THE STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS MOSCOVITE EMPIRE WHICH SUDDENLY BURST UPON
THE GRAND POLITICAL STAGE OF EUROPE
IN the year 1492, as you know, Columbus discovered America. Early in
the year, a Tyrolese by the name of Schnups, travelling as the head of a
scientific expedition for the Archbishop of Tyrol, and provided with
the best letters of introduction and excellent credit tried to reach
the mythical town of Moscow. He did not succeed. When he reached the
frontiers of this vast Moscovite state which was vaguely supposed to
exist in the extreme Eastern part of Europe, he was firmly turned back.
No foreigners were wanted. And Schnups went to visit the heathen Turk in
Constantinople, in order that he might have something to report to his
clerical master when he came back from his explorations.
Sixty-one years later, Richard Chancellor, trying to discover the
North-eastern passage to the Indies, and blown by an ill wind into
the White Sea, reached the mouth of the Dwina and found the Moscovite
village of Kholmogory, a few hours from the spot where in 1584 the town
of Archangel was founded. This time the foreign visitors were requested
to come to Moscow and show themselves to the Grand Duke. They went and
returned to England with the first commercial treaty ever concluded
between Russia and the western world. Other nations soon followed and
something became known of this mysterious land.
Geographically, Russia is a vast plain. The Ural mountains are low
and form no barrier against invaders. The rivers are broad but often
shallow. It was an ideal territory for nomads.
While the Roman Empire was founded, grew in power and disappeared again,
Slavic tribes, who had long since left their homes in Central Asia,
wandered aimlessly through the forests and plains of the region between
the Dniester and Dnieper rivers. The Greeks had sometimes met these
Slavs and a few travellers of the third and fourth centuries mention
them. Otherwise they were as little known as were the Nevada Indians in
the year 1800.
Unfortunately for the peace of these primitive peoples, a very
convenient trade-route ran through their country. This was the main road
from northern Europe to Constantinople. It followed the coast of the
Baltic until the Neva was reached. Then it crossed Lake Ladoga and went
southward along the Volkhov river. Then through Lake Ilmen and up the
small Lovat river. Then there was a short portage until the Dnieper was
reached. Then down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.
The Norsemen knew of this road at a very early date. In the ninth
century they began to settle in northern Russia, just as other Norsemen
were laying the foundation for independent states in Germany and France.
But in the year 862, three Norsemen, brothers, crossed the Baltic and
founded three small dynasties. Of the three brothers, only one, Rurik,
lived for a number of years. He took possession of the territory of his
brothers, and twenty years after the arrival of this first Norseman, a
Slavic state had been established with Kiev as its capital.
From Kiev to the Black Sea is a short distance. Soon the existence of an
organised Slavic State became known in Constantinople. This meant a new
field for the zealous missionaries of the Christian faith. Byzantine
monks followed the Dnieper on their way northward and soon reached the
heart of Russia. They found the people worshipping strange gods who were
supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in mountain caves. They taught
them the story of Jesus. There was no competition from the side of Roman
missionaries. These good men were too busy educating the heathen Teutons
to bother about the distant Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion
and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture from the
Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire (a relic of the eastern
Roman empire) had become very oriental and had lost many of its European
traits, the Russians suffered in consequence.
Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian plains
did not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide every inheritance
equally among all the sons. No sooner had a small state been founded
but it was broken up among eight or nine heirs who in turn left their
territory to an ever increasing number of descendants. It was inevitable
that these small competing states should quarrel among themselves.
Anarchy was the order of the day. And when the red glow of the eastern
horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a savage Asiatic
tribe, the little states were too weak and too divided to render any
sort of defence against this terrible enemy.
It was in the year 1224 that the first great Tartar invasion took place
and that the hordes of Jenghiz Khan, the conqueror of China, Bokhara,
Tashkent and Turkestan made their first appearance in the west. The
Slavic armies were beaten near the Kalka river and Russia was at
the mercy of the Mongolians. Just as suddenly as they had come they
disappeared. Thirteen years later, in 1237, however, they returned.
In less than five years they conquered every part of the vast Russian
plains. Until the year 1380 when Dmitry Donskoi, Grand Duke of Moscow,
beat them on the plains of Kulikovo, the Tartars were the masters of the
Russian people.
All in all, it took the Russians two centuries to deliver themselves
from this yoke. For a yoke it was and a most offensive and objectionable
one. It turned the Slavic peasants into miserable slaves. No Russian
could hope to survive un-less he was willing to creep before a dirty
little yellow man who sat in a tent somewhere in the heart of the
steppes of southern Russia and spat at him. It deprived the mass of the
people of all feeling of honour and independence. It made hunger and
misery and maltreatment and personal abuse the normal state of human
existence. Until at last the average Russian, were he peasant or
nobleman, went about his business like a neglected dog who has been
beaten so often that his spirit has been broken and he dare not wag his
tail without permission.
There was no escape. The horsemen of the Tartar Khan were fast and
merciless. The endless prairie did not give a man a chance to cross into
the safe territory of his neighbour. He must keep quiet and bear what
his yellow master decided to inflict upon him or run the risk of death.
Of course, Europe might have interfered. But Europe was engaged upon
business of its own, fighting the quarrels between the Pope and the
emperor or suppressing this or that or the other heresy. And so Europe
left the Slav to his fate, and forced him to work out his own salvation.
The final saviour of Russia was one of the many small states, founded
by the early Norse rulers. It was situated in the heart of the Russian
plain. Its capital, Moscow, was upon a steep hill on the banks of the
Moskwa river. This little principality, by dint of pleasing the Tartar
(when it was necessary to please), and opposing him (when it was safe to
do so), had, during the middle of the fourteenth century made itself the
leader of a new national life. It must be remembered that the Tartars
were wholly deficient in constructive political ability. They could only
destroy. Their chief aim in conquering new territories was to obtain
revenue. To get this revenue in the form of taxes, it was necessary to
allow certain remnants of the old political organization to continue.
Hence there were many little towns, surviving by the grace of the Great
Khan, that they might act as tax-gatherers and rob their neighbours for
the benefit of the Tartar treasury.
The state of Moscow, growing fat at the expense of the surrounding
territory, finally became strong enough to risk open rebellion against
its masters, the Tartars. It was successful and its fame as the leader
in the cause of Russian independence made Moscow the natural centre for
all those who still believed in a better future for the Slavic race. In
the year 1458, Constantinople was taken by the Turks. Ten years later,
under the rule of Ivan III, Moscow informed the western world that the
Slavic state laid claim to the worldly and spiritual inheritance of the
lost Byzantine Empire, and such traditions of the Roman empire as had
survived in Constantinople. A generation afterwards, under Ivan the
Terrible, the grand dukes of Moscow were strong enough to adopt the
title of Caesar, or Tsar, and to demand recognition by the western
powers of Europe.
In the year 1598, with Feodor the First, the old Muscovite dynasty,
descendants of the original Norseman Rurik, came to an end. For the next
seven years, a Tartar half-breed, by the name of Boris Godunow, reigned
as Tsar. It was during this period that the future destiny of the large
masses of the Russian people was decided. This Empire was rich in land
but very poor in money. There was no trade and there were no factories.
Its few cities were dirty villages. It was composed of a strong central
government and a vast number of illiterate peasants. This government,
a mixture of Slavic, Norse, Byzantine and Tartar influences, recognised
nothing beyond the interest of the state. To defend this state, it
needed an army. To gather the taxes, which were necessary to pay the
soldiers, it needed civil servants. To pay these many officials it
needed land. In the vast wilderness on the east and west there was a
sufficient supply of this commodity. But land without a few labourers
to till the fields and tend the cattle, has no value. Therefore the old
nomadic peasants were robbed of one privilege after the other, until
finally, during the first year of the sixteenth century, they were
formally made a part of the soil upon which they lived. The Russian
peasants ceased to be free men. They became serfs or slaves and they
remained serfs until the year 1861, when their fate had become so
terrible that they were beginning to die out.
In the seventeenth century, this new state with its growing territory
which was spreading quickly into Siberia, had become a force with which
the rest of Europe was obliged to reckon. In 1618, after the death of
Boris Godunow, the Russian nobles had elected one of their own number
to be Tsar. He was Michael, the son of Feodor, of the Moscow family of
Romanow who lived in a little house just outside the Kremlin.
In the year 1672 his great-grandson, Peter, the son of another Feodor,
was born. When the child was ten years old, his step-sister Sophia took
possession of the Russian throne. The little boy was allowed to spend
his days in the suburbs of the national capital, where the foreigners
lived. Surrounded by Scotch barkeepers, Dutch traders, Swiss
apothecaries, Italian barbers, French dancing teachers and German
school-masters, the young prince obtained a first but rather
extraordinary impression of that far-away and mysterious Europe where
things were done differently.
When he was seventeen years old, he suddenly pushed Sister Sophia
from the throne. Peter himself became the ruler of Russia. He was not
contented with being the Tsar of a semi-barbarous and half-Asiatic
people. He must be the sovereign head of a civilised nation. To change
Russia overnight from a Byzantine-Tartar state into a European empire
was no small undertaking. It needed strong hands and a capable head.
Peter possessed both. In the year 1698, the great operation of grafting
Modern Europe upon Ancient Russia was performed. The patient did not
die. But he never got over the shock, as the events of the last five
years have shown very plainly.