhide left to gnaw, Bolotnikov and Peter offered to capitulate on
condition of amnesty for their heroic garrison. They asked nothing for
themselves, but declared that unless their soldiers obtained honourable
conditions they were resolved to die with arms in their hands, and even
to eat each other, rather than surrender at discretion. Vasili accepted
these terms, and the gates were opened to him (October, 1607). Bolotnikov
advanced before the czar with undaunted mien, and presenting his sword,
with the edge laid against his neck, offered himself as a victim, saying,
“I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightfully or wrongfully,
calls himself Dmitri. Deserted by him, I am in thy power. Cut off my
head if thou wilt; or if thou wilt spare my life, I will serve thee as
I served him.” Shuiski, who did not pique himself on generosity, sent
Bolotnikov to Kargopol, where he soon after had him drowned. The false
Peter Feodorovitch was hanged; but Shakhovskoi, the most guilty of the
three, was more fortunate. The victor found him in chains when he entered
Tula, and Shakhovskoi made a merit of his sufferings at the hands of
the obstinate rebels whom he had urged to submit to their sovereign. He
obtained his liberty; but the first use he made of it was to rekindle the
flames of insurrection.
Before Shuiski had terminated the siege of Tula, and whilst the issue of
his conflict with one pretender was still dubious, another, assuming the
name of Dmitri, appeared in the frontier town of Starodub, where he was
hailed with enthusiasm. Bolotnikov sent an officer to him from Tula, to
acquaint him with the desperate condition of the town. This envoy was
a Polish adventurer, named Zarucki, who had become one of the atamans
of the Don Cossacks, had fought bravely for the first Demetrius, and
been distinguished by his favour. Although the first glance must have
satisfied Zarucki that the new pretender was an imposter, he affected
without the least hesitation to recognise him as his former master.
Another false witness of this identity was the Pane Miechaviecki, a Pole,
who was well known for the eminent position he had held at the court
of the first Demetrius, and who was now the secret instructor of his
successor in what we may call the histrionic details belonging to his
assumed character.
The pupil profited but badly by the lessons he received; for in
everything but profusion he was the reverse of his prototype, and the
least attentive observer could see that he was a coarse, ignorant, vulgar
knave, qualified only by his impudence for the part he had undertaken.
The Cossacks were not such fastidious critics as to be shocked by his
uncourtly manners; but the Poles, whilst treating him as a sovereign for
their own ends, were by no means the dupes of his gross imposture. Baer
states that he was originally a schoolmaster of Sokol, in White Russia;
but, according to the Polish writers, who had better opportunities of
learning the truth, he was a Lithuanian Jew, named Michael Moltchanov.
[Sidenote: [1608 A.D.]]
The adherents of Dmitri, as we may continue to call him, increased so
rapidly in numbers that he was able to defeat a detachment of Vasili’s
army sent against him from Tula, and to make himself master of the town
of Kozelsk on the road to the capital. When the fall of Tula had left the
czar at liberty to act against him with all his forces, Dmitri retreated
to Novgorod Seversk. There he was joined by unexpected reinforcements led
by Rozynckil Sapieha, Tiszkievicz, Lissovski, and others, the flower of
the Polish and Lithuanian chivalry. Prince Adam Viszinoviecki, the patron
of the first false Dmitri, came in person to the aid of his successor at
the head of two thousand horse. The Don Cossacks brought in chains to him
another schemer, who had tried to put himself at their head. All that
is known of the man is that he called himself Feodor Feodorovitch, and
pretended to be the son of the czar Feodor. His more prosperous rival in
imposture condemned him to death.
Dmitri’s army, commanded by the veteran prince Roman Rozinski, defeated
that of the czar with great havoc near Volkhov, on the 24th of April
1608. All the vanquished who escaped the lances of the Poles and Cossacks
fled in disorder to Moscow, and had the victors pressed their advantage,
the capital would have fallen into their hands. Possibly the Polish
leaders were in secret unwilling to let their _protégé_ triumph too soon
or too completely, or to give up Moscow to pillage, which is always more
profitable to the soldier than to the general; but, whatever was the
reason, they halted at the village of Tushino, twelve versts from Moscow,
which the impostor made his headquarters, and there he held his court for
seventeen months.
With a view to prevail on Sigismund to recall the Polish volunteers
in Dmitri’s service, Vasili resolved to liberate the ambassadors, the
palatine of Sendomir and his daughter, and the other Poles whom he had
kept in captivity since the massacre of Moscow. With their liberty he
bestowed on them indemnifications for their losses, and only exacted
from them a pledge that they would not bear arms against Russia, or in
any way favour the new pretender. Thus, after having made sport of the
most solemn oaths, Vasili expected to find in men, so deeply provoked,
scruples of conscience which he had never known himself. He sent
Mniszek and his daughter away under charge of an escort; but they were
intercepted by a detachment of Poles, and carried to Dmitri’s camp.
They had been prepared for this event by a letter previously received
by the palatine from his pretended son-in-law, which contained this
remarkable phrase: “Come both of you to me, instead of going to hide
yourselves in Poland from the world’s scorn.” He could hardly have
dropped a hint more adapted to move a woman of Marina’s character.
Rather than go back to encounter ridicule at Sendomir, she was willing
to share the bed of a bandit who might bestow a crown upon her. It is
said, however, that in their first interview with Dmitri neither she nor
her father testified all the emotion befitting so touching an occasion,
nor could quite conceal their surprise at the sight of a man not at all
like him whose name he bore. But after a few days the scene of meeting
was played over again with more success, and the whole camp was witness
of Marina’s demonstrations of tenderness for her husband. In apology
for her previous coldness it was said that, having so long believed her
Dmitri was dead, she durst not yield to the delight of seeing him alive
again until she had received the most certain proofs that it was not a
delusion. This clumsy excuse was admitted; Marina’s recognition of the
impostor brought over to him numbers who had doubted till then; and, the
news being soon spread abroad, almost all Russia declared for him, except
Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
This was the culminating point of his fortunes: their decline was rapid.
The mutual jealousy of the Polish commanders rose to such a pitch that
it became necessary to divide the army; and Sapieha quitted the camp of
Tushino, with thirty thousand men and sixty cannon, to lay siege to the
famous monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, which was at the same time
a powerful fortress and the most revered sanctuary of Russian orthodoxy.
The support which Shuiski received from the monks was worth more to him
than an army; for besides large subsidies he derived from them a moral
force which still kept many of his subjects true to their allegiance.
The loss of such auxiliaries would have consummated his ruin; therefore
the capture of the monastery was of extreme importance to the impostor.
But in spite of the most strenuous efforts, continued for six weeks,
Sapieha was unable to obtain the least advantage over a garrison whose
courage was exalted by religious enthusiasm; and meanwhile the Poles had
to sustain a harassing and murderous guerilla warfare, waged against them
by the plundered peasants, whom they had made desperate. These partisan
bands were about to be supported by a more formidable army, led by Skopin
Skuiski and by James de la Gardie, who brought five thousand Swedish
auxiliaries to Vasili’s aid.
[Sidenote: [1609-1610 A.D.]]
Early in 1609 these two generals began a brilliant campaign in the north;
the Poles and the partisans of the impostor were beaten in several
encounters, and in a few months the whole aspect of the war was changed.
Finally, Sapieha himself was defeated in an obstinate engagement, forced
ignominiously to raise the siege of the monastery, and shut himself
up with the remnant of his force in Dmitrov. Skopin entered Moscow in
triumph; but Vasili’s jealousy kept him there inactive for two months
until he died suddenly, in his twenty-fourth year. Vasili, to whose cause
the young hero’s death was fatal, was accused by public rumour of having
effected it by poison.
For some months before this time there had been a new champion in the
field, whose appearance was equally to be dreaded by Shuiski and Dmitri.
About the end of September, 1609, Sigismund, king of Poland, laid siege
to Smolensk, with an army of twelve thousand men, and immediately
summoned to his standard the Poles who served under Dmitri. The greater
part of them complied, and the impostor fled to Kaluga. In the spring
of 1610 Russia presented a most deplorable spectacle, being devastated
by three great armies, all opposed to one another. In the west,
Sigismund was pressing the siege of Smolensk; in the south, Dmitri was
in possession of Kaluga, Tula, and some other towns. Some of the Poles
who had quitted the impostor’s service had established themselves on the
banks of the Ugra, in a fertile country, which had not yet experienced
the sufferings of war; and there, under the command of their new leader,
John Sapieha, they offered their services simultaneously to Sigismund
and the false Dmitri, being ready to join whichever of them bid highest.
Nor was this all: one of the Russian princes, Procope Liapunov, took
advantage of the general confusion to raise a new banner. He proclaimed
himself the defender of the faith, and, at the head of a considerable
force, waged a war of extermination against the Poles and the Russians
who recognised either Dmitri or Vasili. A chronicler applies to him the
phrase which had served to characterise Attila--“No grass grew where his
horse’s hoof had been.” And, as if all these armies were not enough for
the desolation of the land, the Tatars of the Crimea had crossed the
Oka, under pretence of succouring Vasili, their ally, but in reality to
plunder the villages, and make multitudes of captives, whom they carried
off into slavery.
Such was the condition of Russia at the moment of Skopin’s death. Vasili
still derived some hope from the division of his enemies, and turned his
whole attention against the most formidable among them. He despatched to
the relief of Smolensk an army of nearly sixty thousand men, consisting
partly of foreign mercenaries, under James de la Gardie; but he gave
the chief command to his brother, Dmitri Shuiski, who was neither liked
nor respected by the soldiers. Chiefly in consequence of this fatal
appointment the whole army was defeated at Klushino, by a force of
only three thousand horse and two hundred infantry, led by the veteran
Zolkiewski, and was forced to lay down its arms. But for the enormous
blunders subsequently committed by Sigismund, the battle of Klushino
might have determined forever the preponderance of Poland in the north.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF TSCHUTSKI]
The defeat of Klushino was immediately followed by an insurrection
at Moscow. Vasili Shuiski was deposed, and forced to become a monk;
and being soon after delivered up to Sigismund, he ended his days in
a Polish prison. The same event was equally disastrous to the false
Dmitri. Deserted by Sapieha and his Poles, he lost all hope of ascending
the throne of Moscow; he lived as a robber in Kaluga, at the head of
his ferocious gangs of Cossacks and Tatars, until he was murdered by
the latter in December, 1610, in revenge for the death of one of their
countrymen whom he had drowned. Marina was far advanced in pregnancy when
she lost her second husband. She was delivered of a son, who received
the name of Ivan, and to whom the little court of Kaluga swore fealty.
Zarucki declared himself the protector of the mother and the child, and
put himself at the head of the still numerous remnant of the faction that
remained obstinately attached to the name of Dmitri. But the cause was
hopeless; for Zarucki was neither a general nor a statesman--his talents
were those only of a bold leader of Cossack marauders.
Russia was without a sovereign, and the capital was in the hands of the
Polish marshal. Zolkiewski used his advantages with wise moderation,
and easily prevailed on the weary and afflicted Muscovites to resign
themselves to the foreign yoke, and agree to offer the throne to
Wladislaw, the son of Sigismund. One word from the latter’s lips might
have reversed the subsequent fortunes of Russia and Poland; but in his
selfish vanity he preferred the appearance of power to its reality,
and claimed the crown of the czars, not for his son but for himself.
Philaretes, bishop of Rostov, and other ambassadors, were sent to him at
his camp before Smolensk, to make known the resolution of the Russians in
favour of Wladislaw. Sigismund insisted that they should at once put him
in possession of Smolensk, which he had been besieging for a year; and,
this being refused, he seized the ambassadors, and afterwards carried
them away to Poland, where they remained nine years in captivity.
Zolkiewski, foreseeing the consequences of his master’s folly, against
which he had remonstrated in vain, retired from the government of
Moscow, leaving Gonsiewski as his successor. The Polish troops seized
the principal towns, proclaimed Sigismund, and observed none of that
discretion by which the great marshal had won the confidence and esteem
of the vanquished. National feeling awoke again among the Russians;
eagerly responding to the call of their revered patriarch, Hermogenes,
they took up arms in all parts of the empire, and war was renewed with
more fury than ever.
[Sidenote: [1612-1613 A.D.]]
Smolensk fell after an obstinate resistance of eighteen months; but at
the moment of the last assault the explosion of a powder magazine set
fire to the city, and Sigismund found himself master only of a heap of
ruins. The Poles in Moscow, assailed by the Russians, secured themselves
in the Kremlin, after burning down the greater part of the city, and
massacring a hundred thousand of the inhabitants. They were besieged by
an immense levy from the provinces, consisting of three armies; but these
seemed more disposed to fight with each other than to force the Poles in
their intrenchments. One of them consisted chiefly of vagabonds escaped
from the camp at Tushino, and was commanded by Prince Trubetskoi. Zarucki
led another in the name of Marina’s son; the third army, and the only
one, perhaps, whose commander sincerely desired the independence of his
country, was that of Prince Procope Liapunov; but that brave leader was
assassinated, and the besiegers, disheartened by his death, immediately
dispersed. About the same time the patriarch Hermogenes, the soul of the
national insurrection, died in his prison in the Kremlin, to which he had
been consigned by the Poles.
Anarchy was rampant in Russia; every town usurped the right to act in
the name of the whole empire, and set up chiefs whom they deposed a few
days afterwards. Kazan and Viatka proclaimed the son of Marina; Novgorod,
rather than open its gates to the Poles, called in the Swedes, and
tendered the crown to Charles Philip, second son of the reigning king
of Sweden, and brother of Gustavus Adolphus. Another imposter assumed
the name of Dmitri, and kept his state for awhile at Pskov; but being
at last identified as one Isidore, a fugitive monk, he was hanged.
When all seemed lost in irretrievable disorder, the country was saved
by an obscure citizen of Nijni-Novgorod. He was a butcher, named Kozma
Minin, distinguished by nothing but the possession of a sound head and a
brave, honest unselfish heart. Roused by his words and his example, his
fellow-citizens took up arms, and resolved to devote all their wealth to
the last fraction to the maintenance of an army for the deliverance of
their country. From Nijni-Novgorod the same spirit spread to other towns,
and Prince Pojarski who had been lieutenant to the brave Liapunov, was
soon able to take the field at the head of a considerable force, whilst
Minin, whom the popular voice styled the elect of the whole Russian
Empire, ably seconded him in an administrative capacity.
Pojarski drove the Poles before him from town to town; and having
at length arrived under the walls of the Kremlin, in August, 1612,
he sustained for three days a hot contest against Chodkiewicz, the
successor of Gonsiewski, defeated him, and put him to flight. Part of the
Polish troops, under the command of Colonel Nicholas Struss, returned
to the citadel and defended it for some weeks longer. At the end of
that time, being pressed by famine, they capitulated; and on the 22nd
of October, 1612, the princes Pojarski and Dmitri Trubetzkoi entered
together into that inclosure which is the heart of the country, and
sacred in the eyes of all true Russians. The assistance of Sigismund came
too late to arrest the flight of the Poles.
Upon the first successes obtained by Prince Pojarski the phantom of
Dmitri, and all the subaltern pretenders, disappeared as if by magic.
Zarucki, feeling that an irresistible power was about to overwhelm him,
was anxious only to secure himself a refuge. Carrying Marina and her
son with him, he made ineffectual efforts to raise the Don Cossacks.
After suffering a defeat near Voroneje, he reached the Volga, and took
possession of Astrakhan, with the intention of fortifying himself there;
but the generals of Michael Romanov, the newly elected czar, did not
allow him time. Driven from that city, and pursued by superior forces,
he was preparing to reach the eastern shore of the Caspian, when he was
surprised, in the beginning of July, 1614, on the banks of the Iaïk, and
delivered up to the Muscovite generals, along with Marina and the son of
the second Dmitri. They were immediately taken to Moscow, where Zarucki
was impaled; Ivan, who was but three years old, was hanged; and Marina
was shut up in prison, where she ended her days.
ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF ROMANOV (1613 A.D.)
The deliverance of Moscow had alone been awaited in order to fill the
vacant throne by a free election. This could not properly take place
except in that revered sanctuary of the imperial power, the Kremlin,
where the sovereigns were crowned at their accession, and where their
ashes reposed after their death. Delivered now from all foreign
influence, the boyars of the council, in November, 1612, despatched
letters or mandates to every town in the empire, commanding the clergy,
nobility, and citizens to send deputies immediately to Moscow, endowed
with full power to meet in the national council (_zemskii soveth_),
and proceed to the election of a new czar. At the same time, to invoke
the blessing of God upon this important act, a fast of three days was
commanded. These orders were received with great enthusiasm throughout
the whole country: the fast was so rigorously observed, according to
contemporary records, that no person took the least nourishment during
that interval, and mothers even refused the breast to their infants.
The election day came: it was in Lent, in the year 1613. The debates
were long and stormy. The princes Mstislavski and Pojarski, it appears,
refused the crown; the election of Prince Dmitri Trubetskoi failed, and
the other candidates were set aside for various reasons. After much
hesitation the name of Michael Romanov was put forward; a young man
sixteen years of age, personally unknown, but recommended by the virtues
of his father, Philaretes, and in whose behalf the boyars had been
canvassed by the patriarch Hermogenes, the holy martyr to the national
cause. The Romanovs were connected through the female branch with this
ancient dynasty. The ancestors of Michael had filled the highest offices
in the state. He fulfilled, moreover, the required conditions. “There
were but three surviving members in his family,” says Strahlenberg; “he
had not been implicated in the preceding troubles; his father was an
ecclesiastic, and in consequence naturally more disposed to secure peace
and union than to mix himself up in turbulent projects.”
The name of the new candidate, supported by the metropolitan of
Moscow,[37] was hailed with acclamation, and after some discussion he was
elected. The unanimous voice of the assembly raised Michael Feodorovitch
to the throne. Before he ascended he was required to swear to the
following conditions: that he would protect religion; that he would
pardon and forget all that had been done to his father; that he would
make no new laws, nor alter the old, unless circumstances imperatively
required it; and that, in important causes, he would decide nothing by
himself, but that the existing laws and the usual forms of trial should
remain in force; that he would not at his own pleasure make either war or
peace with his neighbours; and that, to avoid all suits with individuals,
he would resign his estates to his family, or incorporate them with the
crown domains. Strahlenberg adds that Alexis, on his accession, swore to
observe the same conditions.
These forms, however futile they may have been, are remarkable: not
because they render sacred a right which stands in no need of them, but
because they recall it to mind; and also because they prove that, even
on the soil most favourable to despotism, a charter which should give
absolute power to a monarch would appear such a gross absurdity that we
know not that an instance of the kind ever existed.
Nothing could be more critical than the state of the empire at the moment
when its destinies were confided to a youth of seventeen. Disorder and
anarchy everywhere prevailed. Ustrialov gives us the following picture:
“The strongholds on the frontier which should have served to defend his
dominions were in the hands of external or internal enemies. The Swedes
possessed Kexholm, Oresheck, Koporie, and even Novgorod. The Poles ruled
in Smolensk, Dorogobuje, Putivle, and Tchernigov; the country around
Pskov was in the power of Lisovski; Raisin, Kashira, and Tula struggled
feebly against the Tatars of the Crimea and the Nogai; Sarutzki (Zarucki)
was established in Astrakhan; Kazan was in revolt. At home bands of
Cossacks from the Don, and the Zaparogians, and whole divisions of Poles
and Tatars ravaged the villages and the convents that were still entire,
when there were hopes of finding booty. The country was wasted, soldiers
were dying of hunger, the land-tax was no longer collected, and not a
kopeck was in the treasury. The state jewels, crowns of great price,
sceptres, precious stones, vases--all had been plundered and carried into
Poland.
“The young prince was surrounded by courtiers belonging to twenty
different factions. There were to be found the friends of Godunov, the
defenders of Shuiski, the companions of Wladislaw, and even partisans
of the brigand of Tushino--in a word, men professing the most various
opinions and aims, but all equally ambitious, and incapable of yielding
the smallest point as regarded precedence. The lower class, irritated by
ten years of misery, had become habituated to anarchy, and it was not
without difficulty and resistance on their part that they were reduced
to obedience.” Such, then, was the situation of the country; but Michael
found means to redeem it.
[Sidenote: [1617-1627 A.D.]]
Notwithstanding the desperate state of his finances, the insubordination
of his troops, the ill-will of the diets, and the confederations
continually springing up against him, Sigismund did not abandon his
attempts upon Russia; but the negotiations which ensued in consequence,
upon various occasions, produced no result. Wladislaw, at the head of an
army, once more crossed the frontiers, and appeared for the second time,
in 1617, under the walls of Moscow, which he assaulted and whence he was
repulsed. Deceived in the expectation which the intelligence he kept up
with various chiefs had induced him to form, harassed by his troops, who
were clamorous for pay, he consented to renounce the title of czar, which
he had up to that period assumed, and concluded, on the 1st of December,
1618, an armistice for fourteen years. The Peace of Stolbovna, January
26th, 1617, had terminated the preceding year the war with Sweden, and
was purchased by the surrender of Ingria, Karelia, and the whole country
between Ingria and Novgorod; besides the formal renunciation of Livonia
and Esthonia, and the payment of a sum of money.
The captivity of Philarete had now lasted nine years; from Warsaw he
had been removed to the castle of Marienburg, and it was from that
place, as it is asserted, that he found means to communicate with the
council of the boyars, and use his influence in the election of the
czar, never dreaming that it would fall upon his son. The cessation of
hostilities restored him to freedom. He returned to Moscow on the 14th
of June, 1619, and was immediately elevated to the patriarchal chair,
which had remained vacant from the death of Hermogenes, in 1613. His son
made him co-regent, and the ukases of that date are all headed “Michael
Feodorovitch, sovereign, czar, and grand prince of all the Russias, and
his father Philarete, mighty lord and most holy patriarch of all the
Russias, order,” etc. There exist, moreover, ukases issued in the sole
name of the patriarch, thus called out of his usual sphere of action, and
placed in one in which absolute power was granted him. He took part in
all political affairs; all foreign ambassadors were presented to him, as
well as to the czar: and at those solemn audiences, as well as at table,
he occupied the right of the sovereign. He held his own court, composed
of stolnicks and other officers; in a word, he shared with his son all
the prerogatives of supreme power. From this period dates the splendour
of the patriarchate, which at a later epoch excited the jealousy of the
czar Peter the Great, who was induced to suppress it in 1721.
Philarete always gave wise advice to his son, and the influence he
exercised over him was always happily directed. A general census, of
which he originated the idea, produced great improvement in the revenue;
but, perhaps without intending it, he contributed by this measure to
give fixity to the system of bondage to the soil. In the performance of
his duty as head pastor, he directed all his efforts to re-establish a
press at Moscow,[38] which had been abandoned during the troubles of the
interregnum; and he had the satisfaction of seeing, after 1624, many
copies of the Liturgy issue from it.[h]
THE COSSACKS
[Sidenote: [1627 A.D.]]
In the year 1627 the Cossacks of the Don, in one of their periodical
uprisings, conquered Azov, which they offered to the czar, but which he
did not accept. As we shall meet the Cossacks again from time to time, it
is worth while to interrupt our main narrative to make inquiry as to the
antecedents of this peculiar people.[a]
Soloviev gives the following definition of the term “cossacks”: “At the
end of the first half of the fifteenth century we encounter for the
first time the name of Cossack, principally the Cossacks of Riazan.
Our ancestors understood by this name, in general, men without homes,
celibates obliged to earn their bread by working for others. In this
way the name “cossack” took the meaning of day-labourer. They formed
a class altogether opposed to land owners; that is, the villagers. The
steppes, so agreeable to live on, not lacking fertility, watered by
rivers filled with fish, attracted in these countries the more hardy,
namely the Cossacks; the people who could not stay in villages, those who
were pursued for some crime, fugitive serfs, united with each other; it
is this group of individuals who formed the population of the frontiers
and were known under the name of Cossacks. The Cossacks were therefore
of great importance; being an enterprising people they were the first
to lead the way to the great solitudes which they peopled. It was not
difficult for a Russian to become a Cossack; in going to the steppes he
did not enter a strange country, nor did he cease to be a Russian; there
among the Cossacks he felt at home. The Cossacks who remained near the
frontier recognised the right of the Russian government over them in
all things, but obeyed it only when it would prove useful to them. They
depended somewhat on the government, while those who lived far away were
more independent.”[i]
Polish authors have acquainted western Europe with the name and the fact
of the existence of the Cossacks. This name (in Russian _kazak_) has
passed into other languages, by the writings of the seventeenth century,
with the Polish pronunciation. The etymology of this word long exercised
the sagacity of northern savants. Some derive it from the Slavonic _koza_
“goat”--the Cossacks, they argued, wandered about like goats. Others
believe it comes from _kossa_, which signifies “tress of hair,” “scythe,”
“body of land projecting into a river.” Justifications are not wanting
for these different acceptations, since (1) the Cossacks were formerly
in the habit of wearing long braids; (2) they used scythes to make hay,
as well as in battle; (3) their first colonies were on the river banks,
which abounded in promontories. In these days, when etymological study
has made such great progress, the word cossack is generally accepted as
derived from the Turkish. In that language _cazak_ signifies marauder,
plunderer, soldier of fortune. Such were in effect the first Cossacks
established on the banks of the Dnieper and its tributaries, between the
Polish, the Tatar, and the Muscovite territories. Their customs greatly
resembled those of the inhabitants on the Border, or Scottish frontier;
and the name of the country where they first appeared, Ukrania (Pokraina)
signifies border, frontier, in the Slavonic dialects.
The Cossacks have never formed a distinct nationality, but their manners
and institutions separate them from the rest of the Russian people.
The _Cossackry_--to translate by a single word all that the Russians
understand by _Kazatchestvo_--is the species of society, government,
political organisation which the Russian peasant understands by instinct,
so to speak, to which he conforms most easily and which he probably
regards as the best. The different fractions of the Cossacks were
designated as armies according to the provinces which they occupied.
There was the army of the Dnieper, the army of the Don, that of the
Iaïk (Ural), etc. Each of these armies was divided into small camps
or villages, called _stanitsas_. The ground round the stanitsa, the
flocks which grazed on its meadows, formed the undivided property of
the commune. At regular intervals equal partitions took place for
cultivation; but each gathered the fruit of his own labour and could
increase his share in the common fund by his private industry. Every
man was a soldier and bound to take up arms at the word of the chief
whom the public suffrage had designated. There was one of these for each
expedition and he bore the name of “errant captain,” _ataman kotchévoï_,
which was distinct from the _ataman_ or political chief for life of the
whole army. This captain had under his orders an adjutant or lieutenant,
_iéssaoul_, then centurions, commanders of fifties, and commanders of
tens. During peace the administration of each stanitsa belonged to the
elders, _startchini_; but every resolution of any importance had to be
submitted to a discussion in which all the men of the community could
take part and vote. The political or administrative assembly was called
the circle, _kroug_. There were no written laws, the circle being the
living law, preserving and adding to the traditions. It left, moreover,
complete liberty to the individual, so long as this was not harmful to
the community. As to the foreigner, anything, or almost anything, was
permitted. Such institutions find fanatics amongst men in appearance the
most rebellious against all discipline. The filibusters at the end of the
seventeenth century had similar ones.
We are ignorant of the period of the first organisation of the Cossacks;
it appears, however, very probable that it is contemporary with the Tatar
conquest. The little republic of the Zaparogians in the islands and on
the banks of the Dnieper seems to be the model on which the other Cossack
governments were formed; for their dialect, the Little Russian, has left
traces amongst the Cossacks most remote from Ukraine. There is no doubt
that the first soldiers who established themselves in the islands of the
Dnieper were animated by patriotic and religious sentiments. Their first
exploits against the Tatars and Turks were a protest of the conquered
Christians against their Mussulman oppressors. In consequence of having
fought for their faith they loved war for its own sake and pillage became
the principal object of their expeditions. In default of Tatars their
Russian or Polish neighbours were mercilessly despoiled.
[Illustration: MICHAEL ROMANOV]
Formerly the Cossacks had been recruited by volunteers arriving on the
borders of the Dnieper--some from Great Russia, others from Lithuania or
Poland. The association spread. It colonised the banks of the Don and
there instituted the rule of the stanitsas and the circle. The czars
of Muscovy, while they sometimes suffered from the violence of the
newcomers, beheld, with pleasure the formation on their frontiers of an
army which fought for them, cost them nothing, and founded cities of
soldiers in desolate steppes.
From the Don the Cossacks carried colonies along the Volga, to the
Terek, to the Ural; they conquered Siberia. In 1865 descendants of
these same men were encamped at the mouths of the Amur and fringed the
Chinese frontier. The Don Cossacks, conquerors of a country subdued
by the Tatars, submitted to Russia in 1549, but they enjoyed a real
independence. It is true that in war-time they furnished a body of troops
to the czar; but war was their trade and a means of acquiring fortune.
They appointed their own atamans, governed themselves according to their
own customs, and scarcely permitted the Moscow government to interfere
at all in their affairs. They even claimed the right to make war without
command of the czar, and in spite of his injunctions devoted themselves
to piracy on the Black Sea and even on the Caspian Sea. In 1593, when
Boris Godunov instituted serfdom in Russia, by a ukase which forbade the
peasants to change their lord or their domicile, the Cossacks received
immense additions to their numbers. All those who wished to live in
freedom took refuge in a stanitsa, where they were sure of finding
an asylum. In their ideas of honour, the atamans considered it their
first duty to protect fugitives. Consequently the most usual subject of
disputes between the government of Moscow and the hordes of the Don was
the restoration of serfs. At times exacted by the czars, when they had
no foreign enemy to fear, it was evaded by the atamans; at times it was
in some sort forgotten, whenever the services of the Cossacks became
necessary. Practically it was considered impossible to get back a serf
once he had procured his adoption into a stanitsa.
There were always two parties among the Cossacks, which might be called
the aristocratic party and the democratic faction, although there was no
nobility amongst them. The old-established Cossacks, possessing a fortune
acquired either by raids or industry, did not look with a friendly
eye on the newcomers, who were strangers to the country. They first
preached in the circle respect of treaties and obedience to the czar; the
others, on the contrary, declared themselves in favour of every violent
course, supported those bold spirits who were meditating some hazardous
expedition, and troubled themselves little concerning the danger of
compromising the privileges of the army of the Don by abusing them. The
old Cossacks in contempt called the newcomers _gole_ (nakedness, trash),
and this name, like that of _gueux_ in Flanders, had ended by being borne
proudly by the opposite faction.
The class of poor Cossacks, which was unceasingly recruited from
fugitives, hated the Russian government and obtained the sympathy of
the serfs who dared not break their chain. The condition of the latter
was deplorable; at a time when the life of a freeman was held of small
account, a slave was less than a beast of burden and certainly more
miserable. The savagery of manners, the harshness of the masters,
was equalled only by the ferocity of the laws. One example will be
enough to show what the legislation of this epoch was like. The serf
was responsible for his master’s debts. If the lord did not pay his
creditors the serf was put in prison and daily beaten before the courts
of justice until the debtor had paid or the creditors had abandoned
their claims. In their wretchedness the serfs were witnesses of the
liberty of the Cossacks, who spoke the same language as themselves and
who had the same origin. We need not be astonished if, in their despair,
they were disposed to accept as their liberators the Cossacks who came
to pillage their masters. A slave rarely dares to conceive the idea of
conquering his liberty; but he is always ready to aid the freeman who
declares himself his protector. Thus it is to be noted that all the
great insurrections of serfs which broke out in Russia were organised
by Cossacks. The False Dmitri, Stenka Radzin, and Pugatchev furnish the
proof of this.[b]
LAST YEARS OF MICHAEL
The peace with Poland being only for a stated term of years, Michael
endeavoured, before its expiration, to have his troops placed in such
a condition by foreign officers that he might be able to reconquer the
countries ceded to the Poles. Nay, on the death of Sigismund, ere the
armistice had expired, he began the attempt to recover these territories,
under the idle pretext that he had concluded a peace with Sigismund
and not with his successor. But the Russian commander, Michael Schein,
the very same who had valiantly defended Smolensk with a small number
of troops against the Poles, now lay two whole years indolently before
that town, with an army of fifty thousand men and provided with good
artillery, and at length retreated on capitulation, a retreat for which
he and his friends were brought to answer with their heads. The Russian
nation were so dissatisfied with this campaign, and the king of Sweden,
whom Michael wanted to engage in an alliance with him against the Poles,
showed so little inclination to comply, that the czar was fain to return
to the former amicable relation with Poland. Peace was therefore again
agreed on, and matters remained as they were before.
During his reign, which continued till 1645, Michael had employment
enough in endeavouring to heal the wounds which the spirit of faction
had inflicted on his country; to compose the disorders that had arisen;
to restore the administration which had been so often disjointed and
relaxed; to give new vigour and activity to the laws, disobeyed and
inefficient during the general confusions; and to communicate fresh
life to expiring commerce. It redounds greatly to his honour that he
proceeded in all these respects with prudence and moderation, and brought
the disorganised machine of government again into play. More than this,
the restoration of the old order of things, was not to be expected of
him. Much that he was unable to effect was accomplished by his son and
successor, Alexis.
ALEXIS (1645-1676 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1645 A.D.]]
The administration, however, of the boyar Boris Morosov, to whom Michael
at his death committed the education of Alexis, then in his sixteenth
year, well-nigh destroyed the tranquillity which had so lately been
restored. Morosov trod in the footsteps of Boris Godunov, put himself,
as that favourite of the czar had done, into the highest posts, and thus
acquired the most extensive authority in the state, turned out all that
stood in his way, distributed offices and dignities as they fell vacant
among his friends and creatures, and even became, like Boris, a near
relation of the czar Alexis, by marrying a sister of the czaritza. Like
his prototype, indeed, Morosov effected much good, particularly by making
the army a main object of his concern, by strengthening the frontiers
against Poland and Sweden, erecting manufactories for arms, taking a
number of foreigners into pay for the better disciplining of the army,
and diligently exercising the troops himself.
But these important services to the state could not render the people
insensible to the numerous acts of injustice and oppression which were
practised with impunity by the party protected by this minion of the
czar. The most flagrant enormities were committed, more particularly
in the administration of justice. The sentence of the judge was warped
to either side by presents; witnesses were to be bought; several of
the magistrates, however incredible it may seem, kept a number of
scoundrels in readiness to corroborate or to oppugn, for a sum of money,
whatever they were required to confirm or to deny. Such profligates
were particularly employed in order to get rich persons into custody
on charges of any species of delinquency sworn against them by false
witnesses, to condemn them to death, and then to seize upon their
property, as the accumulation of wealth seemed to be the general object
of all men in office. From the same corrupt fountain flowed a multitude
of monopolies and excessive taxes on the prime necessaries of life. The
consequence of all this was the oppression of the people by privileged
extortioners and murmurs against injustice and the exhorbitance of
imposts. In addition to this, those grandees who had now the reins of
government in their hands assumed a haughty, austere behaviour towards
the subjects, whereas Michael and his father had been friendly and
indulgent, and their gentleness communicated itself to all who at that
time took part in the administration.
From these several causes arose discontents in the nation; such great
men as were neglected and disappointed contributed what they could to
fan these discontents, and to bring them to overt act. Moscow, the seat
of the principal magistrate, who, himself in the highest degree unjust,
connived at the iniquities of his subordinate judges, was the place where
the people first applied for redress. They began by presenting petitions
to the czar, implored the removal of these disorders, and exposed to him
in plain terms the abuses committed by the favourite and his adherents.
But these petitions were of no avail, as none of the courtiers would
venture to put them into the hand of the czar, for fear of Morosov’s long
arm. The populace therefore, once stopped the czar, as he was returning
from church to his palace, calling aloud for righteous judges. Alexis
promised them to make strict inquiry into their grievances, and to
inflict punishment on the guilty; the people, however, had not patience
to wait this tardy process, but proceeded to plunder the houses of such
of the great as were most obnoxious to them. At length they were pacified
only on condition that the authors of their oppressions should be brought
to condign punishment. Not, however, till they had killed the principal
magistrate, and other obnoxious persons, and forced from the czar the
abolition of some of the new taxes and the death of another nefarious
judge, could they be induced to spare the life of Morosov, though the
czar himself entreated for him with tears. Thenceforth Morosov ceased to
be the sole adviser of his sovereign, though he continued to enjoy his
favour and affection.
[Illustration: TATAR GIRL OF THE TELEUT TRIBE]
Some time after these events, disturbances not less violent occurred
in Pleskov and Novgorod, and were not quelled until much mischief had
been done. The pacification of Novgorod was mainly due to the wisdom and
intrepidity of the celebrated Nicon, who was afterwards patriarch.
While the nation was in this restless and angry mood, another false
Dmitri thought to avail himself of an opportunity apparently so
favourable to gather a party. He was the son of a draper in the Ukraine,
and was prompted to his imposture by a Polish nobleman, named Danilovski.
One day, when the young man was bathing, marks were observed on his
back which were thought to resemble letters of some unknown tongue.
Danilovski, hearing of this freak of nature, determined to build a plot
upon it. He sent for the young man, and had the marks examined by a Greek
pope whom he had suborned. The pope cried out, “A miracle!” and declared
that the letters were Russian, and formed distinctly these words: Dmitri,
son of the czar Dmitri. The public murder of Marina’s infant son was
notorious; but that difficulty was met by the common device of an alleged
change of children, and the Poles were invited to lend their aid to the
true prince thus miraculously identified. They were willing enough to do
so; but the trick was too stale to impose on the Russians. The impostor
found no adherents among them; and after a wretched life of vagrancy and
crime, he fell into the hands of Alexis, and was quartered alive.
Alexis soon had an opportunity to repay in a more substantial manner
the ill will borne to him by the Poles, who had further offended him by
rejecting him as a candidate for their throne, and electing John Casimir.
The cruel oppressions exercised by the Poles upon the Cossacks of the
Ukraine had roused the latter to revolt, and a furious war ensued, in
which the enraged Cossacks avenged their wrongs in the most ruthless and
indiscriminate manner. At last, after many vicissitudes, being deserted
by their Tatar allies, the Cossacks appealed for aid to Alexis, offering
to acknowledge him as their suzerain. With such auxiliaries the czar
could now renew with better prospects the attempt made by his father to
recover the territories wrested from Russia by her inveterate foe. He
declared war against Poland; his conquests were rapid and numerous, and
would probably have terminated in the complete subjugation of Poland,
had he not been compelled to pause before the march of a still more
successful invader of that country, Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden.
[Sidenote: [1658-1662 A.D.]]
Incensed at seeing his prey thus snatched from him when he had nearly
hunted it down, Alexis fell upon the king of Sweden’s own dominions
during his absence; but from this enterprise he reaped neither advantage
nor credit; and he was glad to conclude, in 1658, a three years’ truce
with Sweden, and subsequently a peace, which was an exact renewal of the
Treaty of Stolbova in 1617. The war in Poland ended more honourably for
Russia. An armistice for thirteen years, agreed upon at Andnissov, in
Lithuania, and afterwards prolonged from time to time, was the forerunner
of a complete pacification, which was brought to effect in 1686, and
restored to the empire Smolensk, Severia, Tchernigov, and Kiev, that
primeval principality of the Russian sovereigns. The king of Poland
likewise relinquished to the czar the supremacy he had till then asserted
over the Cossacks of the Ukraine.
Russia had as much need as Poland of repose; for the empire was suffering
under an accumulation of evils--an exhausted treasury, commercial
distress, pestilence and famine, all aggravated by the unwise means
adopted to relieve them. To supply the place of the silver money, which
had disappeared, copper of the same nominal value was coined and put in
circulation. At first these tokens were received with confidence, and no
inconvenience was experienced; but ere long the court itself destroyed
that confidence by its audacious efforts to secure to itself all the
sterling money, and leave only the new coin for the use of commerce.
The cupidity displayed in transactions of this kind, especially by Ilia
Miloslavski, the czar’s father-in-law, taught the public to dislike the
copper coinage; it became immensely depreciated, and extreme general
distress ensued. A rebellion broke out in consequence in Moscow (1662),
and though it was speedily put down it was punished in the most atrocious
manner in the persons of thousands of wretches whose misery had driven
them to crime; whilst the authors of their woe escaped with impunity. The
prisoners were hanged by hundreds, tortured, burned, mutilated, or thrown
by night, with their hands bound, into the river. The number who suffered
death in consequence of this arbitrary alteration of the currency was
estimated at more than seven thousand; the tortured and maimed, at
upwards of fifteen thousand.
[Sidenote: [1665-1671 A.D.]]
The conduct of the Don Cossacks was soon such as to make it questionable
whether the acquisition of these new subjects was not rather a loss than
a gain to the empire. At the end of the campaign of 1665 the Cossacks
were refused permission to disband as usual and to return to their homes.
They mutinied; and several of them were punished with death. Among those
who were executed was an officer, whose brother, Stenka Radzin, had no
difficulty in rousing his countrymen to revenge this violation of their
privileges, and at the same time to gratify their insatiable appetite for
havoc and plunder.
He began his depredations on the Volga by seizing a fleet of boats
belonging to the czar, which was on its way to Astrakhan, massacring
part of the crews, and pressing all the rest into his service. Having
devastated the whole country of the Volga, he descended into the Caspian,
and having swept its shores, returned to the Volga laden with booty.
For three years this flagitious ruffian continued his murderous career,
repeatedly defeating the forces sent against him. At last, having lost
a great number of men in his piratical incursions into Persia, he
was hemmed in by the troops of the governor of Astrakhan, and forced
to sue for pardon. The imperial commander thought it more prudent to
accept Radzin’s voluntary submission than to risk an engagement with
desperate wretches whose numbers were still formidable. Radzin was
taken to Astrakhan, and the voyevod went to Moscow, to learn the czar’s
pleasure respecting him. Alexis honourably confirmed the promise made
by his general in his name, and accepted Radzin’s oath of allegiance;
but instead of dispersing the pardoned rebels over regions where they
would have been useful to the empire, he had the imprudence to send them
all back to the country of the Don, without despoiling them of their
ill-gotten wealth, or taking any other security for their good behaviour.
The brigand was soon at his old work again on the Volga, murdering and
torturing with more wanton ferocity than ever. To give to his enormities
the colour of a war on behalf of an oppressed class, he proclaimed
himself the enemy of the nobles and the restorer of the liberty of the
people. As many of the Russians still adhered to the patriarch Nicon, who
had been deposed and sent to a monastery, he spread it abroad that Nicon
was with him; that the czar’s second son (who had died at Moscow, January
16th, 1670) was not dead, but had put himself under his protection; and
that he had even been requested by the czar himself to come to Moscow,
and rid him of those unpatriotic grandees by whom he was unhappily
surrounded.
These artifices, together with the unlimited license to plunder which
Radzin granted to everyone who joined his standard, operated so strongly
that the rebel found himself, at length, at the head of two hundred
thousand men. The czar’s soldiers murdered their officers, and went
over to him; Astrakhan betrayed its governor, and received him; he was
master of the whole country of the lower Volga; and on the upper course
of the river, from Nijni-Novgorod to Kazan, the peasants rose to a man
and murdered their lords. Had Stenka Radzin been anything better than a
vulgar robber and cut-throat, he might have revolutionised Russia; but
he was utterly without the qualities most requisite for success in such
an enterprise. Disasters overtook him in the autumn of 1670: a division
of his army was cut to pieces; twelve thousand of his followers were
gibbeted on the high-road, and he himself was taken in the beginning of
the following year, carried to Moscow, and executed.
[Illustration: THE ANSWER OF ZAPOROGIAN COSSACKS TO SULTAN MUHAMMED IV
(From the painting by Elias Repin)]
The Turks had by this time made war on Poland, and Alexis was bound by
the Treaty of Andnissov, as well as by regard for the safety of his own
dominions, to support the latter power. In 1671 the Turks made themselves
masters of the important town of Kaminitz, and the Cossacks of the
Ukraine, ever averse to subjection, could not tell whether they belonged
to Turkey, Poland, or Russia. Sultan Muhammed IV, who had subdued and
lately imposed a tribute on the Poles, insisted, with all the insolence
of an Ottoman and of a conqueror, that the czar should evacuate his
several possessions in the Ukraine, but received as haughty a denial.
The sultan in his letter treated the sovereign of the Russias only as
a Christian _gospodin_ (hospodar), and entitled himself Most Glorious
Majesty, King of the World. The czar made answer that he was above
submitting to a Mohammedan dog, but that his sabre was as good as the
grand seignior’s scimitar.
[Sidenote: [1676 A.D.]]
Alexis sent ambassadors to the pope, and to almost all the great
sovereigns in Europe, except France, which was allied to the Turks, in
order to establish a league against the Porte. His ambassadors had no
other success at Rome than not being obliged to kiss the pope’s toe;
everywhere else they met with nothing but good wishes, the Christian
princes being generally prevented by their quarrels and jarring interests
from uniting against the common enemy of their religion. Alexis did not
live to see the termination of the war with Turkey. His death happened in
1676, in his forty-eighth year, after a reign of thirty-one years.
FEODOR (1676-1682 A.D.)
Alexis was succeeded by his eldest son, Feodor, a youth in his nineteenth
year, and of very feeble temperament. The most pressing task that
devolved on him was the prosecution of the war with Turkey, which, as
far as Russia was interested, had regard chiefly to the question whether
the country of the Zaparogian Cossacks should be under the sovereignty
of the czar or of the sultan. The contest was terminated, three years
after Feodor’s accession, by a treaty which established his right over
the disputed territory. Only one other memorable event distinguished his
brief reign.
Nothing could equal the care with which the noble families kept the books
of their pedigrees, in which were set down not only every one of their
ancestors but also the posts and offices which each had held at court, in
the army, or in the civil department. Had these genealogies and registers
of descent been confined to the purpose of determining the ancestry and
relationship of families no objection could be alleged against them. But
these books of record were carried to the most absurd abuse, attended
with a host of pernicious consequences. If a nobleman were appointed to a
post in the army, or at court, or to some civil station, and it appeared
that the person to whom he was now subordinate numbered fewer ancestors
than he, it was with the utmost difficulty that he could be brought to
accept of the office to which he was called. Nay, this folly was carried
to still greater lengths: a man would even refuse to take upon him an
employ, if thereby he would be subordinate to one whose ancestors had
formerly stood in that position towards his own.
It is easy to imagine that a prejudice of this kind must have been
productive of the most disagreeable effects, and that discontents,
murmurs at slights and trifling neglects, disputes, quarrels, and
disorders in the service must have been its natural attendants. It was,
therefore, become indispensably necessary that a particular office should
be instituted at court in which exact copies of the genealogical tables
and service-registers of the noble families were deposited; and this
office was incessantly employed in settling the numberless disputes that
arose from this inveterate prejudice. Feodor, observing the pernicious
effects of this fond conceit--that the father’s capacity must necessarily
devolve on the son, and that consequently he ought to inherit his
posts--wished to put a stop to it; and with the advice of his sagacious
minister, Prince Vasili Galitzin, fell upon the following method. He
caused it to be proclaimed that all the families should deliver into
court faithful copies of their service-rolls, in order that they might
be cleared of a number of errors that had crept into them. This delivery
being made, he convoked the great men and the superior clergy before
him. In the midst of these heads of the nobles, the patriarch concluded
an animated harangue by inveighing against their prerogatives. “They
are,” said he, “a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render
abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle
the good grain; they have introduced, even into the heart of families,
dissensions, confusion, and hatred; but the pontiff comprehends the grand
design of his czar. God alone can have inspired it!”
[Sidenote: [1682 A.D.]]
At these words, and by anticipation, all the grandees blindly hastened
to express their approval; and, suddenly, Feodor, whom this generous
unanimity seemed to enrapture, arose and proclaimed, in a simulated
burst of holy enthusiasm, the abolition of all their hereditary
pretensions--“To extinguish even the recollection of them,” said he, “let
all the papers relative to those titles be instantly consumed!” And as
the fire was ready, he ordered them to be thrown into the flames before
the dismayed eyes of the nobles, who strove to conceal their anguish by
dastardly acclamations. By way of conclusion to this singular ceremony,
the patriarch pronounced an anathema against everyone who should presume
to contravene this ordinance of the czar; and the justice of the sentence
was ratified by the assembly in a general shout of “Amen!” It was by
no means Feodor’s intention to efface nobility; and, accordingly, he
ordered new books to be made, in which the noble families were inscribed;
but thus was abolished that extremely pernicious custom which made it
a disgrace to be under the orders of another if his ancestry did not
reach so high, or even--in case of equal pedigree--if a forefather of
the commander had once been subordinate in the service to the progenitor
of him who was now to acknowledge him for his superior. Feodor died
in February, 1682, after a reign of five years and a half, leaving no
issue.[h]
FOOTNOTES
[37] There was no patriarch at that time.
[38] Established in 1560. The first book printed in Moscow, _The
Evangelist_, appeared in the month of March, 1564.
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[Illustration]