GRAND PRINCE BECOMES TSAR
Vasili, who succeeded Ivan III. in 1505, continued his work on the same
lines of absorption and consolidation by unmerciful means. Pskof,--the
sister republic to Novgorod the Great,--which had guarded its liberties
with the same passionate devotion, was obliged to submit. The bell
which had always summoned their _Vetché_, and which symbolized their
liberty, was carried away. Their lament is as famous as that for the
Moorish city of Alhama, when taken by Ferdinand of Aragon. The poetic
annalist says: "Alas! glorious city of Pskof--why this weeping and
lamentation?" Pskof replies: "How can I but weep and lament? An eagle
with claws like a lion has swooped down upon me. He has captured my
beauty, my riches, my children. Our land is a desert! our city ruined.
Our brothers have been carried away to a place where our fathers never
dwelt--nor our grandfathers--nor our great-grandfathers!" In the whole
tragic story of Russia nothing is more pathetic and picturesque than
the destruction of the two republics--Novgorod and Pskof.
By 1523 the last state had yielded, and the Muscovite absorption was
complete. There was but one Russia; and the head of the consolidated
empire called himself not "Grand Prince of all the Russias," but
_Tsar_. When it is remembered that Tsar is only the Slavonic form for
_Caesar_, it will be seen that the dream of the Varangian Princes had
been in an unexpected way realized. The Tsar of Russia was the
successor of the Caesars in the East.
Vasili's method of choosing a wife was like that of Ahasuerus. Fifteen
hundred of the most beautiful maidens of noble birth were assembled at
Moscow. After careful scrutiny the number was reduced to ten, then to
five--from these the final choice was made. His wife's relations
formed the court of Vasili, became his companions and advisers,
_boyars_ vying with each other for the privilege of waiting upon his
table or assisting at his toilet. But the office of adviser was a
difficult one. To one great lord who in his inexperience ventured to
offer counsel, as in the olden time of the _Drujina_, he said sharply:
"Be silent, rustic." While still another, more indiscreet, who had
ventured to complain that they were not consulted, was ordered to his
bedchamber, and there had his head cut off.
The court grew in barbaric and in Greek splendor. As the Tsar sat upon
the throne supported by mechanical lions which roared at intervals, he
was guarded by young nobles with high caps of white fur, wearing long
caftans of white satin and armed with silver hatchets. Greek
scholarship was also there. A learned monk and friend of Savonarola
was translating Greek books and arranging for him the priceless volumes
in his library. Vasili himself was now in correspondence with Pope Leo
X., who was using all his arts to induce him to make friends with
Catholic Poland and join in the most important of all wars--a war upon
Constantinople, of which he, Vasili, the spiritual and temporal heir to
the Eastern Empire, was the natural protector.
All this was very splendid. But things were moving with the momentum
gained by his father, Ivan the Great. It was Vasili's inheritance, not
his reign, that was great. That inheritance he had maintained and
increased. He had humiliated the nobility, had developed the movements
initiated by his greater father, and had also shown tastes magnificent
enough for the heir of his imperial mother, Sophia Paleologus. But he
is overshadowed in history by standing between the two Ivans--Ivan the
Great and Ivan the Terrible.
[Illustration: The Czar Iván the Terrible and his son Iván Ivánovitch.
From the painting by I. E. Répin.]
Leo X. was soon too much occupied with a new foe to think about designs
upon Constantinople. A certain monk was nailing a protest upon the
door of the Church at Wittenburg which would tax to the uttermost his
energies. As from time to time travelers brought back tales of the
splendor of the Muscovite court, Europe was more than ever afraid of
such neighbors. What might these powerful barbarians not do, if they
adopted European methods! More stringent measures were enforced. They
must not have access to the implements of civilization, and Sigismund,
King of Poland, threatened English merchants on the Baltic with death.
It is a singular circumstance that although, up to the time of Ivan the
Great, Russia had apparently not one thing in common with the states of
Western Europe, they were still subject to the same great tides or
tendencies and were moving simultaneously toward identical political
conditions. An invisible but compelling hand had been upon every
European state, drawing the power from many heads into one. In Spain,
Ferdinand and Isabella had brought all the smaller kingdoms and the
Moors under one united crown. In France, Louis XI. had shattered the
fabric of feudalism, and by artful alliance with the people had
humiliated and subjugated the proud nobility. Henry VIII. had
established absolutism in England, and Maximilian had done the same for
Germany, while even the Italian republics, were being gathered into the
hands of larger sovereignties. From this distance in time it is easy
to see the prevailing direction in which all the nations were being
irresistibly drawn.
The hour had struck for the tide to flow toward _centralisation_; and
Russia, remote, cut off from all apparent connection with the Western
kingdoms, was borne along upon the same tide with the rest, as if it
was already a part of the same organism! There, too, the power was
passing from the many to one: first from many ruling families to one
family, then from all the individual members of that family to a
supreme and permanent head--the Tsar.
There were many revolutions in Russia from the time when the Dolgorukis
turned the life-currents from Kief to the North; many centers of
volcanic energy in fearful state of activity, and many times when ruin
threatened from every side. But in the midst of all this there was one
steady process--one end being always approached--a consolidation and a
centralization of authority before which European monarchies would
pale! The process commenced with the autocratic purposes of Andrew
Bogoliubski. And it was because his _boyars_ instinctively knew that
the success of his policy meant their ruin that they assassinated him.
In "Old Russia" a close and fraternal tie bound the Prince and his
_Drujina_ together. It was one family, of which he was the adored
head. What characterized the "New Russia" was a growing antagonism
between the Grand Prince and his lords or _boyars_. This developed
into a life-and-death struggle, similar to that between Louis XI. and
his nobility. His elevation meant their humiliation. It was a
terrible clash of forces--a duel in which one was the instrument of
fate, and the other predestined to destruction.
It was of less importance during the period between Andrew Bogoliubski
and Ivan IV. that Mongols were exercising degrading tyranny and making
desperate reprisals for defeat--that Lithuania and Poland, and
conspirators everywhere, were by arms and by diplomacy and by treachery
trying to ruin the state; all this was of less import than the fact
that every vestige of authority was surely passing out of the hands of
the nobility into those of the Tsar. The fight was a desperate one.
It became open and avowed under Ivan III., still more bitter under his
son Vasili II., and culminated at last under Ivan the Terrible, when,
like an infuriated animal, he let loose upon them all the pent-up
instincts in his blood.