“THIS SIDE THE HILL”
In the midst of Russia’s direst despondency, when the throne of
Monomachus was empty and the lawful Patriarch starving in prison, and
when the tombs and temples of Moskva’s sacred past were profaned by
the unhallowed presence of strangers and heretics, within the scarred
walls of the Troitza the lamp of Orthodoxy and national independence
was kept steadily burning. The hegumen Dionosie, as bitter a foe of
Catholicism as any of the Reformers who were convulsing Western Europe
in their struggle with Rome, ceased not to call to his fellow-Russians
to unite against the foreign enemy, and save alike the true religion
and the empire. Like the cry of the figurative pelican re-echoing
through the wilderness, the warlike summons from the Troitza passed
along the wasted land; and met at length with response. The city of
Nijhnie-Novgorod, advantageously situated at the confluence of the
Volga with the Oka, had, since the reduction of Kazan and the decline
of the Tartar power, advanced greatly in prosperity and importance. At
a moment when Moskva, Velikie-Novgorod, and Novgorod-Sieverski were
in alien hands the eastern city stood forth with enhanced prominence
as the rallying-point of Russian freedom, and it was here that the
exhortations and entreaties of the Troitza hegumen were most effective.
As was usual in times of popular commotion, visions and portents were
not wanting, and the religious enthusiasm of the people was wrought
up to a high pitch. The anger of heaven, it was said, as the noise of
these apparitions was spread from town to town and from monastery
to monastery, had been visited on the land on account of the sins of
its inhabitants; the Russian people had lightly sworn allegiance to
successive sovereigns, and had as lightly shed their blood or driven
them from the throne. Impious hands had been raised against the Lord’s
anointed--hence these afflictions. It was decreed that before the work
of liberation could be begun the people should purge themselves of
their iniquities by a solemn and universal fast; for three days every
one was to abstain from food, even the infants at the breast, though
what measure of political responsibility could be brought home to the
latter for the intrigues and revolutions of the past five years it
would be difficult to say. The ideal of a God is usually that of a
being who derives some not very comprehensible satisfaction from the
contemplation of self-inflicted sacrifice or suffering of some sort,
and it was quite in keeping with accepted ideas that the only remedy
for the misery of a nation was--more suffering. At Nijhnie-Novgorod the
patriotic upheaval produced more than unstable visions of the night, it
brought to the surface of political action a man; princes and boyarins
there were as usual, and some among them doubtless men of ability,
but the most remarkable figure in the group of Nijhniegorodskie
regenerators was one of humbler extraction, torn by the circumstances
of the time from his normal rank in life, like a low-growing ocean-weed
uprooted by the action of some violent pelagic disturbance. Kozma
Minin-Soukhorouk, who arose as the apostle of the movement which had
started into being in response to the beacon blaze from the Troitza,
was a provincial starosta,[198] and by trade a cattle-dealer or,
according to some accounts, a butcher. Like the peasant-girl of
Domremy, his certificate for assuming the direction of affairs usually
yielded to those of higher station was a supernatural “call”; S.
Sergie had appeared to him and entrusted him with the task of arousing
the slumbering consciences and national ardour of the Russian folk.
Having convinced his fellow-men of the sacredness of the cause, Minin
proceeded to convert their enthusiasm into practical support of its
furtherance. “Give” was the cry, give every one, and give to depletion;
goods, money, service, were asked of all, and those who had restricted
ideas on the subject were brought into line by forced contributions.
The emerged cattle-dealer, though good enough as an awakening
influence, was scarcely fitted to conduct a campaign against the
war-seasoned Polish troops, and the soldiery clamoured for a voevoda in
whom they might have confidence. Such a one was forthcoming in Kniaz
Dimitri Pojharskie, still weak from the wound he had received in the
fight around Moskva, and under his command an army was formed which
only delayed taking the field till it should have received sufficient
support in men and money from the neighbouring lands. [Sidenote:
1612] Not till the end of April were the equipped forces ready to
march, and by that time new dangers had begun to crop up like noxious
weeds on a land that had too long lain fallow of settled government.
The Kozaks around Moskva had begun to talk of Marina’s infant as the
rightful heir to the throne, while at Ivangorod had arisen another
phantom Dimitri, Ljhedimitri III., who had established himself at
Pskov. It was time for the army of regeneration to be moving, though
what it “carried in its stomach” was difficult to foreshadow. With the
melting of the snows Pojharskie unfurled his standard, blazoned with
a swarthy eastern Christ and thickly bestrewn with inscriptions, and
led his troops towards Moskva. Vague as his political objective was,
his crusade attracted adherents. At Kostroma, which a Russian kniaz
held in the name of Vladislav, the people had arisen and declared
themselves for Pojharskie. At Yaroslavl the citizens came forth to
welcome the approaching army, with ikons and provisions and gifts for
the voevoda in command. It seemed probable that a Dimitri might yet
mount the throne of Monomachus. Here, however, the onward movement
came to a sudden halt; Pojharskie was unwilling to lead his men direct
upon Moskva, where Zaroutzkie and his Kozaks were encamped, lest they
should be seduced, from sheer lack of alternative, to give in their
allegiance to the adventuress Marina and her child, on whose behalf the
Kozak leader was working. Pojharskie in fact, in the helplessness of a
negative undertaking, was waiting upon Providence, and was not loth to
receive the proposals which came from Velikie-Novgorod for the election
of the King of Sweden’s brother to the tzarstvo. (Karl IX. had died in
the winter, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Gustav-Adolf, brother
of Karl-Filip.) But here again the double-edged difficulty arose
which confronted every attempted solution of the succession problem;
the House of Moskva, since the extinction of the independent Russian
principalities and the disappearance of the Paleologi, was the only
reigning family in Europe which professed the Greek faith, and with
the dying out of the Ivanovitch line the supply of Orthodox Princes of
the Blood came to an end. Hence the Russians must either submit to the
elevation of a Tzar from the boyarin ranks, or persuade some foreign
prince to adopt the indispensable dogmas. Pojharskie met the proposals
of the Novgorodskie and Swedish agents with an inquiry on this matter
of religion, and professed himself willing, if satisfied in this
respect, to accept Karl-Filip’s candidature. It was doubtful, however,
if the Lutheran Vasa would be more open to embrace Orthodoxy than his
Catholic cousin had shown himself, and meanwhile, from the Troitza and
the capital, kept coming urgent expostulations as to the dangerous
stagnation on the part of the Russian vanguard. In July Pojharskie
at last put his troops in motion and moved slowly towards Moskva,
but turned aside from the army at Rostov to make a pilgrimage to the
Souzdalskie monastery of the Saviour, where reposed the bones of his
ancestors. The campaign was suddenly quickened out of its irresolute
lethargy by the news that the hetman Khodkievitch was approaching
Moskva with a relief force and the much-needed supplies for the Polish
garrison. The Russian voevoda, still holding aloof from the Kozak
encampment, threw his forces into the western end of the Biel-gorod,
leaving to Zaroutzkie the eastern quarter confronting the walls of
the Kitai-gorod. On the 22nd August the Lit’uanian army appeared on
the western approaches of the city, and a wild scrambling engagement
ensued, Pojharskie’s soldiery and the strielitz defending their lines
from the attacks of the relieving force on the one hand, and the
sorties of the Polish garrison on the other, while the Kozaks remained
for the most part inactive. Along the banks of the Moskva on the south,
at the Tverskie gate on the north-west, under the ramparts of the
Kreml, and beneath the western walls of the Biel-gorod the combat was
hotly waged, and evening found the Russians still interposed between
the besieged and their succours. After a lull of a day’s duration the
fighting was resumed at daybreak on the 24th; the hetman’s forces
came into collision with Zaroutzkie’s Kozaks, and the freebooters of
the Dniepr found themselves opposed by their fellows of the Don. The
Russians, if fighting without cohesion, had the advantage of numbers
and position, and the Poles were hampered by the baggage train which it
was their object to convoy through the enemy’s lines into the Kreml.
At mid-day, after having suffered enormously in his repeated attempts
to force a passage through the Biel-gorod, Khodkievitch drew off his
discomfited forces and retired to the Vorob’ev mountains, leaving his
baggage and provision train in the hands of the enemy. Four days later
he retreated towards Lit’uania. The effect of this national victory was
to infuse more spirit into the measures taken to dislodge the Poles
from the citadel; ill-feeling and suspicion still existed between
the various elements composing the blockading army, but the leaders
were at least able to arrange a concerted plan of action against the
beleaguered garrison. The latter, who had seen with sinking hearts
the Polish standards fade away down the Moskva valley, held out for
some time against the assaults and summonses of their attackers,
notwithstanding the sufferings they endured from lack of sufficient
provisions. The stories recounted of parents feeding on the flesh of
their children were probably exaggerations, and the starving to death
of the hapless Patriarch Hermogen early in the year was a measure of
severity rather than necessity, but the defenders and their Russian
prisoners were undoubtedly in sore straits, and their surrender,
unless relieved, a mere matter of time. In October the Kozaks under
Troubetzkoi stormed the Kitai-gorod and drove the hunger-weakened Poles
into the Kreml. Two days later (24th October) the garrison let down
a bridge over the Neglina stream and disgorged a crowd of prisoners,
among them Thedor Mstislavskie, Ivan Vorotuinskie, and the young
Mikhail Thedorovitch Romanov. The unruly Kozaks rushed to plunder the
outcasts, and were with difficulty held back by the country regiments
of Pojharskie. On the 25th the Polish eagle was lowered from the towers
of the Kreml, the gates were thrown open, and the Russians marched with
triumph into their long-sealed citadel. Their Patriarch was dead and
there was none whom they could call Tzar, but with pathetic eagerness
they ran to prostrate themselves before their restored Bogoroditza of
Vladimir. For the most part the lives of the Poles were respected,
according to the terms of the surrender, but many of those who were
unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the Kozaks were butchered
by those fierce irregulars, who, now that the binding tie of a common
military task was loosened, were more than ever a thorn in the side
of the Moskovites. Helping themselves to plunder and demanding pay,
they threatened to turn their weapons against the citizens and country
troops, and the capital seemed likely to become the scene of renewed
bloodshed. In the midst of these feuds and disorders Moskva was
suddenly agitated by the intelligence that the King of Poland in person
was marching against it with a large army. This was only half a truth;
Sigismund had indeed made a tardy movement towards the succour of his
Polish outpost in the Russian capital, but neither Poland nor Lit’uania
had furnished him with the necessary forces. Valuable time was lost
at Vilna and at Smolensk without any resulting increase in the King’s
army, and in October he was obliged to move forward with only 3000
German troops, of whom 2000 were infantry. A junction effected with
the retreating remnant of Khodkievitch’s forces did not materially
strengthen his following, and the news of the surrender of the Kreml
put a finishing touch to the hopes of the expedition. An ineffectual
assault on Voloko-Lamsk completed the Polish monarch’s discomfiture,
and soon after the Moskvitchi learned that their enemy had withdrawn
across the border. The Russian land was free from the invader, and
the Russian people had liberty and leisure to set about the important
task of electing a new sovereign, and evolving a new dynasty from the
chaos and wreckage which had attended the disappearance of the old
one. In the dark winter days which followed the capture of the Kreml,
when anger and fear and suspicion, rumour-bred or founded on past
experiences of trouble, had sharpened the minds of the citizens, an
idea had sprung up which seemed to be flavoured at least with hope. As
a door had suddenly opened in the Kreml wall and given egress for a
crowd of eagerly-escaping hostages, so, from that very circumstance, a
way seemed opened as an outlet for Russian perplexities and troubles.
Among the throng who had pressed across the gangway over the Neglina
was the sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov, son of the Metropolitan
“Filarete,” and grandson of Nikita Romanovitch, whose sister Anastasie
had been the first wife of Ivan the Terrible. Here was a representative
of a family which furnished a link with the vanished dynasty, and which
at the same time had no untoward reminiscences in its past history to
cloud the affections of the people. If the Romanovs had rendered no
striking services to the country, at least there were no skeletons of
Ouglitch, no records of extortion and faction-mongering to reproach
them with. Standing near the throne, they had never seemed to scheme
for its possession, and if the citizens and country-folk alike turned
their thoughts towards young Mikhail it was a spontaneous movement,
innocent of the influences by means of which Boris Godounov and Vasili
Shouyskie had engineered their elections. Nor was the young boyarin
devoid of recommendatory qualities, though these were naturally of a
negative order; but lately a prisoner in the hands of the Poles, as
his father was still (Thedor Romanov had visited the cradle of his
race under inauspicious circumstances, having been seized and carried
as a prisoner to Marienburg at the outbreak of hostilities), he was
scarcely likely to have leanings towards Polish and Catholic ideas.
His connection with the elder family branch of Ivan IV. precluded him
from sympathy with the Nagois and the brood of impostors which sprang
up in mock relationship with them, and equally he was free from any
taint of political association with Zaroutzkie and the partisans of
Marina. The people saw in his parentage a relic of the old reigning
family, in his youth perhaps a reminiscence of his namesake, their
beloved Skopin-Shouyskie, and they forgave him the fact that the
blood of Rurik did not flow in his veins. [Sidenote: 1613] As the
dieti-boyarins and starostas, the archimandrites of monasteries and
other church dignitaries, and all the various country representatives
came flocking into Moskva to the national electoral sobor, one name
was heard on every side; and when, in “Orthodox Week” of the great
Lent, the Archbishop of Riazan, attended by the archimandrite of the
Novo-Spasskie, the cellarer of the Troitza, and the boyarin Morozov,
proceeded to the high place of execution and put the question of the
choice to the assemblage crowded in the Red Square, one name was
thundered back from a gaping chorus of throats. “Mikhail Thedorovitch
Romanov.” The Time of the Troubles had ended.
Hymns of jubilation arose in the temples, the kolokols sounded from
one end of Moskva to the other, and the great city and its influx
of country-folk rejoiced at having once more a holy and Orthodox
sovereign. But much remained to be done ere the new state of things
was settled on a firm footing; Zaroutzkie and his Kozaks, driven out
of the capital, plundered and ravaged in the south-east; the Poles and
Swedes threatened the west and north-west; freebooters, unattached
to any party, rode in marauding troops everywhere. The situation was
alarming enough to deter any but the most adventurous from challenging
its outcome, and when the ambassadors from the sobor came, with the
news of Mikhail’s election, to the Ipat’evskie monastery at Kostroma,
whither the young boyarin had retired with his mother, they found
the latter reluctant to sanction her son’s acceptance of the offer.
Her husband was a prisoner in the hands of the Poles, and her boy
was now called upon to brave the fate which had brought to a violent
end the younger Godounov, and perhaps his father, had lured on and
destroyed both the False Dimitris, and had sent Vasili Shouyskie to a
dishonoured captivity. When she at length yielded to their insistence
other difficulties stood, literally, in the way. The Tzar-elect was
constrained to halt for several weeks at Yaroslavl, on his journey to
Moskva, by reason of the swarming bands of Kozaks and Polish adherents
which infested the roads, and made travelling unsafe for any party
smaller than an army. At length on the 2nd of May the long-looked-for
cavalcade arrived, and the young Mikhail was triumphantly conducted
into the Kreml which he had left under such different circumstances.
Nine weeks later (11th July) the ceremony of the coronation took place
in the Ouspienskie Cathedral with the customary pomp and time-honoured
usages. The revered ikons of the Mother-of-God of Vladimir and the
Mother-of-God of Kazan duly made their appearance on the scene, like
the “male and female phœnix, entering with solemn gambollings,”
which formed an auspicious feature in the festivals of Chinese Court
mythology. But the throes of revolution had left the tzarstvo weak and
the treasury depleted, and the young Gosoudar had to begin his reign
by appealing for substantial support to a country already drained by
contributions and forced distraints. The dieti-boyarins and small
landowners, on whom the State depended for military service against the
many enemies that threatened it, were unable to obtain the necessary
sustenance from their deserted estates, and there were no means of
supplying the wants of their retainers from the empty public coffers. A
letter, signed by the Tzar, was sent to the administrators of the Perm
and Sibirian provinces, the loyal and trusty Stroganovs, requesting the
prompt payment of all outlying debts and taxes and further soliciting,
“in the name of Christian peace and rest,” an immediate loan of money,
corn, fish, salt, cloth, and all kinds of goods for the payment and
support of the soldiery. Similar letters were sent to the principal
towns and districts of the gosoudarstvo. Russian convalescence demanded
feeding and strengthening against the possibility of a relapse.
Dark and anxious for the Moskvitchi was the winter following the
tzarskie election; sullen and ill-fed troops quartered within the
capital, and without bands of Kozaks prowling like wolves about the
country; no supplies coming into Moskva, only rumours of warlike
invasion from Lit’uania. The thaws of spring might bring with them
Sigismund and his hetmans, and the swallow tribes returning to their
nests on the Kreml ramparts might once again be greeted with the
singing of the Latins in the holy places of Orthodoxy. The forebodings
of Polish invasion passed away, however, with the winter snows, and
the Tzar’s counsellors were able to devote their attention to a
campaign of extermination against Zaroutzkie and his wild horsemen.
[Sidenote: 1614] The kniaz Ivan Odoevskie was dispatched with a
Moskovite army in search of the Kozak chief, and after a series of
marchings and counter-marchings fell in with him not far from Toula;
according to the voevoda’s report, Zaroutzkie was completely defeated
after two days’ continuous fighting, and forced to fly across the
Don to Medvieditz with a few followers, leaving his baggage train,
standards, and many prisoners in the victor’s hands. The chronicles
give a somewhat different account of the matter, and relate that the
rebel leader repulsed the tzarskie troops and retired in good order
to Astrakhan, leaving a devastated country behind him. Whatever the
actual result of the fighting, the disturbing element was at least
removed from the heart of the empire, and the authorities at Moskva
were able to open up negotiations with the Kozaks of the Don and Volga
for the purpose of detaching them from the cause of Zaroutzkie and
Marina and enlisting their services against the Lit’uanian enemy. The
Tzar sent them messengers with his flag and exhortations to withdraw
their allegiance from heretics and traitors; more to the purpose, he
was able to send them supplies of cloth, provisions, saltpetre, and
lead. The Kozaks greeted the Tzar’s name with a display of loyalty,
and accepted his presents, but they did not show a readiness to enroll
themselves under his flag; there seemed indeed a possibility that
Zaroutzkie would succeed in gathering under his leadership the Volga
and Don freebooters and the Tartars of Kazan, and thus shut in the
struggling tzarstvo between his forces on the east and those of Poland
on the west. Letter after letter was sent from Moskva to the men of the
steppe, and appeals were made to their patriotism, their religion, and
their cupidity. The downfall of Zaroutzkie and his party was brought
about, however, by other agency; in dusty Astrakhan, where Marina and
her third consort held their rebel Court, the townsfolk, resentful
of the violence of the Volga Kozaks who were quartered on them, rose
in rebellion. Zaroutzkie was driven into the stone town, and, on the
approach of a body of Moskovite strielitz, the Astrakhanese kissed
the cross and beat the forehead to the Tzar Mikhail. The desperate
adventurers escaped from the toils which were gathering round them, and
fled with a small number of adherents along the wooded banks of the
Volga. Odoevskie had arrived on the scene with fresh forces, and a hot
pursuit was kept up on the track of the fugitives. At the end of June
the enemies of Russia’s peace--Zaroutzkie, the ambition-borne Marina,
and her four-year-old son--fell into the hands of their pursuers, and
were brought back in triumph to Astrakhan. The bold and stubborn Kozak
kniaz ended his wild career by the horrible death of impalement, and
the Polish ex-Tzaritza was torn from her child and sent in chains to
Moskva, closing her chequered course in a dungeon of the city which
she had entered as a monarch’s bride. Her luckless infant, the last
and fittest victim of the catastrophe of Ouglitch, swung on a gibbet
on the road that runs towards Serpoukhov, a tender and pitiful morsel
of gallows-fruit for the Volga daws to peck at. The fate of Zaroutzkie
and the extinction of the last pale ghostling of a race of spectres did
not immediately deter the wild spirits of the steppes from struggling
against the elements of order, so long absent from the land. Bands
of Kozaks, swelled into an army by drafts of Russian freebooters and
fugitive serfs, border raiders and Tcherkesses, raised anew the flag
of rebellion and discord, and were not dispersed till an over-bold
rush towards Moskva brought upon them a decisive defeat on the banks
of the Loujha (September 1614). At the same time Lisovskie kept alive
the cause of the Polish prince and made the Sieverskie land the base
of operations for his light and seasoned troops. Nor was the outlook
more hopeful in the north; besides Great Novgorod and the Water-ward
(one of the five districts appertaining to that city), the Swedes held
Keksholm, Ivangorod, Yam, Kopor’e, Ladoga, and Staraia Rousa. The
Novgorodskie, who had handed themselves over to the Swedish prince
on the supposition that he would be chosen Tzar of Russia, found
themselves, by the election of Mikhail, confronted with the alternative
of revolt against their accepted sovereign or separation from Moskovy.
The citizens would willingly have chosen the former course, but the
Swedes were in forcible possession, and, like the porcupine of the
fable, were in no way disposed to quit the quarters into which they
had been admitted. Faced with the necessity of increasing their
field forces to cope with the enemies who threatened them on every
side, the Russian executive were obliged to make further calls upon
the resources of the gosoudarstvo; the north-eastern province, the
youngest of all the Russian territories, responded manfully to the
Tzar’s requisitions, but for the most part the other taxing grounds
yielded poor returns. Equally unproductive was the experiment in liquor
dealing, by which the Government sought to augment their revenue by
monopolising the distilling and sale of wines and spirits. In another
direction they were more successful in seeking for assistance; shortly
after Mikhail’s coronation the young Tzar’s counsellors, recalling the
terms of friendship which had existed aforetime between the rulers of
Moskovy and the Tudor sovereigns of England, dispatched an embassy
to the Stewart prince who had stepped into the inheritance of the
latter dynasty. King James was appealed to by his brother monarch
for urgently needed supplies of gunpowder, money, lead, sulphur, and
other munitions with which to carry on the war of self-defence, and
also for the exertion of his good services for the arrangement of
an accommodation with Sweden. It was characteristic of the British
negotiators that they instinctively sought to obtain concessions for
their merchants to trade through Russian waterways direct with Persia,
India, and China, characteristic perhaps of the Moskovites that they
temporised, raised obstacles, and finally granted nothing. It was also
an honourable episode in the not too satisfactory foreign dealings of
the Stewarts that the refusal did not alienate the good offices which
were put forward on behalf of the Tzar. In August 1614 John Merrick,
a recently knighted merchant who was well acquainted with Moskva,
came to that city with full powers from the King of Great Britain for
opening negotiations between Sweden and Russia. Holland had also been
approached on the same subject, and Merrick was joined at Novgorod by
the Dutch ambassador van Brederode. At the same time that the Russian
Government was seeking the intervention and aid of the northern sea
powers, its agents were casting about among the military states of
south-eastern Europe with a similar object. So far had the dream of
a crusade against the Crescent faded away from Moskovite imagination
before the nightmare of present woes, that the young Tzar and his
counsellors were anxious to league their forces with those of the
Sultan and the Tartar Khan against the King of Poland, and negotiations
were set on foot at Constantinople for that purpose. [Sidenote:
1615] The Emperor, who was appealed to with the view of obtaining
by diplomacy what the Turks did not seem likely to effect by war,
accepted the post of mediator, and a meeting of the Russian and Polish
ambassadors was held at Smolensk, under the presidency of the imperial
representative, Erasmus Handelius. As the Poles began by demanding that
Vladislav should be recognised as Tzar of Russia, the negotiations did
not proceed very far, and the German returned to his master with the
report that “you might so well try to reconcile fire and water.” An
irregular warfare of an extraordinary character preluded the opening
of a more serious campaign between the two hate-hounded States. The
firebrand Lisovskie kindled the blaze of strife and devastation once
more in the Sieverskie country, and with his light horsemen, innured
to fatigue and rapid marches, flitted like a will-o’-the-wisp before
the pursuing troops of Dimitri Pojharskie. Hunted out of the Sieverski
border, he passed swiftly northward by Smolensk and Viasma, harried
the slobodas of Rjhev, turned towards Ouglitch, and subsequently burst
through between Yaroslavl and Kostroma and laid Souzdal in ashes;
from thence he hied into the Riazan province, beat off the attacks
of the Moskovite voevodas, and dashed back into Lit’uania by way of
Toula and Serpoukhov. In the north meanwhile the walls of Pskov had
once more proved a bulwark against the tide of Russia’s misfortunes,
and the military talents which the young Gustav-Adolf had already
commenced to display were unable to bring about the reduction of that
stronghold. This check, together with the Polish and Danish wars in
which Sweden was involved, inclined the King to be more favourably
disposed towards a reasonable accommodation than his cousin of Poland
had shown himself, and the peace negotiations which the English and
Dutch representatives set afoot were more hopeful of result than those
of Smolensk. The foreign envoys saw in the miserable desolation of
the border districts through which they travelled evidence of the
distress with which Moskovy was still afflicted. Save bands of Kozaks
skulking in the woods, the country-side was devoid of human habitants;
of the native population only unburied corpses remained, and at night
the howling of congregated wolves and other beasts of prey resounded
on all sides. The once thriving town of Staraia Rousa was a heap of
ruined houses and churches, haunted by an under-fed remnant of scarcely
100 men. Such were the scenes amid which the ambassadors of the two
contending nations and their mediators commenced their attempts at
mutual accommodation. The cool-headed and business-like qualities of
the British representative were perhaps the deciding factor in the
protracted negotiations, and towards the end of 1616 Merrick was able
to bring the opposing elements together in the village of Stolbova
to discuss the final terms of peace. [Sidenote: 1617] In February
the following year the treaty of Stolbova was signed, its principal
provisions being: that Sweden yielded back to Russia Great Novgorod and
district, Ladoga, Staraia Rousa, and some smaller places, but retained
Ivangorod, Yam, Kopor’e, Keksholm and the province of Korelia, and
in addition received a sum of 20,000 roubles; that free commercial
intercourse should obtain between the two reconciled countries; and
that immigrants from the west should have free access to the Tzar’s
dominions through Swedish territory.[199] Merrick, who had done his
utmost to secure tolerable terms for the Russians, further assisted
them by paying down the money demanded by Sweden.
The peace of Stolbova was as favourable an accommodation as the Tzar
could reasonably have expected to secure. The surrender of a hopeless
pretension to the last shred of Baltic coast still further checked the
struggle for an outlet seawards which had been pursued for the last
half-hundred years with such discouraging result; but Moskovy got back
some of the places which had been wrung from her weakness, and above
all gained breathing time to concentrate her energies on the strife
with the arch-enemy Poland.
Both parties had made preparation for pushing the quarrel to the
uttermost. The Korolovitch[200] Vladislav had, with the insistence of
youth, induced the Poles to support him in enforcing his election to
the throne of all the Russias, a sovereignty stretching away over a
vast expanse of tributary lands till it was almost lost on the horizon
of western politics. On the other hand, Mikhail and the Moskovites
were braced to fight for their faith, their fatherland, for very
existence. [Sidenote: 1616] Vladislav’s enterprise had received the
cautious sanction of the Senate and the more unrestrained blessing of
the Archbishop of Warszawa, and in a schismatic-Greek church in the
old Volhynian capital, Vladimir, a standard bearing the arms of Moskva
had been consecrated; a standard which would, it was hoped, draw the
Russians over to the cause of the Polish pretender. In the autumn of
1616 a detachment under the hetman Gonsievskie, consisting of a small
but capable force, moved out of Smolensk towards Dorogoboujh and camped
at the gorodok of Tverdilitz. Instantly the Tzar ordered his voevodas
to make a dash upon Smolensk, thus cutting off Gonsievskie’s line
of communication and striking at the enemy on their own ground. The
move was well conceived and swiftly executed, but its success stopped
short at the outworks of Smolensk. The Russians were not well versed
in the art of taking a city by sudden assault, and their leader,
Boutourlin, remained helpless in his intrenchments for the rest of
the year, his troops exposed to attacks from the besieged on one side
and Gonsievskie’s skirmishers on the other, and reduced to feed on
horse-flesh for want of other provisions. [Sidenote: 1617] The new year
witnessed vigorous action on both sides; a Polish force was routed
by a Russian detachment near Dorogoboujh, an event which caused much
rejoicing at Moskva, while in May Gonsievskie drove Boutourlin from
before the walls of Smolensk. The same month another Polish attack on
Dorogoboujh was repulsed, and the Russians hoped at least to maintain
an effective defensive resistance to the invaders, but the turn of
the year brought with it worse tidings. In July the hetman’s troops
made themselves masters of Staritza, Torjhok, and other places, and
pushed their advance guard into the Bielozero district, and at the
same time came news that the Korolovitch himself was marching with
a fresh army upon Moskva. At the end of August Vladislav effected a
junction with the Malo-Russian hetman Khodkievitch, and two months
later Dorogoboujh and Viasma had both been occupied by the conquering
Vasa. Mikhail saw the fate of his forerunners looming large upon him,
and already perhaps heard the bells of Moskva knelling his overthrow
or the crowds of Krakow jeering at his misfortunes. But the winter
season brought with it a respite; the Poles were beaten back from
attacks on Tver and Mojhaysk, and in December Vladislav retreated
to quarters in Viasma. From here he put forward proposals for peace
negotiations, hoping perhaps to gain over the boyarins and people to
his side without recourse to further fighting. The Moskovites, however,
answered the Korolovitch boldly, and seemed as little disposed to yield
an inch of territory as he was to abate a jot of his pretensions.
[Sidenote: 1618] The first six months of the ensuing year were spent
in fruitless discussions, during which time hostilities were as far
as possible suspended. On the 29th of June the Poles resumed the
offensive by an assault on Mojhaysk, which was defended with spirit
against this and several subsequent attacks. Seeing, however, the
hopelessness of prolonging the defence of this place against the
determined efforts of the Korolovitch’s army, the Russian voevodas
withdrew their force on the dark and wet night of the first of August,
and retired upon Moskva. Masters of Mojhaysk, the Poles now prepared
to clinch their successes by an attack on the capital itself, and
Mikhail saw himself threatened in his last stronghold. With the memory
of Vasili Shouyskie and Thedor Godounov before his mind the young Tzar
may well have distrusted the loyalty which was nevertheless all that
remained for him to trust to, and it was not without reason that he
sought, by a solemn assembly of the sobor, to confirm and invigorate
the staunchness of his subjects. To all appearance the city was lost.
On one side advanced the Korolovitch with his victorious army as far
as the village of Toushin, of evil memory; on the other, by way of
Kolomna, bore down the Malo-Russian hetman, Sagaydatchnuiy,[201] with
20,000 Kozaks. The Moskovite voevodas stood by in helpless inactivity
while the hetman joined his forces with those of Vladislav, and terror
settled down on the capital. The religious fanaticism of the people was
countered by their superstition-soaked imaginings, and the appearance
of a comet some millions of miles above them in the skies, “over
against the town,” intensified the alarm felt at the more immediate
neighbourhood of the Polish armies. A demand for submission sent in
by the Korolovitch restored the defiant humour of the Moskvitchi;
this overture was more or less a blind, as the Poles were meditating
a sudden assault, but their designs became known by some means to the
citizens, and when, on the night of the 1st of October, the attack
was made, the Russians were ready for it. The Arbatskie gate was
stoutly defended, and at red dawn the Poles were driven back from that
point; along the wall from thence to the Nikitskie gate the efforts
of the assailants were directed with no better result, and at the
Tverskie gate the onslaught failed by reason of the scaling ladders
being too short for their purpose. Nowhere could the enemy force an
entrance, and the Polish hetmans had to draw off their discomfited
troops from the neighbourhood of the capital. The spell which had hung
round the Korolovitch’s advance was broken, and he found himself at
the commencement of winter in the heart of a hostile country, whose
inhabitants only needed the heartening effect of a success to rouse
them on all sides against him. Under these circumstances Vladislav
gave permission to his advisers to open fresh negotiations with the
Moskovite boyarins of state, and Lev Sapieha, Adam Novodvorskie (Bishop
of Kaminiec), and three other notables were empowered to treat for
the arrangement of a peace. But notwithstanding the difficulty of
keeping together a discouraged and ill-paid army and the instructions
which came from Sigismund to bring the war to a speedy conclusion, the
Polish prince was loth to relinquish the sovereignty which had seemed
so nearly within his grasp, and placed the terms of compensation too
high for Russian acceptance. The negotiations which had been opened
near Moskva on the bank of the Priesna were broken off, and the
Korolovitch once more assumed the offensive. Neither the capital nor
the walls of the Troitza offered a very promising point of attack,
and a retreating detachment of Poles was overtaken and defeated near
Bielozero, but the ravages of the Dniepr Kozaks, who were undeterred in
their rangings by the bitter winter weather, disposed the Moskovites
to renew the proposals for a peaceable settlement. At length, in the
village of Deoulino, three verstas from the Troitza monastery, a truce
of fourteen years and six months was agreed upon. Vladislav left
Mikhail in possession of the throne of Moskva, but retained the empty
consolation of styling himself Tzar; on the other hand Russia yielded
up to Poland a long list of towns, most of which had been snatched from
her during the fatal “Time of the Troubles,” and which she was now too
weak to recover. Smolensk, Tchernigov, Roslavl, Novgorod-Sieverskie
and district, Starodoub, Dorogoboujh, Serpeysk, Nevl, and some lesser
places were the price the gosoudarstvo had to pay for the peace which
had been so long absent from the land; Viasma, Mojhaysk, and some
other Pole-held towns were given back to the tzarstvo, and an exchange
of prisoners was concerted, by virtue of which Filarete Romanov and
the voevoda Shein were restored to their country. (Vasili Shouyskie
had died in captivity at Warszawa some years previously.) The ikon of
S. Nikolai of Mojhaysk, venerated by the Russians as a living being,
and seized by the Poles as a spoil of war, was also included in the
stipulated restitutions.[202] On the 1st of December 1618 the Truce of
Deoulino was signed, and with the opening of the new year Mikhail saw
the waters of destruction recede from around his long-menaced throne.
As the Polish eagles went winging homeward the land settled down,
almost for the first time in the century, to a period of peace and
security, and the figurative “voice of the turtle” arose once more in
the forests and fields of Moskovy. In June 1619 the inhabitants of the
capital went out with their ubiquitous ikons and crosses to receive the
restored Filarete, who had been elected to the vacant Patriarchate,
and as the bells rang out their welcome to the returning Vladuika
Mikhail hailed with joy a father and a counsellor, the Church obtained
a head, and the gosoudarstvo an able administrator. State and Church
emerged together from the maelstrom which had swept over them both,
and in the persons of Thedor and Mikhail Romanov the Russian Empire
had found the dynasty which was to nurture it to a giant growth and
guide it forward on the path of power. The conclusion of the treaties
of Stolbova and Deoulino drove deep wedges into the territory of the
tzarstvo and thrust Moskovy back yet farther from the Baltic and from
Western Europe; but all the elements of survival and absorption were
present in the momentarily weakened state. While Sweden, devoid of
natural resources, was manuring a fitful crop of laurels and grafted
possessions with the blood of magnificently disciplined armies, the
wealth of Perm and Sibiria and the trade of Makar’ev and Azov was
pouring into Russia the life-spring of recuperation, the wherewithal
to wring victory from defeat, and weary down less enduring opponents.
And while the Poles were opening wider and wider the doors of their
Constitution to every species of privileged obstruction and respectable
anarchy, the Moskovites, warned by past experiences, and constrained by
the grim spectre of the scaffold on the Red Place--which was not always
a mere spectre--were “beating the forehead” to the sovereign authority
as unreservedly as they had done in the days of the fearsome Ivan. With
the firm establishment of the first Romanov on the throne the Russian
Empire became an accomplished fact, and the ground was prepared for the
work of his famous grandson. This was the turning-point of the long
struggle for existence, and from thenceforth the two-headed eagle,
blazoned with S. George the Conqueror, soars ever more prominently in
the eastern heavens. With the consecration of the Patriarch Filarete
in the Ouspienskie Cathedral, in the presence of the Tzar and the high
boyarins, prelates, and councillors, nobles, clergy, and people, with
the historic jewel-wrought Bogoroditza of Vladimir shedding its sacred
lustre on the assembled throng, and the crown of Monomachus sparkling
in the light of the illuminating tapers, closes the last scene of the
grounding of the Russian Empire; and here may be fitly quoted, from
the old Slavonic saga, “Oh, men of the Russian land, already are you
this side the hill.”
S. Solov’ev, Kostomarov
[Illustration: I.--TABLE OF RUSSIAN PRINCES OF THE LINE OF RURIK, FROM
SVIATOSLAV I.]
[Illustration: II.--HOUSE OF MSTISLAV VLADIMIROVITCH.]
[Illustration: III.--HOUSE OF SOUZDAL-VLADIMIR AND SUB-HOUSE OF MOSKVA
AND TVER.]
[Illustration: IV.--GRAND PRINCES AND TZARS OF MOSKOVY.]
FOOTNOTES:
[198] Answering to the Saxon reeve; in towns mayor or baillie, of
lesser importance than a posadnik.
[199] S. Solov’ev, Kostomarov.
[200] King’s son, a convenient designation scarcely reproduced in
English by the somewhat vague “Prince”; “Crown Prince,” with reference
to an elective monarchy, being of course inadmissible.
[201] Or Saygadatchnuiy; Solov’ev uses both spellings.
[202] S. Solov’ev; De Koch and Schoell, _Histoire abrégée des Traités
de Paix_.
GLOSSARY
OF RUSSIAN WORDS EMPLOYED WITHOUT EXPLANATION IN TEXT
_Baba yaga_ witch in Slavonic myth
_Bogoroditza_ Mother-of-God
_gorod_ town
_gosoudarstvo_ realm, sovereignty
_ikon_ picture of a saint in relief
_kolokol_ church bell
_lavra_ monastery of superior grade
_oblast_ district, region
_posadnik_ mayor of free city
_sobor_ national council or Parliament; cathedral
_Spasskie_ of-the-Saviour
_Strielitz_ body-guard, originally archers
_velikie_ great, grand
_vetché_ town or communal council
_voevoda_ military commander
_zamok_ castle
INDEX
Aleksandr Nevskie, 96, 100
Aleksis, Metropolitan and Saint, 126
Anastasie Romanov, 201
Andrei, Prince of Souzdal, 62
death of, 65
Astrakhan, khanate of, 149
annexed by Moskovy, 207
Baltic trade, 60
Batory (Stefan), 241
Batu, 89
Bela III., King of Hungary, 70
Bela IV., King of Hungary, 88, 94
Boris Sviatoslavitch, 44
Boris Godounov, 253
elected Tzar, 265
Bulgaria (Balkan principality), 8, 28
Bulgaria (Volga principality), 9, 36, 83, 89
Calendar, reform of, not adopted in Russia, 255
Christianity, introduction of, in Russia, 38, 40
Constantinople, 8
Russian expeditions against, 16, 20, 23, 50
Latin conquest of, 74
taken by the Turks, 146
Moskovite relations with, 161
Daniel Romanovitch, 87
“King of Galitz,” 99
death of, 106
Dimitri Donskoi, 127
defeats Mongols, 131
Dimitri--Tzarevitch, 249
death of, 260
Dimitri (False), _see_ Ljhedimitri
Dorpat, founded, 47
Elizabeth Queen of England, correspondence with Ivan IV., 222
England, Moskovite intercourse with, 208
Mediation of, between Russia and Sweden, 318
Gardie, de la, Swedish General, 245
Jacob, 294, 297
Gedimin, Duke of Lit’uania, 115
death of, 120
German artillerists in Moskovite service, 187
Glieb Sviatoslavitch, 44
Glinski, Mikhail, 175, 180, 196
Godounov dynasty established, 265
overturned, 277
Greek artists at Moskva, 146
Grodno, founded, 102
Habsburgh, candidate for Polish Crown, 236, 241
despoiled by Ivan III., 163
Hanse League, factory at Novgorod, 87
Towns, Treaty with Novgorod, 139
Henri de Valois, elected King of Poland, 239
Hungary, intervention in west Russian affairs, 70, 87
invaded by Mongols, 94
contested succession to throne, 160
Igor, Prince of Kiev, 17
death of, 26
Igor, “Song of,” 67-69
Isiaslav I., Prince of Kiev, 53
Ivan Kalita, Grand-Prince, 114
Ivan Ivanovitch, Grand-Prince, 126
Ivan III., 149
marriage with Sophie Paleologus, 153
quarrels with Lit’uania, 164
death, 173
Ivan IV., 195
coronation, 201
marriages, 201, 234, 235, 244
wars with Poland and Sword Order, 208, 243
death, 249
Ivan Ivanovitch, Tzarevitch, 207
killed by his father, 246
Kalka, battle of, 84
Kazan, khanate of, 144, 149
annexed to Moskovy, 205
Khazars, 9, 28
Kiev, first mention of, 15
becomes capital of Russian State, 18
increased importance of, 51
stormed by Souzdalian force, 63
decline of fortunes, 62
stormed by Mongols, 92
lost to Russia, 124
Krim Tartars, 149, 165, 179, 186, 198, 232, 262
Kozaks, origin of, 192
western, in Polish service, 260, 296, 310
of the Don, 248, 273, 291, 303, 315
Lit’uania, 6, 70
first historical Duke of, 101
aggrandisement of, 115
Conversion to Christianity, 134
Moskovite campaigns against, 128, 165
Union with Poland, 224
Livland, 6
military conversion of, 74, 77
campaigns in, 168, 208, 240, 244
Ljhedimitri, appearance of, 272
success of his enterprise, 277
overthrow, 284
speculations as to his origin, 285
Ljhedimitri II., 291
death of, 301
Lubetch, “carpet-council” at, 55
Makar’ev, fair of, 190
Marina Mnishek, 273, 282, 292, 301, 316
Martha of Novgorod, 150, 155
Mengli-Girei, 156, 182
Mikhail Romanov, 312
Money, early form of, 51
Mongols, 81
invade Russia, 83
invade Poland, 93
invade Hungary, 94
Russian subjection to, 97
defeated at Koulikovo, 131
sack Moskva, 132
bloodless overthrow, 157
Moskva, founding of, 62
resists Lit’uanians, 128
becomes Metropolitan city, 118
stormed by Mongols, 132
growing supremacy of, 147
description of, 177
Court Life at, 183
terrorised by Ivan IV., 229
burnt by Tartars, 233
occupied by Poles, 300
Mother-of-God of Vladimir, 62, 137, 266, 311, 314
Mstislav (of Tmoutorokan), 46
Mstislav (of Toropetz), 75, 81, 87
Novgorod the Great, 10, 27, 30
foreign trade with, 60
internal affairs of, 61, 103
victory over Souzdal, 64
quarrels with Moskva, 139, 151
humiliated by Ivan III., 155
punished by Ivan IV., 225
taken by Swedes, 304
restored to Moskovy, 320
Novgorod (Nijhnie-) 306
Novgorod-Sieverski, 273, 324
Oleg, Prince of Kiev, 17
Olga, 19, 26
Conversion to Christianity, 27
Olgerd, Grand Duke of Lit’uania, 124
Opritchniki, instituted, 218
abolished, 239
Orsha, battle of, 181
Orthodox Church, quarrels with the Roman Catholic Church, 73, 153
and Council of Florence, 142
fast observances, 122
in harmony with State, 122
crusade against foreign influences, 306
Papacy, dealings with Russia, 74, 99, 152, 171
and Gedimin, 116
and the False Dimitri, 281
and Daniel of Galitz, 99
Perm, evangelisation of, 134
Peroun, Slavonic Deity, 4
worship overthrown, 40
Petchenigs, 19, 22, 29, 34, 42, 48
Pojharskie, Prince, 302, 308
Poland, 9, 48
wars with, 45, 179, 243
election to throne of, 236, 241, 256
intervention in Russian troubles, 296
_Pacta Conventa_, 239
Polotzk (Prince of), 55
siege of, 214
Polovtzi, 54, 67, 70, 72, 81
Pskov, 27, 76, 104, 107, 119, 168, 176, 245
Riga, 78, 167
Roman (Prince of Novgorod), 64
becomes Prince of Galitz, 71
his death, 72
Romanov family, 201, 312
“Filarete,” 269, 293, 313, 324
Rurik, 14
Russia, physical conditions of, 1
condition of, under early princes, 79
in the Time of the Troubles, 305
Sarai, 97
Serfs, 264
Sergie, Saint, 131
Sibiria, conquest of, 247
Simeon, Grand Prince, 121
Shouyskie, family, 181, 195, 197, 200, 253, 258
Shouyskie, Vasili, 261, 274, 278, 283
elected Tzar, 287
deposed, 298
Skopin-Shouyskie, 294, 297
Skouratov, Maluta, 213, 240
Slavs, distribution of, 2
customs of, 4
Smolensk, annexed to Lit’uania, 136
captured by Moskovites, 180
Sober (national Parliament), 223, 265, 313
Souzdal, 62, 63, 136
Stefan of Moldavia, 158
Stolbova, Treaty of, 320
Sviatopalk, Grand Prince of Kiev, 43, 46
Sviatoslav, Prince of Kiev, 26
expedition into Bulgaria, 29
defeated by Greeks, 33
destroyed by Petchenigs, 34
Sweden, Russian wars with, 163, 207, 239, 259, 304
Sword Brethren, instituted, 74
amalgamated with Teutonic Order, 89
Tannenberg, battle of, 140
Tchernigov, 46, 51, 53, 63, 68, 71, 92, 96, 273, 324
Teutonic Order, 77
wars with Poland, 140, 185
secularised into Duchy of Prussia, 189
Troitza, monastery of, 131, 306
siege of, 293
Troops, Moskovite, equipment of, 165
liable to panic, 167
Turkey, Russian relations with, 161, 232
Tver, 109, 114, 133, 159
Tzar, meaning of title, 159
title first used at coronation, 201
Thedor Ivanovitch, 253
Thedor Godounov, 276
Urii (Prince of Souzdal), 62
Varangians, 12
Vasili (Grand Prince of Moskva), 135
Vasili “the Darkened,” 141
Vasili III., 173
second marriage of, 190
death of, 192
Viatka, 139
Vitovt, Grand Duke of Lit’uania, 135
Vladimir the Holy, 30, 35
conversion to Christianity, 39
death of, 43
Vladimir “Monomachus,” 54
becomes Prince of Kiev, 56
his testament, 56
Vladimir, town of, 62, 65, 90, 118
Vsevolod, Grand Prince of Souzdal, 66, 72
Yagiello, Grand Duke of Lit’uania, 129
elected to Polish Crown, 133
Yaroslav “the Great,” 36, 46
his death, 51
Zaroutzkie, 303, 313, 316
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_
Transcriber's Note
The following apparent errors have been corrected:
p. xii "Plan of Moscow" changed to "Plan of Moskva"
p. 9 "Kakhanate" changed to "Khanate"
p. 64 "Jaquerie" changed to "Jacquerie"
p. 112 "beseiged" changed to "besieged"
p. 116 (sidenote) "1223" changed to "1323"
p. 127 "Moskova" changed to "Moskva"
p. 138 "Vorksla" changed to "Vorskla"
p. 146 (note) "Geschicte des osmanischen" changed to "Geschichte des
osmanischen"
p. 180 "Three month’s" changed to "Three months"
p. 201 "synonomous" changed to "synonymous"
p. 201 "“Vremenszhiki,’" changed to "“Vremenszhiki,”"
p. 203 "Moskovitchi" changed to "Moskvitchi"
p. 226 "preventitive" changed to "preventative"
p. 270 "10 Strietenskie" changed to "10. Strietenskie"
p. 273 "heen convinced" changed to "been convinced"
p. 300 "Metroplitan" changed to "Metropolitan"
p. 313 "north-west, freebooters" changed to "north-west; freebooters"
p. 332 "38 40" changed to "38, 40"
p. 333 "73, 153." changed to "73, 153"
The following possible errors have been left as printed:
p. 45 insistance
p. 74 thong
p. 85 these shameless breaking
p. 120 his son Thedor, arrived
p. 299 Kreml, now
The following are inconsistently used in the text:
Andreievitch and Andreivitch
Cæsar and Caesar
countryfolk and country-folk
deathbed and death-bed
Landmaster and Land-master
makeshift and make-shift
nicknamed and nick-named
Nürnberg and Nurnberg
overrun and over-run
overshadowing and over-shadowing
Pérémysl and Peremysl
warmen and war-men
waterway and water-way
Velikie-kniaz and Velikie Kniaz
Velikie-Novgorod and Velikie Novgorod
End of Project Gutenberg's The Rise of the Russian Empire, by Hector H. Munro