We have briefly traced the history of the principality of Kief and that
of its rival, Suzdal. Another powerful state, in the twelfth century
was Galitsch, the modern Gallicia, the Red Russia of former days, a
region south of Poland. This province, peopled by the Khorvats, or
white Kroats, had ever remained Slavonic in nationality. Its princes
were elected by popular assembly, and retained their dominion by its
consent. The intercourse of Galitsch with her neighbors, Hungary
and Poland, led to the formation of a powerful aristocracy, which
succeeded, first, in controlling the popular assembly, and later
in superseding it by an assembly composed exclusively of nobles.
When Iaroslaf Osmomuisl, the same whose praise is sung in the song
of Igor, put away his wife, Olga, for his paramour, Anastasia, the
nobles compelled him to burn the latter alive, to banish her son, and
to recognize Olga’s Vladimir as the rightful heir. The young prince,
however, followed in the dissolute ways of his father, and went so
far as to take for his second wife the widow of a priest, in defiant
violation of a law of the Greek Church. The boyars summoned him to
deliver the woman over to punishment. The prince, alarmed, fled to
Hungary with his family and his treasure; and though in the vicissitude
of events, he was recalled after a time, and bore rule for some years
before his death, his dominions passed to Roman, prince of Volhynia,
whom the Gallicians had invited to bear rule over them when Vladimir
had fled from the realm.
This Roman was no easy-going, light-hearted prince of the usual
Slavonic type, but a southern Andrei, a stern hero, visiting vengeance
upon his enemies and striking terror into the barbarians. The Gallician
boyars who had opposed him were put to death by slow torture. To some
who had escaped from the country he promised pardon, but upon their
return he confiscated their possessions and procured their condemnation
to death. He was wont to say: “To eat your honey in peace you must
first kill the bees.” He put to flight the Lithuanian tribes of the
north, and harnessed his prisoners to the plow. This act of subjugation
is commemorated in the folk song: “Thou art terrible, Roman; the
Lithuanians are thy laboring oxen.” The report of his stern valor
reached the ears of Pope Innocent III, who sent missionaries to bring
him over to the Papal Church, and who promised by the sword of Saint
Peter to make a great king of the Gallician-Volhynian prince. In the
presence of the envoys, Roman drew his own sword from its scabbard
and asked: “Is the sword of Saint Peter as strong as mine? While I
wear it by my side I need no help from another.” He met his death in
an imprudent, unequal combat, during a war with Poland, in 1215. The
chronicle of Volhynia names him “the Great,” “the Autocrat of all the
Russias;” and the chroniclers generally extol him as a second Monomakh,
a hero who “walked in the ways of God, who fell like a lion upon
infidels, who swooped like an eagle upon his prey, who was savage as a
wild-cat, deadly as a crocodile.”
A more magnanimous hero was Roman’s son, Daniel, whose youth was
roughly schooled in adversity. To his principality came Mstislaf the
Bold, son of that Mstislaf the Brave, whom we have seen defying the
tyranny of Andrei Bogoliubski. The younger Mstislaf was a knight
errant, riding hither and thither in search of adventures. He wedded
his daughter to the young Daniel, and virtually bore rule in Galitsch
till his death in 1228. In wars with the Hungarians, the Poles, the
Tartars, Daniel demeaned himself as the worthy son of a mighty sire,
and toward the Gallician boyars, whose turbulence had endangered
the state, he used a repressive, though not so severe a policy as
that pursued by Roman. The Mongol invasion, that overthrew all the
Russian governments, ruined Galitsch for the time, along with the
others. Daniel did his best to support his shattered country, but was
compelled, as a matter of personal safety to take refuge in Hungary.
When permitted to return to the desolated principality, he invited
thither a vast number of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, upon whom he
conferred abundant privileges as an inducement for them to remain
in a depopulated country. The last named people, alien, tenacious,
obnoxious to all Christian civilizations, an isolated race wherever
their restless fate and their love of gain lead them to emigrate,
have proved a disturbing element in Russian nationality. Incapable of
assimilation, or unwilling thereto, their population of three millions
have no interests, no sympathies with the rest of the nation, save in
the intercourse connected with barter, or the stewardship of estates.
A continual source of irritation and antagonism, they are “the Polish
scourge” of the empire. The hospitality extended to them by Daniel
Roman is regarded as the one mistake of his otherwise sagacious
administration.
Unable to cope with the all-devouring Mongols, although he made
repeated efforts to check their advances, Daniel took part in various
European wars, always with brilliant success. The Hungarians spread
the fame of the order of his troops, their oriental weapons, the
magnificence of their prince, whose Greek habit was broidered with
gold, whose caparisons glistened with richly-chased metals, and with
jewels, whose saber and arrows were of marvellous workmanship. His
warriors were equipped with short stirrups, high saddles, long caftans,
or robes, turbans surmounted by aigrets, sabers and poniards in the
belt, bows slung at the shoulder, and arrows in the quiver. Their
coursers were fleet as the east wind.
Daniel was among the last of the Russian princes to render submission
to the Khan of the Horde. “You have done well to come at last,” said
Batui, when the prince presented himself at the Tatar court. The
khan waived the humiliations usually put upon the princes at their
reception; and seeing that the mare’s milk offered his vassal was
distasteful, gave him instead a cup of wine. The Gallician-Volhynian,
however, was ever feverish under the hard yoke of the Mongols. The
civil conflicts of his youth, the ruin of Russia by the Mongols, and
the European wars that filled his later years, left him no repose. In
a more propitious era his rare powers could have rendered enduring
service to his states. As it was, he could not so much as save his own
Galitsch from the arrogance of a foreign conqueror. Upon his death
it passed to other princes of his family, vassals of the khan, and
two centuries later it was lost to Russia, by absorption into the
kingdom of Poland. Its fate is unique; for with this exception, no
integral state of the early Russian realm has ever become the permanent
possession of aliens.
Unique, also, is the history of the wide and glorious principality of
Novgorod, the political center of the Russia of the Northwest, the
Slavic home of liberty. Its name shines upon the brief but resplendent
roll of free nations with Sparta, Arragon, Switzerland. Nay, in the
magnitude of its extent, in the exaltation of its freedom, it is not
shamed in comparison with our own republic. The sentiment of liberty
is traceable from the beginnings of history. During long periods in
the earlier epochs, it lay concealed, a spark covered in ashes; but
has ever re-kindled in an auspicious time, lighting horizon and zenith
with its effulgence. Under the subjections, the servitudes of the
ancient empires, the Hebrew theocracy conserved this inextinguishable
aspiration of the race. If certain of the Hebrew kings oppressed their
subjects, they found them ready for protest and for revolt. When the
Roman empire laid its yoke upon the world, the Hebrews of Palestine
chose national extinction to national thraldom, and perished by the
talons of the Roman eagles. Even then stood ready the new races of the
North to catch the falling torch, and to bear it aloft in their sinewy
hands. In the mediæval darkness, it glowed, a beacon-light from the
summits of Arragon in Spain, and from the peaks of Switzerland. But
before Switzerland had a name, when Arragon was scarcely more than a
name, Novgorod, by the frozen lakes, far in the wilds of an unknown
country, unexplored, untrodden by any civilized people—Novgorod, hidden
in its northern nights, was cherishing a freedom such as the republic
of the Netherlands cherished in the sixteenth, and the republic of
America cherishes in the nineteenth century. To the Slavs of Ilmen
belongs the proud distinction of guarding intact through more than six
hundred years the instinct for freedom inalienable to the Slavic race.
The unrest, the ferment of the Russias to-day, may be traced back to
the glorious history, the pathetic surrender of Novgorod the Great;
and those who seek to read hopefully the signs of the times, look for
the day not far distant, when the venerable “My Lord, Novgorod,” shall
receive again his banished bell with weeping and with acclamations;
when again his citizens shall assemble in the court of Iaroslaf, and
shall proclaim liberty to all his children gathered within his vast and
ancient borders.
As we have written, the Novgorodians, Slavs of Ilmen, were the people
who founded Russian unity, by the call of Rurik. When he came to
them, their city contained a hundred thousand inhabitants, and was the
capital of a realm that had a population of three hundred thousand. At
least three centuries must have been required for the making of such
a state; nor is it improbable that some of the aboriginal Finns known
to Herodotus (B. C. 500) mingled with the Slav emigrants who passed
the confines of Asia in the fourth Christian century. Ethnologists
are of opinion that the early Novgorodians, like the other Russians
of all time, are a composite race. The earliest chronicles of the
city describe it as divided by the Volkhof, and situated on a vast
plain in the midst of dense forests. The river runs northward, from
Lake Ilmen to Lake Ladoga. On its right bank rose the cathedral of
Saint Sophia, built by Iaroslaf the Great; the Novgorodian kreml, or
acropolis, enclosing the palaces of archbishop and prince, the quarter
of the potters, and the zagorodni, or suburbs. Here, in 1862, amid
national solemnities and festivities, was dedicated the monument to
Russian unity, that ennobles a thousand years of Russian history. The
left bank contains the court of Iaroslaf, the quarter of commerce,
as also those of the carpenters, and the Slavs, _par eminence_. In
the earlier centuries it possessed also a Prussian, or Lithuanian
quarter; and hither resorted merchants from all parts of the Orient.
In the fourteenth century, the city was enclosed by ramparts, formed
of gabions, strengthened at frequent intervals by stone towers.
Portions of these defences still remain, attesting this immense extent
originally. The cathedral, scarred by the wars of eight centuries,
still preserves within the vivid hues of its frescoes, its pillars
adorned with figures of saints painted upon golden backgrounds. From
the interior of the dome, bends the divine form of Our Lord; beneath
him hangs the banner of the Virgin, borne upon the ramparts in times
of extremity, for the strengthening of the souls of the besieged, or
to strike dismay into the souls of the besiegers. From the cupola,
the light falls dimly upon the tombs of the mighty Iaroslaf, the holy
Archbishop Nikita, whose prayers once extinguished a conflagration, of
Mstislaf the Brave, the hero who defied Andrei Bogoliubski, and of many
another captain and saint.
This principality was to old Russia what New England was to our
Republic in its initiative period: a center of commerce, a hive of
industry, the home of the national freedom and religion. It possessed
seven large tributary cities, among them Pskof and Staraïa-Rusa, (old
Russia.) Its five provinces covered the whole of Northern Russia, as
well as Ingria, beyond the Urals. Among these provinces were Permia
on the upper Kama, a land rich in gold and other precious minerals,
and traversed by a road leading through a mountain pass; a road
connecting Russia with the commercial centres of northern Asia, with
Persia, China and India; Russian Lapland, the country of dried fish,
reindeer, and fur-bearing animals; Ingria, Karelia, and the ancient,
wealthy countries of Esthonia and Livonia. The principality of Novgorod
included an area seven times that of our New England. In the capitol
were held two large annual fairs; the trade in corn, flax, and hemp,
especially from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, made it a
commercial entrepôt of such importance as to give rise to the Russian
saying, “Who can prevail against God and Novgorod-Viliki!” (the great).
Its population was four hundred thousand; ranking it in this respect,
at the time, among the chief cities of christendom. When Sviatoslaf,
grandson of Rurik, conqueror of the Danubian Bulgarians wished to
reside in the sunny land of Kief, and govern “My Lord Novgorod the
Great” by deputies, the vetché of that city sent him the message: “If
you do not wish to reign over us, we will find another prince;” nor
would they rest content with a lesser personage than Sviatoslaf’s son.
Sviatopolk, another grand prince, essayed to force his son upon them.
“Send him here if he has a spare head,” said the Novgorodians. In
truth the princes knowing the curbs put upon their personal power in
this republic, coveted rather, the lesser appanages. Vsevolod Gabriel,
discontented with his freemen, left the city to reign at Pereiaslavl.
After a time he signified his wish to return, but the citizens declined
the proposal. “Prince, you violated your oath to die with us,” said
they; “you sought another principality: go now where you will.”
Some years later he effected a temporary accommodation with them,
but again abandoned his post. Whereupon in a great vetché, wherein
were represented Pskof and Ladoga, sentence of condemnation was read
against the renegade Vsevolod. “He had no compassion upon our poor; he
attempted to establish himself at Pereiaslavl; at the battle of Mont
Idano he and his drujinas were the first to flee before the men of
Suzdal; he was unstable, sometimes uniting with the prince, sometimes
with the enemies of Tchernigof.” Vsevolod was banished from the realm.
The Novgorodians were ever ready to cite from the code of Iaroslaf,
granted them, as they aver, by that law-giver, and guaranteeing
them large privileges. No authentic traces of this code have been
discoverable; but the people conferred their own privileges. The
_vetché_, summoned by the great bell in the court of Iaroslaf, was
the virtual sovereign. By its pleasure the princes of the state were
nominated, elected or dethroned. If a prince opposed the will of the
_vetché_, the citizens “made a reverence, and showed him the way out.”
Before its tribunal he could stand accused. If he persisted in an
oppressive course, he was put in durance. In like manner the _vetché_
elected and deposed the archbishops of the republic, decided for
peace and war, conducted the trial of state criminals, and all the
other important business of government. Decisions were obtained not
by majority, but by unanimity. If the minority stood out stubbornly,
the majority summarily threw them into the Volkhof; for with all their
wealth, pride and freedom, the Novgorodians retained an occasional
trace of their barbaric origin. Commercially, their city was the
glory of Russia. Large numbers of the people were occupied in the
trade of the Dneiper and with Greece, and still larger numbers with
the trade of the Volga and the East. The soil of the lake region is
marshy, sandy, and sterile; the cause of frequent pestilences to its
relatively dense population who are also the prey of famines, since
their supplies have to be brought from afar. In prehistoric centuries,
Novgorod maintained a commerce with the Orient, attested by the coins
and jewels exhumed from the barrows of the Ilmen. It exchanged iron
and weapons for the precious metals procured from the Ural mines by
the Ingrians. It bought the fish and wares of the Baltic Slavs. In the
twelfth century, this northern metropolis had a market and a church
for the merchants from the Isle of Gothland,[A] and in this isle
arose a Variag church, attended by Novgorodian families. The city had
likewise a large German market, fortified with a stockade. The Germans
had the monopoly of all the western trade; no Russian being allowed,
by the terms of their compact, to sell German, English, Walloon, or
Flemish products. Hydromel, works of art from Byzantium, rugs, felts,
tissues from India, fabrics from the looms of Persia, tea, and curious
wares from China, filled its bazars. In 1480, when Ivan III, himself,
Viliki, or the Great, crippled its liberties, he despoiled it of three
hundred chariots laden with silver and gold. The adventurous mercantile
character and the proud, free spirit of this people, is typified in
the Novgorodian Sinbad, Sadko, hero of the popular epic, who sought
his fortune on the seas. A second Jonah in a storm, he plunges into
the waves, and is received into the palace of the sea king, who tests
his prowess in various ways, and gives him the princess of the sea in
marriage. After many exciting adventures Sadko stands on the shore
surrounded by piles of treasure. Yet these are nothing compared with
the treasures of Novgorod the Great. “Men perceive that I am a rich
merchant of Novgorod; but my city is far richer than I.”
The Church of this center of medieval freedom, was the close ally,
the consort of the free State. The clergy, unlike that of the rest
of Russia, were less Russian orthodox than Novgorodians. The Slavs
of Ilmen were the last of the people obliged to accept Christianity;
but from the twelfth century onward they refused to receive a Greek
or a Kievan archbishop. They must have one of their own freemen. He
was promptly elected by the _vetché_, and installed in the Episcopal
palace, without other investiture. Thereafter he was revered as the
chief dignitary of the republic, a Novgorodian, as a native, while
the prince, being a descendant from Rurik, was a foreigner. In public
documents the name of the archbishop took precedence. “With the
blessing of the Archbishop Moses, Posadnik (chief magistrate) Daniel,”
etc., concludes one of their letters patent. He invariably held with
the republic in its contentions with the prince; and in its wars his
revenues and those of the Church were at its service. An archbishop
of the fourteenth century built for the city a kreml of stone at his
own personal expense. A century later the riches of Saint Sophia
were given as ransom for the prisoners captured by the Lithuanians.
The ecclesiastics took part in secular affairs, nor cared they for
exemption from any civic duties. The laity were equally active in
spiritual work. One of the chief splendors of the city lay in its
magnificent churches and its well-appointed monasteries. The lives of
the saints of the republic are voluminous; the miracles all redound to
her glory. One of them records that the Lord Christ appeared to the
artist who was to paint the interior of the dome of Saint Sophia, and
charged him: “Represent me not with extended but with closed hands, for
in my hand I hold Novgorod; and when my hand is opened, the end of the
city is nigh.”
Not less national was the literature of the Great Republic. The life of
the city, of its princes, boyars, merchants, is given in its monastic
chronicles. The epics recite the exploits of Vasili Buslaévitch, the
boyar who, with his drujina, held the bridge of the Volkhof against
all the muzhiki, the rabble of the city. Many such an iron-hearted
adventurer, marking his trail as he journeyed, knowing neither friend
nor foe, went forth from this brave, happy, proud community into the
trackless wastes of Vologda, Archangel, and Siberia.
During not less than five hundred years the Slav republic, greater in
extent than any other except our own, maintained intact the freedom of
its barbaric founders, the emigrant Slavs who ended their wanderings
by the borders of the lakes. Its conquest by the Mongols is one of the
mournfulest chapters in history. An avenging though inadequate sequel
to it is “The flight of a Tartar Tribe” as recorded by DeQuincey.[B]
* * * * *
“To live is not merely to breath, it is to act; it is to make use of
our organs, senses, faculties, of all those parts of ourselves which
give us the feeling of existence. The man who has lived longest is not
the man who has counted most years, but he who has enjoyed life most.
Such a one was buried a hundred years old, but he was dead from his
birth. He would have gained by dying young; at least he would have
lived till that time.”—_Rousseau._