MSTISLAF AND ANDRÉ
From 1167 to 1212.
Centralization of Power at Kief.--Death of Rostislaf.--His Religious
Character.--Mstislaf Ysiaslavitch Ascends the Throne.--Proclamation of
the King.--Its Effect.--Plans of André.--Scenes at Kief.--Return and
Death of Mstislaf.--War in Novgorod.--Peace Concluded Throughout
Russia.--Insult of André and its Consequences.--Greatness of Soul
Displayed by André.--Assassination of André.--Renewal of
Anarchy.--Emigration from Novgorod.--Reign of Michel.--Vsevolod
III.--Evangelization of Bulgaria.--Death of Vsevolod III.--His Queen
Maria.
The prince of Souzdal watched the progress of events in occidental
Russia with great interest. He saw clearly that war was impoverishing
and ruining the country, and this led him to adopt the most wise and
vigorous measures to secure peace within his own flourishing
territories. He adopted the system of centralized power, keeping the
reins of government firmly in his own hands, and appointing governors
over remote provinces, who were merely the executors of his will, and
who were responsible to him for all their acts. At Kief the system of
independent apanages prevailed. The lord placed at the head of a
principality was an unlimited despot, accountable to no one but God
for his administration. His fealty to the king consisted merely in an
understanding that he was to follow the banner of the sovereign in
case of war. But in fact, these feudal lords were more frequently
found claiming entire independence, and struggling against their
nominal sovereign to wrest from his hands the scepter.
Rostislaf was now far advanced in years. Conscious that death could
not be far distant, he took a journey, though in very feeble health,
to some of the adjacent provinces, hoping to induce them to receive
his son as his successor. On this journey he died at Smolensk, the
14th of March, 1167. Religious thoughts had in his latter years
greatly engrossed his attention. He breathed his last, praying with a
trembling voice, and fixing his eyes devoutly on an image of the
Saviour which he held devoutly in his hand. He exhibited many
Christian virtues, and for many years manifested much solicitude that
he might be prepared to meet God in judgment. The earnest
remonstrances, alone, of his spiritual advisers, dissuaded him from
abdicating the throne, and adopting the austerities of a monastic
life. He was not a man of commanding character, but it is pleasant to
believe that he was, though groping in much darkness, a sincere
disciple of the Saviour, and that he passed from earth to join the
spirits of the just made perfect in Heaven.
Mstislaf Ysiaslavitch, a nephew of the deceased king, ascended the
throne. He had however uncles, nephews and brothers, who were quite
disposed to dispute with him the possession of power, and soon civil
war was raging all over the kingdom with renewed virulence. Several
years of destruction and misery thus passed away, during which
thousands of the helpless people perished in their blood, to decide
questions of not the slightest moment to them. The doom of the
peasants was alike poverty and toil, whether one lord or another lord
occupied the castle which overshadowed their huts.
The Dnieper was then the only channel through which commerce could be
conducted between Russia and the Greek empire. Barbaric nations
inhabited the shores of this stream, and they had long been held in
check by the Russian armies. But now the kingdom had become so
enfeebled by war and anarchy, all the energies of the Russian princes
being exhausted in civil strife, that the barbarians plundered with
impunity the boats ascending and descending the stream, and eventually
rendered the navigation so perilous, that commercial communication
with the empire was at an end. The Russian princes thus debarred from
the necessaries and luxuries which they had been accustomed to receive
from the more highly civilized and polished Greeks, were impelled to
measures of union for mutual protection. The king, in this emergence,
issued a proclamation which met with a general response.
"Russia, our beloved country," exclaimed Mstislaf, "groans beneath the
stripes which the barbarians are laying upon her, and which we are
unable to avenge. They have taken solemn oaths of friendship, they
have received our presents, and now, regardless of the faith of
treaties, they capture our Christian subjects and drag them as slaves
into their desert wilds. There is no longer any safety for our
merchant boats navigating the Dnieper. The barbarians have taken
possession of that only route through which we can pass into Greece.
It is time for us to resort to new measures of energy. My friends and
my brothers, let us terminate our unnatural war; let us look to God
for help, and, drawing, the sword of vengeance, let us fall in united
strength upon our savage foes. It is glorious to ascend to Heaven from
the field of honor, thus to follow in the footsteps of our father."
This spirited appeal was effective. The princes rallied each at the
head of a numerous band of vassals, and thus a large army was soon
congregated. The desire to punish the insulting barbarians inspired
universal enthusiasm. The masses of the people were aroused to avenge
their friends who had been carried into captivity. The priests, with
prayers and anthems, blessed the banners of the faithful, and, on the
2d of March, 1168, the army, elate with hope and nerved with
vengeance, commenced their descent of the river. The barbarians,
terrified by the storm which they had raised, and from whose fury they
could attain no shelter, fled so precipitately that they left their
wives and their children behind them. The Russians, abandoning the
incumbrance of their baggage, pursued them in the hottest haste. Over
the hills, and through the valleys, and across the streams pursuers
and pursued rushed on, until, at last, the fugitives were overtaken
upon the banks of a deep and rapid stream, which they were unable to
cross. Mercilessly they were massacred, many Russian prisoners were
rescued, and booty to an immense amount was taken, for these river
pirates were rich, having for years been plundering the commerce of
Greece and Russia. According to the custom of those days the booty was
divided between the princes and the soldiers--each man receiving
according to his rank.
As the army returned in triumph to the Dniester, to their boundless
satisfaction they saw the pennants of a merchant fleet ascending the
river from Constantinople, laden with the riches of the empire. The
army crowded the shores and greeted the barges with all the
demonstrations of exultation and joy.
The punishment of the barbarians being thus effectually accomplished,
the princes immediately commenced anew their strife. All their old
feuds were revived. Every lord wished to increase his own power and to
diminish that of his natural rival. André, of Souzdal, to whom we have
before referred, whose capital was the little village of Moscow far
away in the interior, deemed the moment favorable for dethroning
Mstislaf and extending the area of such freedom as his subjects
enjoyed over the realms of Novgorod and Kief. He succeeded in uniting
eleven princes with him in his enterprise. His measures were adopted
with great secresy. Assembling his armies, curtained by leagues of
forests, he, unobserved, commenced his march toward the Dnieper. The
banners of the numerous army were already visible from the steeples of
Kief before the sovereign was apprised of his danger. For two days the
storms of war beat against the walls and roared around the battlements
of the city, when the besiegers, bursting over the walls, swept the
streets in horrid carnage.
This mother of the Russian cities had often been besieged and often
capitulated, but never before had it been taken by storm, and never
before, and never since, have the horrors of war been more sternly
exhibited. For three days and three nights the city and its
inhabitants were surrendered to the brutal soldiery. The imagination
shrinks from contemplating the awful scene. The world of woe may be
challenged to exhibit any thing worse. Fearful, indeed, must be the
corruption when man can be capable of such inhumanity to his fellow
man. War unchains the tiger and shows his nature.
Mstislaf, the sovereign, in the midst of the confusion, the uproar and
the blood, succeeded almost as by miracle in escaping from the
wretched city, basely, however, abandoning his wife and his children
to the enemy. Thus fell Kief. For some centuries it had been the
capital of Russia. It was such no more. The victorious André, of
Moscow, was now, by the energies of his sword, sovereign of the
empire. Kief became but a provincial and a tributary city, which the
sovereign placed under the governorship of his brother Gleb.
Nearly all the provinces of known Russia were now more or less
tributary to André. Three princes only preserved their independence.
As the army of André retired, Gleb was left in possession of the
throne of Kief. In those days there were always many petty princes,
ready to embark with their followers in any enterprise which promised
either glory or booty. Mstislaf, the fugitive sovereign, soon gathered
around him semi-savage bands, entered the province of Kief, plundering
and burning the homes of his former subjects. As he approached Kief,
Gleb, unprepared for efficient resistance, was compelled to seek
safety in flight. The inhabitants of the city, to escape the horrors
of another siege and sack, threw open their gates, and crowded out to
meet their former monarch as a returning friend. Mstislaf entered the
city in triumph and quietly reseated himself upon the throne. He
however ascended it but to die. A sudden disease seized him, and the
songs of triumph which greeted his entrance, died away in requiems and
wailings, as he was borne to the silent tomb. With dying breath he
surrendered his throne to his younger brother Yaroslaf.
André, at Moscow, had other formidable engagements on hand, which
prevented his interposition in the affairs of Kief. The Novgorodians
had bidden defiance to his authority, and their subjugation was
essential, before any troops could be spared to chastise the heir of
Mstislaf. The Novgorodian army had even penetrated the realms of
André, and were exacting tribute from his provinces. The grand prince,
André himself, was far advanced in years, opposed to war, and had
probably been pushed on in his enterprises by the ambition of his son,
who was also named Mstislaf. This young prince was impetuous and
fiery, greedy for military glory, and restless in his graspings for
power. The Novgorodians were also warlike and indomitable. The
conflict between two such powers arrested the attention of all Russia.
Mstislaf made the most extensive preparations for the attack upon the
Novgorodians, and they, in their turn, were equally energetic in
preparations for the defense. The army marched from Moscow, and
following the valley of the Masta, entered the spacious province of
Novgorod. They entered the region, not like wolves, not like men, but
like demons. The torch was applied to every hut, to every village, to
every town. They amused themselves with tossing men, women and
children upon their camp-fires, glowing like furnaces. The sword and
the spear were too merciful instruments of death. The flames of the
burning towns blazed along the horizon night after night, and the cry
of the victims roused the Novgorodians to the intensest thirst for
vengeance.
With the sweep of utter desolation, Mstislaf approached the city, and
when his army stood before the walls, there was behind him a path,
leagues in width, and two hundred miles in length, covered with ruins,
ashes and the bodies of the dead. It was the 25th of February, 1170.
The city was immediately summoned to surrender. The Novgorodians
appalled by the fate of Kief, and by the horrors which had accompanied
the march of Mstislaf, took a solemn oath that they would struggle to
the last drop of blood in defense of their liberties. The clergy in
procession, bearing the image of the Virgin in their arms, traversed
the fortifications of the city, and with prayers, hymns and the most
imposing Christian rites, inspired the soldiers with religious
enthusiasm. The Novgorodians threw themselves upon their knees, and in
simultaneous prayer cried out, with the blending of ten thousand
voices, "O God! come and help us, come and help us." Thus roused to
frenzy, with the clergy chanting hymns of battle and pleading with
Heaven for success, with the image of the Virgin contemplating their
deeds, the soldiers rushed from behind their ramparts upon the foe.
Death was no longer dreaded. The only thought of every man was to sell
his life as dearly as possible.
Such an onset of maniacal energy no mortal force could stand. The
soldiers of Mstislaf fell as the waving grain bows before the tornado.
Their defeat was utter and awful. Mercy was not thought of. Sword and
javelin cried only for blood, blood. The wretched Mstislaf in dismay
fled, leaving two thirds of his army in gory death; and, in his
flight, he met that chastisement which his cruelties merited. He had
to traverse a path two hundred miles in length, along which not one
field of grain had been left undestroyed; where every dwelling was in
ashes, and no animal life whatever had escaped his ravages. Starvation
was his doom. Every rod of the way his emaciated soldiers dropped dead
in their steps. Famine also with all its woes reigned in Novgorod.
Under these circumstances, the two parties consented to peace, the
Novgorodians retaining their independence, but accepting a brother of
the grand prince André to succeed their own prince, who was then at
the point of death.
André, having thus terminated the strife with Novgorod by the peace
which he loved, turned his attention to Kief, and with characteristic
humanity, gratified the wishes of the inhabitants by allowing them to
accept Roman, prince of Smolensk, as their chieftain. Roman entered
the city, greeted by the most flattering testimonials of the joy of
the inhabitants, while they united with him in the oath of allegiance
to André as the sovereign of Russia. André, who was ever disposed to
establish his sovereign power, not by armies but by equity and
moderation, and who seems truly to have felt that the welfare of
Russia required that all its provinces should be united under common
laws and a common sovereign, turned his attention again to Novgorod,
hoping to persuade its inhabitants to relinquish their independence
and ally themselves with the general empire.
Rurik, the brother of André, who had been appointed prince of
Novgorod, proved unpopular, and was driven from his command. André,
instead of endeavoring to force him back upon them by the energies of
his armies, with a wise spirit of conciliation acquiesced in their
movement, and sent to them his young son, George, as a prince,
offering to assist them with his counsel and to aid them with his
military force whenever they should desire it. Thus internal peace was
established throughout the empire. By gradual advances, and with great
sagacity, André, from his humble palace in Moscow, extended his
influence over the remote provinces, and established his power.
The princes of Kief and its adjacent provinces became jealous of the
encroachments of André, and hostile feelings were excited. The king at
length sent an embassador to them with very imperious commands. The
embassador was seized at Kief, his hair and beard shaven, and was then
sent back to Moscow with the defiant message,
"Until now we have wished to respect you as a father; but since you do
not blush to treat us as vassals and as peasants--since you have
forgotten that you speak to princes, we spurn your menaces. Execute
them. We appeal to the judgment of God."
This grievous insult of word and deed roused the indignation of the
aged monarch as it had never been roused before. He assembled an army
of fifty thousand men, who were rendezvoused at Novgorod, and placed
under the command of the king's son, Georges. Another army, nearly
equal in number, was assembled at Tchernigof, collected from the
principalities of Polotsk, Tourof, Grodno, Pinsk and Smolensk. The
bands of this army were under the several princes of the provinces.
Sviatoslaf, grandson of the renowned Oleg, was entrusted with the
supreme command. These two majestic forces were soon combined upon the
banks of the Dnieper. All resistance fled before them, and with
strides of triumph they marched down the valley to Kief. The princes
who had aroused this storm of war fled to Vouoychegorod, an important
fortress further down the river, where they strongly entrenched
themselves, and sternly awaited the advance of the foe. The royalist
forces, having taken possession of Kief, pursued the fugitives. The
march of armies so vast, conducting war upon so grand a scale, excited
the astonishment of all the inhabitants upon the river's banks. A
little fortress, defended by a mere handful of men, appeared to them
an object unworthy of an army sufficiently powerful to crush an
empire.
But in the fortress there was perfect unity, and its commander had the
soul of a lion. In the camp of the besiegers there was neither harmony
nor zeal. Many of the princes were inimical to the king, and were
jealous of his growing power. Others were envious of Sviatoslaf, the
commander-in-chief, and were willing to sacrifice their own fame that
he might be humbled. Not a few even were in sympathy with the
insurgents, and were almost disposed to unite under their banners.
It was the 8th of September, 1173, when the royalist forces encircled
the fortress. Gunpowder was then unknown, and contending armies could
only meet hand to hand. For two months the siege was continued, with
bloody conflicts every day. Wintry winds swept the plains, and storms
of snow whitened the fields, when, from the battlements of the
fortress, the besieged saw the banners of another army approaching the
arena. They knew not whether the distant battalions were friends or
foes; but it was certain that their approach would decide the strife,
for each party was so exhausted as to be unable to resist any new
assailants. Soon the signals of war proclaimed that an army was
approaching for the rescue of the fortress. Shouts of exultation rose
from the garrison, which fell like the knell of death upon the ears of
the besiegers, freezing on the plains. The alarm which spread through
the camp was instantaneous and terrible. The darkness of a November
night soon settled down over city and plain. With the first rays of
the morning the garrison were upon the walls, when, to their surprise,
they saw the whole vast army in rapid and disordered flight. The
plains around the fortress were utterly deserted and covered with the
wrecks of war. The garrison immediately rushed from behind their
ramparts united with their approaching friends and pursued the
fugitives.
The royalists, in their dismay, attempted to cross the river on the
fragile ice. It broke beneath the enormous weight, and thousands
perished in the cold stream. The remainder of this great host were
almost to a man either slain or taken captive. Their whole camp and
baggage fell into the hands of the conquerors. This wonderful victory,
achieved by the energies of Mstislaf, has given him a name in Russian
annals as one of the most renowned and brave of the princes of the
empire.
George, prince of Novgorod, son of André, escaped from the carnage of
that ensanguined field, and overwhelmed with shame, returned to his
father in Moscow. The king, in this extremity, developed true
greatness of soul. He exhibited neither dejection nor anger, but bowed
to the calamity as to a chastisement he needed from God. The victory
of the insurgents, if they may be so called, who occupied the
provinces in the valley of the Dnieper, was not promotive either of
prosperity or peace. Mindful of the former grandeur of Kief, as the
ancient capital of the Russian empire, ambitious princes were
immediately contending for the possession of that throne. After
several months of confusion and blood, André succeeded, by skillful
diplomacy, in again inducing them, for the sake of general
tranquillity, to come under the general government of the empire. The
nobles could not but respect him as the most aged of their princes; as
a man of imperial energy and ability, and as the one most worthy to be
their chief. He alone had the power to preserve tranquillity in
extended Russia. They therefore applied to him to take Kief, under
certain restrictions, again into his protection, and to nominate for
that city a prince who should be in his alliance. This homage was
acceptable to André.
But while he was engaged in this negotiation, a conspiracy was formed
against the monarch, and he was cruelly assassinated. It was the night
of the 29th of June, 1174. The king was sleeping in a chateau, two
miles from Moscow. At midnight the conspirators, twenty in number,
having inflamed themselves with brandy, burst into the house and
rushed towards the chamber where the aged monarch was reposing. The
clamor awoke the king, and he sprang from the bed just as two of the
conspirators entered his chamber. Aged as the monarch was, with one
blow of his vigorous arm he felled the foremost to the floor. The
comrade of the assassin, in the confusion, thinking it was the king
who had fallen, plunged his poignard to the hilt in his companion's
breast. Other assassins rushed in and fell upon the monarch. He was a
man of gigantic powers, and struggled against his foes with almost
supernatural energy, filling the chateau with his shrieks for help.
At last, pierced with innumerable wounds, he fell in his blood,
apparently silent in death. The assassins, terrified by the horrible
scene, and apprehensive that the guard might come to the rescue of the
king, caught up their dead comrade and fled.
The monarch had, however, but fainted. He almost instantly revived,
and with impetuosity and bravery, seized his sword and gave chase to
the murderers, shouting with all his strength to his attendants to
hasten to his aid. The assassins turned upon him. They had lanterns in
their hands, and were twenty to one. The first blow struck off the
right arm of the king; a saber thrust pierced his heart, passed
through his body, and the monarch fell dead. His last words were,
"Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit." There is, to this day,
preserved a cimeter of Grecian workmanship, which tradition says was
the sword of André. Upon the blade is inscribed in Greek letters,
"Holy mother of God, assist thy servant."
The death of the monarch was the signal for the universal outbreak of
violence and crime. Where the sovereign is the only law, the death of
the monarch is the destruction of the government. The anarchy which
sometimes succeeded his death was awful. The Russian annalists cherish
the memory of André affectionately. They say that he was courageous,
sagacious and a true Christian, and that he merited the title he has
received of a second Solomon. Had he established his throne in the
more central city of Kief instead of the remote village of Moscow, he
could more efficiently have governed the empire; but, blinded by his
love for his own northern realms, he was ambitious of elevating his
own native village, unfavorable as was its location, into the capital
of the empire. During his whole reign he manifested great zeal in
extending Christianity through the empire, and evinced great interest
in efforts for the conversion of the Jews.
Just before the death of the king, a number of the inhabitants of
Novgorod, fatigued with civil strife and crowded out by the density of
the population, formed a party to emigrate to the uninhabited lands
far away in the East. Traversing a region of about three hundred miles
on the parallel of fifty-seven degrees of latitude, they reached the
head waters of the Volga. Here they embarked in boats and drifted down
the wild stream for a thousand miles to the mouth of the river Kama,
where they established a colony. At this point they were twelve
hundred miles north of the point where the Volga empties into the
Caspian. Other adventurers soon followed, and flourishing colonies
sprang up all along the banks of the Kama and the Viatha. This region
was the Missouri valley of Russia. By this emigration the Russian
name, its manners, its institutions, were extended through a sweep of
a thousand miles.
The colonists had many conflicts with the aboriginal inhabitants, but
Russian civilization steadily advanced over barbaric force.
Soon after the death of André, the nobles of that region met in a
public assembly to organize some form of confederate government. One
of the speakers rose and said, "No one is ignorant of the manner in
which we have lost our king. He has left but one son, who reigns at
Novgorod. The brothers of André are in southern Russia. Who then shall
we choose for our sovereign? Let us elect Michel, of Tchernigof. He is
the oldest son of Monomaque and the most ancient of the princes of his
family."
Embassadors were immediately sent to Michel, offering him the throne
and promising him the support of the confederate princes. Michel
hastened to Moscow with a strong army, supported by several princes,
and took possession of Moscow and the adjacent provinces. A little
opposition was manifested, which he speedily quelled with the sword.
Great rejoicings welcomed the enthronement of a new prince and the
restoration of order. Michel proved worthy of his elevation. He
immediately traversed the different provinces in that region, and
devoted himself to the tranquillity and prosperity of his people. The
popularity of the new sovereign was at its height. All lips praised
him, all hearts loved him. He was declared to be a special gift which
Heaven, in its boundless mercy, had conferred. Unfortunately, this
virtuous prince reigned but one year, leaving, however, in that short
time, upon the Russian annals many memorials of his valor and of his
virtue. It was a barbaric age, rife with perfidy and crime, yet not
one act of treachery or cruelty has sullied his name. It was his
ambition to be the father of his people, and the glory he sought was
the happiness and the greatness of his country.
Southern Russia was still the theater of interminable civil war. The
provinces were impoverished, and Kief was fast sinking to decay.
Michel had a brother, Vsevelod, who had accompanied him to Moscow. The
nobles and the leading citizens, their eyes still dim with the tears
which they had shed over the tomb of their sovereign, urged him to
accept the crown. He was not reluctant to accede to their request, and
received their oaths of fidelity to him under the title of Vsevelod
III. His title, however, was disputed by distant princes, and an armed
band, approaching Moscow by surprise, seized the town and reduced it
to ashes, ravaged the surrounding region, and carried off the women
and children as captives. Vsevelod was, at the time, absent in the
extreme northern portion of his territory, but he turned upon his
enemies with the heart and with the strength of a lion. It was
midwinter. Regardless of storms, and snow and cold, he pursued the foe
like the north wind, and crushed them as with an iron hand. With a
large number of prisoners he returned to the ruins of Moscow.
Two of the most illustrious of the hostile princes were among the
prisoners. The people, enraged at the destruction of their city, fell
upon the captives, and, seizing the two princes, tore out their eyes.
Vsevelod was a young man who had not acquired renown. Many of the
warlike princes of the spacious provinces regarded his elevation with
envy. Sviatoslaf, prince of Tchernigof, was roused to intense
hostility, and gathering around him the nobles of his province,
resolved with a vigorous arm to seize for himself the throne.
Enlisting in his interests several other princes, he commenced his
march against his sovereign. Vsevelod prepared with vigor to repulse
his assailants. After long and weary marchings the two armies met in
the defiles of the mountains. A swift mountain-stream rushing along
its rocky bed, between deep and precipitous banks, separated the
combatants. For a fortnight they vainly assailed each other, hurling
clouds of arrows and javelins across the stream, which generally fell
harmless upon brazen helmet and buckler. But few were wounded, and
still fewer slain. Yet neither party dared venture the passage of the
stream in the presence of the other. At length, weary of the
unavailing conflict, Sviatoslaf, the insurgent chief, sent a challenge
to Vsevelod, the sovereign.
"Let God," said he, "decide the dispute between us. Let us enter into
the open field with our two armies, and submit the question to the
arbitrament of battle. You may choose either side of the river which
you please."
Vsevelod did not condescend to make any reply to the rebellious
prince. Seizing his embassadors, he sent them as captives to Vlademer,
a fortress some hundred miles east of Moscow. He hoped thus to provoke
Sviatoslaf to attempt the passage of the stream. But Sviatoslaf was
not to be thus entrapped. Breaking up his camp, he retired to
Novgorod, where he was received with rejoicings by the inhabitants.
Here he established himself as a monarch, accumulated his forces, and
began, by diplomacy and by arms, to extend his conquests over the
adjacent principalities. He sent a powerful army to descend the banks
of the Dnieper, capturing all the cities on the right hand and on the
left, and binding the inhabitants by oaths of allegiance. The army
advancing with resistless strides arrived before the walls of Kief,
took possession of the deserted palaces of this ancient capital, and
Sviatoslaf proclaimed himself monarch of southern Russia.
But while Sviatoslaf was thus prosecuting his conquests, at the
distance of four hundred miles south of Novgorod, Vsevelod advanced
with an army to this city, and was in his turn received by the
Novgorodians with the ringing of bells, bonfires and shouts of
welcome. All the surrounding princes and nobles promptly gave in their
adhesion to the victorious sovereign, and Sviatoslaf found that all
his conquests had vanished as by magic from beneath his hand.
Under these circumstances, Vsevelod and Sviatoslaf were both inclined
to negotiation. As the result, it was agreed that Vsevelod should be
recognized as the monarch of Russia, and that Sviatoslaf should reign
as tributary prince of Kief. To bind anew the ties of friendship,
Vsevelod gave in marriage his beautiful sister to the youngest son of
Sviatoslaf. Thus this civil strife was terminated.
But the gates of the temple of Janus were not yet to be closed.
Foreign war now commenced, and raged with unusual ferocity. Six
hundred miles east of Moscow, was the country of Bulgaria. It
comprehended the present Russian province of Orenburg, and was bounded
on the east by the Ural mountains, and on the west by the Volga. A
population of nearly a million and a half inhabited this mountainous
realm. Commerce and arts flourished, and the people were enriched by
their commerce with the Grecian empire. They were, however,
barbarians, and as even in the nineteenth century the slave trade is
urged as a means of evangelizing the heathen of Africa, war was urged
with all its carnage and woe, as the agent of disseminating
Christianity through pagan Bulgaria. The motive assigned for the war,
was to serve Christ, by the conversion of the infidel. The motives
which influenced, were ambition, love of conquest and the desire to
add to the opulence and the power of Russia.
Vsevelod made grand preparations for this enterprise. Conferring with
the warlike Sviatoslaf and other ambitious princes, a large army was
collected at the head waters of the Volga. They floated down the wild
stream, in capacious flat-bottomed barges, till they came to the mouth
of the Kama. Thus far their expedition had been like the jaunt of a
gala day. Summer warmth and sunny skies had cheered them as they
floated down the romantic stream, through forests, between mountains
and along flowery savannas, with pennants floating gayly in the air,
and music swelling from their martial bands. War has always its
commencement of pomp and pageantry, followed by its terminations of
woe and despair.
Vsevelod in person led the army. Near the mouth of the Kama they
abandoned their flotilla, which could not be employed in ascending the
rapid stream. Continuing their march by land, they pushed boldly into
the country of the Bulgarians, and laid siege to their capital, which
was called "The Great City." For six days the battle raged, and the
city was taken. It proved, however, to be but a barren conquest. An
arrow from the walls pierced the side of a beloved nephew of Vsevelod.
The young man, in excruciating agony, died in the arms of the monarch.
Vsevelod was so much affected by the sufferings which he was thus
called to witness, that, dejected and disheartened, he made the best
terms he could, soothing his pride by extorting from the vanquished a
vague acknowledgment of subjection to the empire. He then commenced
his long march of toil and suffering back again to Moscow, over vast
plains and through dense forests, having really accomplished nothing
of any moment.
The reign of Vsevelod continued for thirty-seven years. It was a scene
of incessant conflict with insurgent princes disputing his power and
struggling for the supremacy. Often his imperial title was merely
nominal. Again a successful battle would humble his foes and bring
them in subjection to the foot of his throne. But, on the whole,
during his reign the fragmentary empire gained solidity, the
monarchical arm gained strength, and the sovereign obtained a more
marked supremacy above the rival princes who had so long disputed the
power of the throne. Vsevelod died, generally regretted, on the 12th
of April, 1212. In the Russian annals, he has received the surname of
Great. His reign, compared with that of most of his predecessors, was
happy. He left, in churches and in fortresses, many monuments of his
devotion and of his military skill.
His wife, Maria, seems to have been a woman of sincere piety. Her
brief pilgrimage on earth, passed six hundred years ago, led her
through the same joys and griefs which in the nineteenth century
oppress human hearts. The last seven years of her life she passed on a
bed of sickness and extreme suffering. The patience she displayed
caused her to be compared with the patriarch Job. Just before she
died, she assembled her six surviving children around her bed. As with
tears they gazed upon the emaciated cheeks of their beloved and dying
mother, she urged them to love God, to study the Bible, to give their
hearts to the Saviour and to live for heaven. She died universally
regretted and revered.
The reign of Vsevelod was cotemporaneous with the conquest of
Constantinople by the crusaders. The Latin or Roman church thus for a
season extended its dominion over the Greek or Eastern church. The
French and Venetians; robbed the rich churches of Constantine of their
paintings, statuary, relics and all their treasures of art. The Greek
emperor himself fled in disguise to Thrace.
The Roman pontiff, Innocent III., deeming this a favorable moment to
supplant the Greek religion in Russia, sent letters to the Russian
clergy, in which he said:
"The religion of Rome is becoming universally triumphant. The whole
Grecian empire has recognized the spiritual power of the pope. Will
you be the only people who refuse to enter into the fold of Christ,
and to recognize the Roman church as the ark of salvation, out of
which no one can be saved? I have sent to you a cardinal; a man noble,
well-instructed, and legate of the successors of the Apostles. He has
received full power to enlighten the minds of the Russians, and to
rescue them from all their errors."
This pastoral exhortation was entirely unavailing. The bishops and
clergy of the Russian church still pertinaciously adhered to the faith
of their fathers. The crusaders were ere long driven from the imperial
city, and the Greek church again attained its supremacy in the East, a
supremacy which it has maintained to the present day.