The Empire of Russia Part 13

From 1533 to 1546.

Va.s.sili At the Chase.--Attention To Distinguished Foreigners.--The Autocracy.--Splendor of the Edifices.--Slavery.--Aristocracy.--Infancy of Ivan IV.--Regency of Helene.--Conspiracies and Tumults.--War with Sigismond of Poland.--Death of Helene.--Struggles of the n.o.bles.--Appalling Sufferings of Dmitri.--Incursion of the Tartars.--Successful Conspiracy.--Ivan IV. At the Chase.--Coronation of Ivan IV.

Under Va.s.sili, the Russian court attained a degree of splendor which had before been unknown. The Baron of Herberstein thus describes the appearance of the monarch when engaging in the pleasures of the chase:

"As soon as we saw the monarch entering the field, we dismounted and advanced to meet him on foot. He was mounted upon a magnificent charger, gorgeously caparisoned. He wore upon his head a tall cap, embroidered with precious stones, and surmounted by gilded plumes which waved in the wind. A poignard and two knives were attached to his girdle. He had upon his right, Aley, tzar of Kazan, armed with a bow and arrows; at his left, two young princes, one of whom held an ax, and the other a number of arms. His suite consisted of more than three hundred cavaliers."

The chase was continued, over the boundless plains, for many days and often weeks. When night approached, the whole party, often consisting of thousands, dismounted and reared their village of tents. The tent of the emperor was ample, gorgeous, and furnished with all the appliances of luxury. Hounds were first introduced into these sports in Russia by Va.s.sili. The evening hours were pa.s.sed in festivity, with abundance of good cheer, and in narrating the adventures of the day.

Whenever the emperor appeared in public, he was preceded by esquires chosen from among the young n.o.bles distinguished for their beauty, the delicacy of their features and the perfect proportion of their forms.

Clothed in robes of white satin and armed with small hatchets of silver, they marched before the emperor, and appeared to strangers, say his cotemporaries, "like angels descended from the skies."

Va.s.sili was especially fond of magnificence in the audiences which he gave to foreign emba.s.sadors. To impress them with an idea of the vast population and wealth of Russia, and of the glory and power of the sovereign, Va.s.sili ordered, on the day of presentation, that all the ordinary avocations of life should cease, and the citizens, clothed in their richest dresses, were to crowd around the walls of the Kremlin.

All the young n.o.bles in the vicinity, with their retinues, were summoned. The troops were under arms, and the most distinguished officers, glittering in the panoply of war, rode to meet the envoys.[7] In the hall of audience, crowded to its utmost capacity, there was silence, as of the grave. The king sat upon his throne, his bonnet upon one side of him, his scepter upon the other. His n.o.bles were seated around upon couches draped in purple and embroidered with pearls and gold.

[Footnote 7: Francis da Callo relates that when he was received by the emperor, forty thousand soldiers were under arms, in the richest uniform, extending from the Kremlin to the hotel of the emba.s.sadors.]

Following the example of Ivan III., Va.s.sili was unwearied in his endeavors to induce foreigners of distinction, particularly artists, physicians and men of science, to take up their residence in Russia.

Any stranger, distinguished for genius or capability of any kind, who entered Russia, found it not easy to leave the kingdom. A Greek physician, of much celebrity, from Constantinople, visited Moscow.

Va.s.sili could not find it in his heart to relinquish so rich a prize, and detained him with golden bonds, which the unhappy man, mourning for his wife and children, in vain endeavored to break away. At last the sultan was influenced to write in behalf of the Greek.

"Permit," he wrote, "Marc to return to Constantinople to rejoin his family. He went to Russia only for a temporary visit."

The emperor replied:

"For a long time Marc has served me to his and my perfect satisfaction. He is now my lieutenant at Novgorod. Send to him his wife and children."

The power of the sovereign was absolute. His will was the supreme law.

The lives, the fortunes of the clergy, the laity, the lords, the citizens were dependent upon his pleasure. The Russians regarded their monarch as the executor of the divine will. Their ordinary language was, _G.o.d and the prince decree it_. The Russians generally defend this _autocracy_ as the only true principle of government. The philosophic Karamsin writes:

"Ivan III. and Va.s.sili knew how to establish permanently the nature of one government by const.i.tuting in _autocracy_ the necessary attribute of empire, its sole const.i.tution, and the only basis of safety, force and prosperity. This limitless power of the prince is regarded as _tyranny_ in the eye of strangers, because, in their inconsiderate judgment, they forget that _tyranny_ is the abuse of autocracy, and that the same tyranny may exist in a republic when citizens or powerful magistrates oppress society. Autocracy does not signify the absence of laws, since law is everywhere where there is any duty to be performed, and the first duty of princes, is it not to watch over the happiness of their people?"

To the traveler, in the age of Va.s.sili, Russia appeared like a vast desert compared with the other countries of Europe. The spa.r.s.eness of the habitations, the extended plains, dense forests and roads, rough and desolate, attested that Russia was still in the cradle of its civilization. But as one approached Moscow, the signs of animated life rapidly increased. Convoys crowded the grand route, which traversed vast prairies waving with grain and embellished with all the works of industry. In the midst of this plain rose the majestic domes and glittering towers of Moscow. The convents, in ma.s.sive piles, scattered around, resembled beautiful villages. The palace of the Kremlin alone, was a city in itself. Around this, as the nucleus, but spreading over a wide extent, were the streets of the metropolis, the palaces of the n.o.bles, the mansions of the wealthy citizens and the shops of the artisans. The city in that day was, indeed, one of "magnificent distances," almost every dwelling being surrounded by a garden in luxurious cultivation. In the year 1520, the houses, by count, which was ordered by the grand prince, amounted to forty-one thousand five hundred.

The metropolitan bishop, the grand dignitaries of the court, the princes and lords occupied splendid mansions of wood reared by Grecian and Italian architects in the environs of the Kremlin. On wide and beautiful streets there were a large number of very magnificent churches also built of wood. The bazaars or shops, filled with the rich merchandise of Europe and of Asia, were collected in one quarter of the city, and were surrounded by a high stone wall as a protection against the armies, domestic or foreign, which were ever sweeping over the land.

From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, slavery may be said to have been universal in Russia. Absolutely every man but the monarch was a slave. The highest n.o.bles and princes avowed themselves the slaves of the monarch. There was no law but the will of the sovereign.

He could deprive any one of property and of life, and there was no power to call him to account but the poignard of the a.s.sa.s.sin or the sword of rebellion. In like manner the peasant serfs were slaves of the n.o.bles, with no privileges whatever, except such as the humanity or the selfishness of their lords might grant But gradually custom, controlling public opinion, a.s.sumed almost the form of law. The kings established certain rules for the promotion of industry and the regulation of commerce. Merchants and scholars attained a degree of practical independence which was based on indulgence rather than any const.i.tutional right, and, during the reign of Va.s.sili, the law alone could doom the serf to death, and he began to be regarded as a _man_, as a _citizen_ protected by the laws.[8] From this time we begin to see the progress of humanity and of higher conceptions of social life.

It is, perhaps, worthy of record that anciently the peasants or serfs were universally designated by the name _smerdi_, which simply means _smelling offensively_. Is the exhalation of an offensive odor the necessary property of a people imbruted by poverty and filth? In America that unpleasant effluvium has generally been considered a peculiarity pertaining to the colored race. Philosophic observation may show that it is a disease, the result of uncleanliness, but, like other diseases, often transmitted from the guilty parent to the unoffending child. We have known white people who were exceedingly offensive in this respect, and colored people who were not so at all.

[Footnote 8: Karamsin, tome vii., page 265.]

The pride of ill.u.s.trious birth was carried to the greatest extreme, and a n.o.ble would blush to enter into any friendly relations whatever with a plebeian. The n.o.bles considered all business degrading excepting war, and spent the weary months, when not under arms, in indolence in their castles. The young women of the higher families were in a deplorable state of captivity. Etiquette did not allow them to mingle with society, or even to be seen except by their parents, and they had no employment except sewing or knitting, no mental culture and no sources of amus.e.m.e.nt. It was not the custom for the young men to choose their wives, but the father of the maiden selected some eligible match for his daughter, and made propositions to the family of his contemplated son-in-law, stating the dowry he would confer upon the bride, and the parties were frequently married without ever having previously seen each other.

The death of Va.s.sili transmitted the crown to his only son, Ivan, an infant but three years of age. By the will of the dying monarch, the regency, during the minority of the child, was placed in the hands of the youthful mother, the princess Helene. The brothers of Va.s.sili and twenty n.o.bles of distinction were appointed as counselors for the queen regent. Two men, however, in concert with Helene, soon took the reins of government into their own hands. One of these was a st.u.r.dy, ambitious old n.o.ble, Michel Glinsky, an uncle of Helene; the other was a young and handsome prince, Ivan Telennef, who was suspected of tender _liaisons_ with his royal mistress.

The first act of the new government was to a.s.semble all the higher clergy in the church of the a.s.sumption, where the metropolitan bishop gave his benediction to the child destined to reign over Russia, and who was there declared to be accountable to G.o.d only for his actions.

At the same time emba.s.sadors were sent to all the courts of Europe to announce the death of Va.s.sili and the accession of Ivan IV. to the throne.

But a week pa.s.sed after these ceremonies ere the prince Youri, one of the brothers of Va.s.sili, was arrested, charged with conspiracy to wrest the crown from his young nephew. He was thrown into prison, where he was left to perish by the slow torture of starvation. This severity excited great terror in Moscow. The Russians, ever strongly attached to their sovereigns, now found themselves under the reign of an oligarchy which they detested. Conspiracies and rumors of conspiracies agitated the court. Many were arrested upon suspicion alone, and, cruelly chained, were thrown into dungeons. Michel Glinsky, indignant at the shameful intimacy evidently existing between Helene and Telennef, ventured to remonstrate with the regent boldly and earnestly, a.s.suring her that the eyes of the court were scrutinizing her conduct, and that such vice, disgraceful anywhere, was peculiarly hideous upon a throne, where all looked for examples of virtue. The audacious n.o.ble, though president of the council, was immediately arrested under an accusation of treason, and was thrown into a dungeon, where, soon after, he was a.s.sa.s.sinated. A reign of terror now commenced, and imprisonment and death awaited all those who undertook in any way to thwart the plans of Helene and Telennef.

Andre, the youngest of the brothers of Va.s.sili, a man of feeble character, now alone remained of the royal princes at court. He was nominally the tutor of his nephew, the young emperor, Ivan IV., and though a prominent member of the council which Va.s.sili had established, he had no influence in the government which had been grasped so energetically and despotically by Helene and her paramour Telennef. At length Andre, trembling for his own life, timidly raised the banners of revolt, and gathered quite an army around him. But he had no energy to conduct a war. He was speedily taken, and, loaded with chains, was thrown into a dungeon, where, after a few weeks of most cruel deprivations, he miserably perished. Thirty of the lords, implicated with him in the rebellion, were hung upon the trees around Novgorod. Many others were put to torture and perished on the rack.

Helene, surrendering herself to the dominion of guilty love, developed the ferocity of a tigress.

Sigismond, King of Poland, taking advantage of the general discontent of the Russians under the sway of Helene, formed an alliance with the horde upon the lower waters of the Don, and invaded Russia, burning and destroying with mercilessness which demons could not have surpa.s.sed. Prince Telennef headed an army to repel them. The pen wearies in describing the horrors of these scenes. One hundred thousand Russians are now flying before one hundred and fifty thousand Polanders. Hundreds of miles of territory are ravaged. Cities and villages are stormed, plundered, burned; women and children are cut down and trampled beneath the feet of cavalry, or escape shrieking into the forests, where they perish of exposure and starvation. But an army of recruits comes to the aid of the Russians. And now one hundred and fifty thousand Polanders are driven before two hundred thousand Russians. They sweep across the frontier like dust driven by the tornado. And now the cities and villages of Poland blaze; her streams run red with blood. The Polish wives and daughters in their turn struggle, shriek and die. From exhaustion the warfare ceases. The two antagonists, moaning and bleeding, wait for a few years but to recover sufficient strength to renew the strife, and then the brutal, demoniac butchery commences anew. Such is the history of man.

In this brief, but b.l.o.o.d.y war, the city of Staradoub, in Russia, was besieged by an army of Poles and Tartars. The a.s.sault was urged with the most desperate energy and fearlessness. The defense was conducted with equal ferocity. Thousands fell on both sides in every mangled form of death. At last the besiegers undermined the walls, and placing beneath hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, as with the burst of a volcano, uphove the ma.s.sive bastions to the clouds. They fell in a storm of ruin upon the city, setting it on fire in many places.

Through the flames and over the smouldering ruins, Poles and Tartars, blackened with smoke and smeared with blood, rushed into the city, and in a few hours thirteen thousand of the inhabitants were weltering in their gore. None were left alive. And this is but a specimen of the wars which raged for ages. The world now has but the faintest conception of the seas of blood and woe through which humanity has waded to attain even its present feeble recognition of fraternity.

In this, as in every war with Poland, Russia was gaining, ever wresting from her rival the provinces of Lithuania, and attaching them to the gigantic empire. In the year 1534, Helene commenced the enterprise of surrounding the whole of Moscow with a ditch, and a wall capable of resisting the batterings of artillery. An Italian engineer, named Petrok Maloi, superintended these works. The foundation of the walls was laid with imposing religious ceremonies. The wall was crowned with four towers at the opening of the four gates. Helene was so conscious of the importance of augmenting the population of Russia, that she offered land and freedom from taxes for a term of years to all who would migrate into her territory from Poland. Perhaps also she had a double object, wishing to weaken a rival power. Much counterfeit coin was found to be in circulation. The regent issued an edict, that any one found guilty of depreciating the current standard of coin, should be punished with death, and this death was to be barbarously inflicted by first cutting off the hands of the culprit, and then pouring melted lead through a tunnel down his throat.

On the 3d of April, 1538, Helene, in the prime of life, and with all her sins in full vigor and unrepented, retired to her bed at night, suddenly and seriously sick. Some one had succeeded in administering to her a dose of poison. She shrieked for a few hours in mortal agony, and soon after the hour of twelve was tolled, her spirit ascended to meet G.o.d in judgment. Being dead, she had no favors to confer and no terrors to execute; and her festering remains were the same day hurried ignominiously to the grave. Her paramour, Telennef, alone wept over her death. Russia rejoiced, and yet with trembling. Whose strong arm would now seize the helm of the tempest-torn ship of State, no one could tell.

The young prince, Ivan IV., was but seven years of age at the death of his mother Helene. For several days there was ominous silence in Moscow, the stillness which precedes the storm. The death of the regent had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that none were prepared for it. A week pa.s.sed away, during which time parties were forming and conspiracies ripening, while Telennef was desperately endeavoring to retain that power which he had so despotically wielded in conjunction with his royal mistress. The prince Va.s.sili Schouisky, who had occupied the first place in the councils of Va.s.sili, opened the drama.

Having secured the cooperation of a large number of n.o.bles, he declared himself the head of the government, arrested all the favorites of Helene, and threw Telennef, bound with chains, into a dungeon. There he was left to die of starvation--barbarity, which, though in accordance with that brutal age, even all the similar excesses of Telennef could not justify. The beautiful sister of Telennef, Agrippene by name, was torn from the saloons her loveliness had embellished, and was imprisoned for life in a convent. The victims of the cruelty of Helene, who were still languishing in prison, were set at liberty.

Schouisky was a widower, and in the fiftieth year of his age. He wished to strengthen his power by engaging the cooperation of the still formidable energies of the horde at Kezan, and accordingly married, quite hurriedly, the daughter of the czar of the horde. But the regal diadem proved to him but a crown of thorns. Conspiracy succeeded conspiracy, and Schouisky felt compelled to enlist all the terrors of the dungeon, the scaffold and the block to maintain his place. Six months only pa.s.sed away, ere he too was writhing upon the royal couch in the agonies of death, whether paralyzed by poison or smitten by the hand of G.o.d, the day of judgment alone can reveal.

Ivan Schouisky, the brother of the deceased usurper, now stepped into the dangerous post which death had so suddenly rendered vacant. He was a weak man, a.s.suming the most pompous airs, quite unable to discriminate between imposing grandeur and ridiculous parade. He soon became both despised and detested. This state of things encouraged the two hordes of Kezan and Tauride to unite, and with an army of a hundred thousand men they penetrated Russia almost unopposed, burning and plundering in all directions.

Under these circ.u.mstances the metropolitan bishop, Joseph, a man of sincere piety and of very elevated character, and who enjoyed in the highest degree the confidence both of the aristocracy and of the people, presented himself before the council, urged the incapacity of Ivan Schouisky to govern, and proposed that Ivan Belsky, a n.o.bleman of great energy and moral worth, should be chosen regent. The proposal was carried by acclamation. So unanimous was the vote, so cordial was the adoption of the republican principle of election, that Ivan Schouisky was powerless and was merely dismissed.

The new regent, sustained by the clergy and the aristocracy, governed the State with wisdom and moderation. All kinds of persecution ceased, and vigorous measures were adopted for the promotion of the public welfare. Old abuses were repressed; vicious governors deposed, and the rising flames of civil strife were quenched. Even the hitherto unheard-of novelty of trial by jury was introduced. Jurors were chosen from among the most intelligent citizens. Though there was some bitter opposition among the corrupt n.o.bles to these salutary reforms, the clergy, as a body, sustained them, and so did also even a majority of the lords. It was Christianity and the church which introduced these humanizing measures.

Among the innumerable tragedies of those days, let one be mentioned ill.u.s.trative of the terrific wrongs to which all are exposed under a despotic government. There was a young prince, Dmitri, a child, grandson of Va.s.sili the blind, whose claims to the throne were feared.

He was thrown into prison and there forgotten. For forty-nine years he had now remained in a damp and dismal dungeon. He had committed no crime. He was accused of no crime. It was only feared that restive n.o.bles might use him as an instrument for the furtherance of their plans. All the years of youth and of manhood had pa.s.sed in darkness and misery. No beam of the sun ever penetrated his tomb. All unheeded the tides of life surged in the world above him, while his mind with his body was wasting away in the long agony.

"O who can tell what days, what nights he spent, Of tideless, waveless, sailless, sh.o.r.eless woe."

Mercy now entered his cell, but it was too late even for that angel visitant to bring a gleam of joy. His friends were all dead. His name was forgotten on earth. He knew nothing of the world or of its ways.

His mind was enfeebled, and even the slender stock of knowledge which he had possessed as a child, had vanished away. They broke off his chains and removed him from his dungeon to a comfortable chamber. The poor old man, dazzled by the light and bewildered by the change, lingered joylessly and without a smile for a few weeks and died.

Immortality alone offers a solution for these mysteries. "After death cometh the judgment."

The Christian bishop, Joseph, and Ivan Belsky, the regent, in cordial cooperation, endeavored in all things to promote prosperity and happiness. Again there was a coalition of the Tartars for the invasion of Russia. The three hordes, in Kezan, in the Tauride and at the mouth of the Volga, united, and in an army one hundred thousand strong, with numerous cavalry and powerful artillery, commenced their march. The Russian troops were hastily collected upon the banks of the Oka, there to take their stand and dispute the pa.s.sage of the stream. By order of the clergy, prayers were offered incessantly in the churches by day and by night, that G.o.d would avert this terrible invasion. The young prince, Ivan IV., was now ten years of age. The citizens of Moscow were moved to tears and to the deepest enthusiasm on hearing their young prince, in the church of the a.s.sumption, offer aloud and fervently the prayer,

"Oh heavenly Father! thou who didst protect our ancestors against the cruel Tamerlane, take us also under thy holy protection--us in childhood and orphanage. Our mind and our body are still feeble, and yet the nation looks to us for deliverance."

Accompanied by the metropolitan Joseph, he entered the council and said,

"The enemy is approaching. Decide for me whether it be best that I should remain here or go to meet the foe."

With one voice they exclaimed, "Prince, remain at Moscow."

They then took a solemn oath to die, if necessary, for their prince.

The citizens came forward in crowds and volunteered for the defense of the walls. The faubourgs were surrounded with pallisades, and batteries of artillery were placed to sweep, in all directions, the approaches to the city. The enthusiasm was so astonishing that the Russian annalists ascribe it to a supernatural cause. On the 30th of July, 1541, the Tartar army appeared upon the southern banks of the Oka, crowning all the heights which bordered the stream. Immediately they made an attempt to force the pa.s.sage. But the Russians, thoroughly prepared for the a.s.sault, repelled them with prodigious slaughter. Night put an end to the contest. The Russians were elated with their success, and waited eagerly for the morning to renew the strife. They even hoped to be able to cross the river and to sweep the camp of their foes. The fires of their bivouacs blazed all the night, reinforcements were continually arriving, and their songs of joy floated across the water, and fell heavily upon the hearts of the dismayed Tartars.

At midnight the khan, and the whole host, conscious of their peril, commenced a precipitate retreat, in their haste abandoning many guns and much of their baggage. The Russians pursued the foe, but were not able to overtake them, so rapidly did they retrace their steps.