similar outbreak, but the news of the executions taught them that it was
safest to keep quiet. But many of them were brought in chains to Moscow
and punished for their intentions. Various stories are told of Peter's
cruelty in connection with these executions. One is that he beheaded
eighty with his own hand, Plestchef, one of his boyars, holding them by
the hair. Another story, told by M. Printz, the Prussian ambassador,
says that at an entertainment given him by the czar, Peter, when drunk,
had twenty rebels brought in from the prisons, whom he beheaded in quick
succession, drinking a bumper after each blow, the whole concluding
within the hour. He even asked the ambassador to try his skill in the
same way. It may be said here, however, that these stories rest upon
very poor evidence, and that anecdote-makers have painted Peter in
blacker colors than he deserves.
In the end the corps of the Strelitz was abolished, their houses and
lands in Moscow were taken from the survivors, and all were exiled into
the country, where they became simple villagers.
_THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS._
The return of Peter the Great from his European journey was marked by
other events than his cruel revenge upon the rebellious Strelitz. That
had affected only a few thousand people; the reforms he sought to
introduce affected the nation at large. The Russians were then more
Oriental than European in style, wearing the long caftan or robe of
Persia and Turkey, which descended to their heels, while their beards
were like those of the patriarchs, the man deeming himself most in honor
who had the longest and fullest crop of hair upon his face.
[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT.]
To Peter, fresh from the West, and strongly imbued with European views,
all this was ridiculous, if not abominable. He determined to reform it
all, and at once set to work in his impetuous way, which could not brook
a day's delay, to deprive the Russians of their beards and the tails of
their coats. He had scarcely arrived before the boyars and leading
citizens of Moscow, who flocked to congratulate him on his return, were
taken aback by the edict that whiskers were condemned, and that the
razor must be set at work without delay upon their honorable chins.
This edict was like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. The Russians
admired and revered their beards. They were time-honored and sacred in
their eyes. To lose them was like losing their family trees and patents
of nobility. But Peter was without reverence for the past, and his word
was law. He had ordered a mowing and reaping of hair, and the harvest
must be made, or worse might come. General Shein, commander-in-chief of
the army, was the first to yield to the imperative edict and submit his
venerable beard to the indignity of the razor's edge. The old age seemed
past and the new age come when Shein walked shamefacedly into court with
a clean chin.
The example thus set was quickly followed. Beards were tabooed within
the precincts of the court. All shared the same fate, none being left to
laugh at the rest. The patriarch, it is true, was exempted, through awe
for his high office in the Church, while reverence for advanced years
reprieved Prince Tcherkasy, and Tikhon Streshnef was excused out of
honor for his services as guardian of the czaritza. Every one else
within the court had to submit to the razor's fatal edge or feel the
czar's more fatal displeasure, and beards fell like "autumnal leaves
that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."
An observer speaks as follows concerning a feast given by General Shein:
"A crowd of boyars, scribes, and military officers almost incredible was
assembled there, and among them were several common sailors, with whom
the czar repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored one of them
by calling him his brother. A salvo of twenty-five guns marked each
toast. Nor could the irksome offices of the barber check the
festivities of the day, though it was well known he was enacting the
part of jester by appointment at the czar's court. It was of evil omen
to make show of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and
hesitation was to be forthwith punished with a box on the ears. In this
way, between mirth and the wine-cup, many were admonished by this insane
ridicule to abandon the olden guise."
For Peter to shave was easy, as he had little beard and a very thin
moustache. But by the old-fashioned Russian of his day the beard was
cherished as the Turk now cherishes his hirsute symbol of dignity or the
Chinaman his long-drawn-out queue. Shortly after Peter came to the
throne the patriarch Adrian had delivered himself in words of thunder
against all who were so unholy and heretical as to cut or shave their
beards, a God-given ornament, which had been worn by prophets and
apostles and by Christ himself. Only heretics, apostates,
idol-worshippers, and image-breakers among monarchs had forced their
subjects to shave, he declared, while all the great and good emperors
had indicated their piety in the length of their beards.
To Peter, on the contrary, the beard was the symbol of barbarity. He was
not content to say that his subjects might shave, he decreed that they
_must_ shave. It began half in jest, it was continued in solid earnest.
He could not well execute the non-shavers, or cut off the heads of those
who declined to cut off their beards, but he could fine them, and he
did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of
the clergy, should shave. Those who preferred to keep their beards
could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was
fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes
varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (from sixty dollars to two
hundred dollars). The merchants, being at once the richest and most
conservative class, paid the highest tax. Every one who paid the tax was
given a bronze token, which had to be worn about the neck and renewed
every year.
The czar would allow no one to be about him who did not shave, and many
submitted through "terror of having their beards (in a merry humor)
pulled out by the roots, or taken so rough off that some of the skin
went with them." Many of those who shaved continued to do reverence to
their beards by carrying them within their bosoms as sacred objects, to
be buried in their graves, in order that a just account might be
rendered to St. Nicholas when they should come to the next world.
The ukase against the beard was soon followed by one against the caftan,
or long cloak, the old Russian dress. The czar and the leading officers
of his embassy set the example of wearing the German dress, and he cut
off, with his own hands, the long sleeves of some of his officers.
"Those things are in your way," he would say. "You are safe nowhere with
them. At one moment you upset a glass, then you forgetfully dip them in
the sauce. Get gaiters made of them."
On January 14, 1700, a decree was issued commanding all courtiers and
officials throughout the empire to wear the foreign dress. This decree
had to be frequently repeated, and models of the clothing exposed. It is
said that patterns of the garments and copies of the decrees were hung
up together at the gates of the towns, while all who disobeyed the order
were compelled to pay a fine. Those who yielded were obliged "to kneel
down at the gates of the city and have their coats cut off just even
with the ground," the part that lay on the ground as they kneeled being
condemned to suffer by the shears. "Being done with a good humor, it
occasioned mirth among the people, and soon broke the custom of their
wearing long coats, especially in places near Moscow and those towns
wherever the czar came."
This demand did not apply to the peasantry, and was therefore more
easily executed. Even the women were required to change their Russian
robes for foreign fashions. Peter's sisters set the example, which was
quickly followed, the women showing themselves much less conservative
than the men in the adoption of new styles of dress.
The reform did not end here. Decrees were issued against the high
Russian boots, against the use of the Russian saddle, and even against
the long Russian knife. Peter seemed to be infected with a passion for
reform, and almost everything Russian was ordered to give way before the
influx of Western modes. Western ideas did not come with them. To change
the dress does not change the thoughts, and it does not civilize a man
to shave his chin. Though outwardly conforming to the advanced fashions
of the West, inwardly the Russians continued to conform to the
unprogressive conceptions of the East.
It may be said that these changes did not come to stay. They were too
revolutionary to take deep root. There is no disputing the fact that a
coat down to the heels is more comfortable in a cold climate than one
ending at the knees, and is likely to be worn in preference. Students in
Russia to-day wear the red shirt, the loose trousers tucked into the
high boots, and the sleeveless caftan of the peasant, to show that they
are Slavs in feeling, while the old Russian costume is the regulation
court dress for ladies on occasions of state.
We cannot here name the host of other reforms which Peter introduced.
The army was dressed and organized in the fashion of the West. A navy
was rapidly built, and before many years Russia was winning victories at
sea. Peter had not worked at Amsterdam and Deptford in vain. The money
of the country was reorganized, and new coins were issued. The year,
which had always begun in Russia on September 1, was now ordered to
begin on January 1, the first new year on the new system, January 1,
1700, being introduced with impressive ceremonies. Up to this time the
Russians had counted their year from the supposed date of creation. They
were now ordered to date their chronology from the birth of Christ, the
first year of the new era being dated 1700 instead of 7208. Unluckily,
the Gregorian calendar was not at the same time introduced, and Russia
still clings to the old style, so that each date in that country is
twelve days behind the same date in the rest of the Christian world.
Another reform of an important character was introduced. Peter had
observed the system of local self-government in other countries, and
resolved to have something like it in his realm. In Little Russia the
people already had the right of electing their local officials. A
similar system was extended to the whole empire, the merchants in the
towns being permitted to choose good and honest men, who formed a
council which had general charge of municipal affairs. Where bribery and
corruption were discovered among these officials the knout and exile
were applied as inducements to honesty in office. Even death was
threatened; yet bribery went on. Honesty in office cannot be made to
order, even by a czar.
_MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF._
Among the romantic characters of history none have attained higher
celebrity than the hero of our present tale, whose remarkable adventure,
often told in story, has been made immortal in Lord Byron's famous poem
of "Mazeppa." Those who wish to read it in all its dramatic intensity
must apply to the poem. Here it can only be given in plain prose.
Mazeppa was a scion of a poor but noble Polish family, and became, while
quite young, a page at the court of John Casimir, King of Poland. There
he remained until he reached manhood, when he returned to the vicinity
of his birth. And now occurred the striking event on which the fame of
our hero rests. The court-reared young man is said to have engaged in an
intrigue with a Polish lady of high rank, or at least was suspected by
her jealous husband of having injured him in his honor.
Bent upon a revenge suitable to the barbarous ideas of that age, the
furious nobleman had the young man seized, cruelly scourged, and in the
end stripped naked and firmly bound upon the back of an untamed horse of
the steppes. The wild animal, terrified by the strange burden upon its
back, was then set free on the borders of its native wilds of the
Ukraine, and, uncontrolled by bit or rein, galloped madly for miles upon
miles through forest and over plain, until, exhausted by the violence
of its flight, it halted in its wild career. For a dramatic rendering of
this frightful ride our readers must be referred to Byron's glowing
verse.
The savage Polish lord had not dreamed that his victim would escape
alive, but fortune favored the poor youth. He was found, still fettered
to the animal's back, insensible and half dead, by some Cossack
peasants, who rescued him from his fearful situation, took him to their
hut, and eventually restored him to animation.
Mazeppa was well educated and fully versed in the art of war of that
day. He made his home with his new friends, to whom his courage,
agility, and sagacity proved such warm recommendations that he soon
became highly popular among the Cossack clans. He was appointed
secretary and adjutant to Samilovitch, the hetman or chief of the
Cossacks, and on the disgrace and exile of this chief in 1687 Mazeppa
succeeded him as leader of the tribe. He distinguished himself
particularly in the war waged by the army of the Princess Sophia against
the Turks and Tartars of the Crimea, in which Mazeppa led his Cossack
followers with the greatest courage and skill.
On the return of the army to Moscow, Prince Galitzin, its leader,
brought into the capital a strong force of Cossacks, with Mazeppa at
their head. It was the first time the Cossacks had been allowed to enter
Moscow, and their presence gave great offence. It was supposed to be a
part of the plot of Sophia to dethrone her young brother and seize the
throne for herself. It was known that they would execute to the full
any orders given them by their chief; but their motions were so
restricted by the indignant people that the ambitious woman, if she
entertained such a design, found herself unable to employ them in it.
The daring hetman of the Cossacks became afterwards a cherished friend
of Peter the Great, who conferred on him the title of prince, and
severely punished those who accused him of conspiring with the enemies
of Russia. Having the fullest confidence in his good faith, Peter
banished or executed his foes as liars and traitors. Yet they seem to
have been the true men and Mazeppa the traitor, for at length, when
sixty-four years of age, he threw off allegiance to Russia and became an
ally of the Swedish enemies of the realm.
The fiery and ungovernable temper of Peter is said to have been the
cause of this. The story goes that one day, when Mazeppa was visiting
the Russian court, and was at table with the czar, Peter complained to
him of the lawless character of the Cossacks, and proposed that Mazeppa
should seek to bring them under better control by a system of
organization and discipline.
The chief replied that such measures would never succeed. The Cossacks
were so fierce and uncontrollable by nature, he said, and so fixed in
their irregular habits of warfare, that it would be impossible to get
them to submit to military discipline, and they must continue to fight
in their old, wild way.
These words were like fire to flax. Peter, who never could bear the
least opposition to any of his plans or projects, and was accustomed to
have everybody timidly agree with him, broke into a furious rage at this
contradiction, and visited his sudden wrath on Mazeppa, as usual, in the
most violent language. He was an enemy and a traitor, who deserved to be
and should be impaled alive, roared the furious czar, not meaning a
tithe of what he said, but saying enough to turn the high-spirited chief
from a friend to a foe.
Mazeppa left the czar's presence in deep offence, muttering the
displeasure which it would have been death to speak openly, and bent on
revenge. Soon after he entered into communication with Charles XII. of
Sweden, the bitter enemy of Russia, which he was then invading. He
suggested that the Swedish army should advance into Southern Russia,
where the Cossacks would be sure to be sent to meet it. He would then go
over with all his forces to the Swedish side, so strengthening it that
the army of the czar could not stand against it. The King of Sweden
might retain the territory won by his arms, while the Cossacks would
retire to their own land, and become again, as of old, an independent
tribe.
The plot was well laid, but it failed through the loyalty of the
Cossacks. They broke into wild indignation when Mazeppa unfolded to them
his plan, most of them refusing to join in the revolt, and threatening
to seize him and deliver him, bound hand and foot, to the czar. Some two
thousand in all adhered to Mazeppa, and for a time it seemed as if a
bloody battle would take place between the two sections of the tribe,
but in the end the chief and his followers made their way to the Swedish
camp, while the others marched back and put themselves under the command
of the nearest Russian general.
Mazeppa was now sentenced to death, and executed,--luckily for him, in
effigy only. In person he was out of the reach of his foes. A wooden
image was made to represent the culprit, and on this dumb block the
penalties prescribed for him were inflicted. A pretty play--for a savage
horde--they made of it. The image was dressed to imitate Mazeppa, while
representations of the medals, ribbons, and other decorations he usually
wore were placed upon it. It was then brought out before the general and
leading officers, the soldiers being drawn up in a square around it. A
herald now read the sentence of condemnation, and the mock execution
began. First Mazeppa's patent of knighthood was torn to pieces and the
fragments flung into the air. Then the medals and decorations were rent
from the image and trampled underfoot. Finally the image itself was
struck a blow that toppled it over into the dust. The hangman now took
it in hand, tied a rope round its neck, and dragged it to a gibbet, on
which it was hung. The affair ended in the Cossacks choosing a new
chief.
The remainder of Mazeppa's story may soon be told. The battle of
Pultowa, fought, it is said, by his advice, ended the military career of
the great Swedish general. The Cossack chief made his escape, with the
King of Sweden, into Turkish territory, and the reward which the czar
offered for his body, dead or alive, was never claimed. Mentchikof took
what revenge he could by capturing and sacking his capital city,
Baturin, while throughout Russia his name was anathematized from the
pulpit. Traitor in his old days, and a fugitive in a foreign land, the
disgrace of his action seemed to weigh heavily upon the mind of the old
chief of the Ukraine, and in the following year he put an end to the
wretchedness of his life by poison.
_A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE._
Peter the Great hated Moscow. It was to him the embodiment of that old
Russia which he was seeking to reform out of existence. Had he been able
to work his own will in all things, he would never have set foot within
its walls; but circumstances are stronger than men, even though the
latter be Russian czars. In one respect Peter set himself against
circumstance, and built Russia a capital in a locality seemingly lacking
in all natural adaptation for a city.
In the early days of the eighteenth century his armies captured a small
Swedish fort on Lake Ladoga near the river Neva. The locality pleased
him, and he determined to build on the Neva a city which should serve
Russia as a naval station and commercial port in the north. Why he
selected this spot it is not easy to say. Better localities for his
purpose might have been easily chosen. There was old Novgorod, a centre
of commerce during many centuries of the past, which it would have been
a noble tribute to ancient Russian history to revive. There was Riga, a
city better situated for the Baltic commerce. But Peter would have none
of these; he wanted a city of his own, one that should carry his name
down through the ages, that should rival the Alexandria of Alexander the
Great, and he chose for it a most inauspicious and inhospitable site.
The Neva, a short but deep and wide stream, which carries to the sea
the waters of the great lakes Ladoga, Onega, and Ilmen, breaks up near
its mouth and makes its way into the Gulf of Finland through numerous
channels, between which lie a series of islands. These then bore Finnish
names equivalent to Island of Hares, Island of Buffaloes, and the like.
Overgrown with thickets, their surfaces marshy, liable to annual
overflow, inhabited only by a few Finnish fishermen, who fled from their
huts to the mainland when the waters rose, they were far from promising;
yet these islands took Peter's fancy as a suitable site for a commercial
port, and with his usual impetuosity he plunged into the business of
making a city to order.
[Illustration: ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER.]
In truth, he fell in love with the spot, though what he saw in it to
admire is not so clear. In summer mud ruled there supreme: the very name
Neva is Finnish for "mud." During four months of the year ice took the
place of mud, and the islands and stream were fettered fast. The country
surrounding was largely a desert, its barren plains alternating with
forests whose only inhabitants were wolves. Years after the city was
built, wolves prowled into its streets and devoured two sentries in
front of one of the government buildings. Moscow lay four hundred miles
away, and the country between was bleak and almost uninhabited. Even
to-day the traveller on leaving St. Petersburg finds himself in a
desert. The great plain over which he passes spreads away in every
direction, not a steeple, not a tree, not a man or beast, visible upon
its bare expanse. There is no pasturage nor farming land. Fruits and
vegetables can scarcely be grown; corn must be brought from a distance.
Rye is an article of garden culture in St. Petersburg, cabbages and
turnips are its only vegetables, and a beehive there is a curiosity.
Yet, as has been said, Peter was attracted to the place, which in one of
his letters he called his "paradise." It may have reminded him of
Holland, the scene of his nautical education. The locality had a certain
sacredness in Russian tradition, being looked upon as the most ancient
Russian ground. By the mouth of the Neva had passed Rurik and his
fellows in their journeys across the Varangian sea,--_their own sea_.
The czar was willing to restore to Sweden all his conquests in Livonia
and Esthonia, but the Neva he would not yield. From boyhood he had
dreamed of giving Russia a navy and opening it up to the world's
commerce, and here was a ready opening to the waters of the Baltic and
the distant Atlantic.
St. Petersburg owed its origin to a whim; but it was the whim of a man
whose will swayed the movements of millions. He was not even willing to
begin his work on the high ground of the mainland, but chose the Island
of Hares, the nearest of the islands to the gulf. It was a seaport, not
a capital, that he at first had in view. Legend tells us that he
snatched a halberd from one of his soldiers, cut with it two strips of
turf, and laid them crosswise, saying, "Here there shall be a town."
Then, dropping the halberd, he seized a spade and began the first
embankment. As he dug, an eagle appeared and hovered above his head.
Shot by one of the men, it fluttered to his feet. Picking up the wounded
bird, he set out in a boat to explore the waters around. To this event
is given the date of May 16, 1703.
The city began in a fortress, for the building of which carpenters and
masons were brought from distant towns. The soldiers served as laborers.
In this labor tools were notable chiefly for their absence. Wheelbarrows
were unknown; they are still but little used in Russia. Spades and
baskets were equally lacking, and the czar's impatience could not wait
for them to be procured. The men scraped up the earth with their hands
or with sticks and carried it in the skirts of their caftans to the
ramparts. The czar sent orders to Moscow that two thousand of the
thieves and outlaws destined for Siberia should be despatched the next
summer to the Neva.
The fort was at first built of wood, which was replaced by stone some
years afterwards. Logs served for all other structures, for no stone was
to be had. Afterwards every boat coming to the town was required to
bring a certain number of stones, and, to attract masons to the new
city, the building of stone houses in Moscow or elsewhere was forbidden.
As for the fortress, which was erected at no small cost in life and
money, it soon became useless, and to-day it only protects the mint and
cathedral of St. Petersburg.