the unification of Russia 1302 1584 one the people in 1300 Russia did not exist the North belonged for the most part 2 3 self governed city-states Novgorod vodka the skull the western and southern provinces were dependencies of Lithuania in the East the principalities of Moscow Ria's on Suzdal Nizhny Novgorod and toover all claimed individual sovereignty and were united only in common subjection to the Golden Horde the Horde took its noun from Turkish or do or camp and its adjective from the domed tent covered with cloth of gold that had served as headquarters for bought to the splendid grandson of Genghis Khan having conquered southern Russia and Western Asia these marauding Asiatics built their capital at suraíh on a branch of the lower Volga and their received annual tribute from the Russian Prince's the Horde was partly agricultural partly nomads pastoral the ruling families were Mongol the rest were mostly Turks the name Tatar came to the Lord from the Tata tribes of the Gobi who in the 9th century had started the manga Avalanche toward the west the chief results from the long subjection of Russia to the Horde were social the autocracy of the Moscow Dukes the servile loyalty of the people to their princes the low status of woman the military financial and judicial organization of the muscovite government on Tatar lines the Tatar domination deferred for two centuries the attempt of Russia to become a European Occidental state the Russian people faced the most arduous conditions with silent stoicism except that amid their tribulations they found the courage to sing their enemies called them course cruel dishonest cunning and violent doubtless toil and trouble and the trying climate toughened them but their patience good humour friendliness and hospitality redeemed them so much so that they were inclined to believe themselves more a human oh the salt of the earth they were beaten into civilization by barbarous laws and frightful penalty so we are told a wife who murdered her husband was buried alive up to the neck sorcerers were burned alive in an iron cage and counterfeiters had liquid metal pour down their throats like any people fighting cold the Russians drank alcohol abundantly sometimes two drunken stupor even their food was seasoned to warm them they enjoyed hot baths and bathed more frequently than most Europeans religion bad women hide their tempting forms in hair and branded them as Satan's chosen instrument yet they were equal with men before the law and often joined in public pastimes or the dance which was forbidden as a sin the Russian church preached a strict morality and prohibited conjugal relations during Lent presumably the severity of the code was a counterpoise to the tendency of the people to indulge excessively in almost the only pleasure left to them marriages were arranged by the parents and came early girls of twelve boys of fourteen were considered nubile wedding ceremonies were complex with ancient symbolism and festivities through all these the bride was required to keep a modest silence her revenge was deferred on the morrow she was expected to show to her husband's mother the evidence that he had married a virgin usually the women of the household remained in an upper apartment or Taran away from the men and the authority of the father was as absolute in the family as that of the Tsar in the state piety sublimity into a preparation for paradise every house of any size had a room decorated with icons as a place of frequent prayer a proper visitor before saluting his hosts saluted the icons first good women carried rosaries wherever they went prayers were decided as magic incantations so said the demas Troy a famous manual of the 16th century a certain prayer repeated 600 times a day for three years would cause the incarnation in the repetition er of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost but there were many beautiful features in this superstitious religion on Easter morning people greeted one another with the joyful words Christ has risen in this hope death was in some measure eased facing it a decent man would pay his debts relieve his debtors three one or more of his bondman leave alms to the poor in the church and breathe his last in confident expectation of eternal life the Russian Church stimulated this piety with architecture murals icons powerful sermons hypnotic ceremonies and massive choral song that seemed to rise from the most mystical depths of the soul or the stomach the church was a vital organ of the state and her services in teaching letters and morality disciplining character and buttressing social order were lavishly rewarded monasteries were numerous and immense Detroit's Isetta gave sky elaborate the Monastery of the Trinity founded by Saint Sergius in 1335 had amassed by 1600 such extensive lands that over 100,000 peasants were needed for their cultivation in return the monasteries distributed charity on a Russian scale some fed 400 people daily in a famine year the monastery at tabula kalam sck fed 7,000 in one day monks took a vow of chastity but priests were obliged to marry these Papa's were mostly illiterate but that was not held against them by the people the Metropolitan's of Moscow were in many cases the ablest as well as the most learned men of their generation risking their silver to preserve the state and guiding the princes toward national unity saint alexis was the virtual ruler of russia during his tenure of the muscovite see from 13:54 to 1370 with all her faults which may have been dictated by her tasks the Russian Church in this formative age served as the supreme civilizing agent among a people brutalized by the hardships of life and the predatory nature of man in 1448 the Russian Church repudiating the merger of Greek with Roman Christianity at the Council of Florence declared her independence of the byzantine patriarch and when five years later Constantinople fell to the Turks Moscow became the metropolis of the Orthodox faith no-now wrote a fervent monk to a Grand Prince of Moscow about 1505 that the sovereignty of all Christendom has been united in thine own for the two Rome's have fallen but the third a third or a fourth there shall never be for thy Christian Empire shall last for ever the church was almost the sole patron of letters in the arts and therefore their dictator the best literature was unwritten the songs of the people passing from mouth to mouth from generation to generation celebrated their loves weddings sorrows seasons holy days or deaths and there were popular days of cherished saints ancient heroes and legendary exploits like those of sadko the merchant of Novgorod blind men or cripples went from village to village singing such songs and lays and sacred chants written literature was nearly all monastic and served religion it was the monks who now brought icon painting to a finished art upon a small panel of wood sometimes covered with cloth they applied a glutinous coat on this they drew their design within this they laid their colors in tempera they covered the painting with varnish and enclosed it in a metal frame the subjects were determined by ecclesiastical Authority the figures and features were derived from Byzantine models and went back in continuous evolution through the mosaics of Constantinople to the paintings of Hellenistic Alexandria the best icons from this age are the anonymous Christ enthroned in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow the entry of Christ into Jerusalem from the school of Novgorod and the Holy Trinity of the monk andrei rublyov in the monastery of the trinity rublyov and his teacher theophanies the Greek painted frescoes half Byzantine and half Byzantine el Greco in Vladimir Moscow and Novgorod but time has had its way with them every ruler signalized his splendor and east his conscience by building or endow a church or a monastery forms and motives from Armenia Persia India Tibet Mongolia Italy and Scandinavia joined with the predominant Byzantine heritage to mould Russian church architecture with its picturesque multiplicity of units its central gilded dome its bulbous cupola x' admirably designed to shed rain and snow after the fall of Constantinople and the expulsion of the Tatars the dependence of Russia upon Byzantine and oriental art subsided and influences from the West entered to modify the Slavic style in 1472 live in the third hoping thereby to inherit the rights and titles of the Byzantine emperors married zoe paleo legis niece of the last ruler of the Eastern Empire she had been brought up in Rome and had imbibed something of the early Renaissance she brought Greek scholars with her and acquainted Ivan with Italian art it may have been at her suggestion that he sent the first Russian mission to the West in 1474 with instructions to secure Italian artists for Moscow Rodolfo Pierre Avante of Bologna called Aristotle because of the range of his abilities accepted the invitation and further Russian forays netted Pietro salario and they vzo Novi and several other artists it was these Italians who with Russian aids and labour rebuilt the Kremlin Yuri Dolgoruky had founded Moscow in 1156 by raising a wall around his villa which was strategically situated at the confluence of two rivers this fortress or Kreml was the first form of the Kremlin in time the enclosure was enlarged in churches and palaces rose within a massive wall of oak Ivan the third set himself to transform the entire ensemble it was apparently Pierre Avante who from 1475 to 1479 reconstructed in the Kremlin the old Cathedral of the Assumption loose penske sabor where future czars were to be crowned the design remained Byzantine with Italian decoration Architects from pass cough added in the enclosure the little Cathedral of the Annunciation Blagoveshchensk ISA war from 1484 to 1489 and again in the Kremlin alla vzo raised the Cathedral of the Archangel from 1505 to 1509 salario and others Rewald the circuit in pink brick between 1485 and 1508 in the style of the castello sforzesco at Milan it was from this many templed centre of Russia this overpowering union and concentration of secular and ecclesiastical authority that the grand princes and the Metropolitan's of Moscow spread their rule over nobles merchants and peasants and laid in blood and bones and piety the foundations of one of the mightiest empires in history to the princes of Moscow Moscow remained an obscure village until Daniel Alexandrovich toward the end of the 13th century extended its hinterland and made it a minor principality historical hindsight the tributes Moscow's growth to its position on the navigable Moscow River which was connected by short Overland portage with the Volga on the east and the ochre Don and Dnieper on the south and west Yuri Daniella which son of Daniel Prince of Moscow coveted the neighboring principality of suzdal with its relatively rich capital dad Amir Michael Prince of tavira coveted the same Moscow and Tamara fought for the prized Moscow one michael was killed and canonized Moscow grew URIs brother and successor Ivan the first took the double title of Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Duke of bloody Mir as collector of Russian tribute for the Tatar Kahn I've been the first exact add more than he remitted and prospered wickedly his rapacity won him the nickname colita money bag but he gave the principalities 13 years respite from Tatar raids he died as a tonsured monk censored with the odour of sanctity in 1341 his son Simeon the proud inherited his flair for tax gathering claiming authority over every province he called himself Grand Prince of all the Russia's which did not prevent his dying of the plague in 1353 ivan ii was a gentle peaceable ruler under whom russia fell into fratricidal war his son dmitri had all requisite martial qualities he defeated every rival and defied the khan in 1380 khan mom I assembled a horde of Tatars Genoese mercenaries and other flotsam and advance toward Moscow Dmitry and his Russian allies met the Horde at kulikovo near the dawn defeated it in 1380 and won the cognizant donskoy two years later the Tatars attacked again with a hundred thousand men the Russians sieved and exhausted by victory failed to raise a comparable force the Tatars captured Moscow massacred 24,000 of the population and burned the city to the ground Dmitry son Vasily the first made peace with the Tatars annexed Nizhny Novgorod and compelled Novgorod and vodka to accept him as their overlord the grand princes of Moscow adopted the Tatar technique of despotism perhaps as the alternative to an illiterate chaos under an autocracy of violence and craft a bureaucracy on Byzantine lines administered the government subject to a Council of boyars advising and serving the prince the boyars were at once the leaders of the army the governing lords of their localities the organizers protectors and exploiters of the semi-free peasants who tilled the land adventurous colonists migrated to unsettled regions drained the swamps fertilized the soil by burning the woods and brush exhausted it with improvident tillage and moved on again until they reached the White Sea and the Urals and seeped into Siberia in the endless plains towns were many but small houses were of wood and mud calculated to burn down within 20 years at most roads were unpaved and were least agonizing in winter when they were covered with snow packed by sleds and patient boots merchants preferred rivers to roads and by the water or ice carried on a plodding trade between north and south with Byzantium Islam and the Hansa probably it was this spreading commerce that overcame the individualism of the princes and compelled the unification of russia vasily ii from 1425 to 1462 called t'aime me the blind because his foes gouged out his eyes in 1446 brought all rebels to obedience with torture mutilation and the knout and left to his son the Russia sufficiently strong to end the ignominy of tatta rule Ivan the 3rd became the great because he accomplished this task and made Russia one he was built to need unscrupulous subtle calculating tenacious cruel guiding his armies to distant victories from his seat in the Kremlin punishing disobedience or incompetence whipping torturing mutilating even the boyars beheading a doctor for failing to cure his son and so sternly dominating his entourage that women fainted at his glance Russia called in the Terrible until it met his grandson the easiest of his conquests was Novgorod he looked with hungry anticipation upon that thriving taxable Mart and the merchants of Moscow urged him to destroy their competitors in the north the grand prince controlled the plains between Moscow and Novgorod there the mercantile Republic bought its food and sold its goods Ivan had only to close that granary and market to novgorod's trade and the city-state must go bankrupt or yield after eight years of alternating war and truce the Republic surrendered its autonomy in 1478 7,000 of its leading inhabitants were transplanted to Suzdal the Hansa was expelled the merchants of Moscow inherited the markets their prints the revenues of Novgorod absorbing the colonies of the dead Republic Ivan extended his rule to Finland the Arctic and the Urals the scoff submitted in time to preserve its Republican forms under the sovereignty of the Grand Prince to verse or preservation by a lying itself with Lithuania Ivan marched in person against the city and took it without a blow Rostov and Yaroslava followed when Ivan's brothers died he refused to let their app images to send to their heirs he added their territories to his own one brother Andre flirted with Lithuania Ivan captured and imprisoned him Andre he died in jail Ivan wept but confiscated Andres lands the politique NEPAD entre liberation from the Tatars seemed impossible and proved easy the remnants of the Mongol Turkish invaders had settled down in three rival groups centering at suraíh Kazan and in the Crimea Ivan played one against another until he was assured that they would not unite against him in 1480 he refused tribute Khan arcnet led a great army of the Volga to the banks of the oka and Oubre south of Moscow Ivan led 150 thousand men to the opposite banks for months the hostel hosts faced each other without giving battle Ivan hesitated to risk his throne and life on one throw the Tatars feared his improved artillery when the rivers froze and no longer protected the armies from each other Ivan ordered a retreat instead of pursuing the Tatars two retreated all the way to suraíh in 1480 it was an immense and ridiculous victory from that time no tribute was paid by Moscow to the Horde the Grand Prince called himself autocrat or smoother jets meaning that he paid tribute to none the rival cons were maneuvered into mutual war akhmet was defeated and slain the golden horde of suraíh melted away Lithuania remained neither the Grand Prince nor the metropolitan of moscow could suffer peace along as the Ukraine in Kiev and Western Russia were under a power perpetually threatening Moscow and inviting Orthodox Christians into Latin Christianity an alleged polish plot to assassinate ivan gave him a casus belli and let loose a holy war for the redemption of the seduced provinces in 1492 many Lithuanian princes uneasy under the Polish Roman Catholic Union opened their gates to Ivan's troops Alexander great principal it away Nia made a stand at Pedrosa and lost in 1500 Pope Alexander the sixth arrange to six year truce meanwhile Moscow kept the region at at one west to the river soldiers including Chenega and reaching almost to Smolensk Ivan the third now sixty-three left the redemption of the remainder to his heirs his reign of 43 years was as important as any in the history of Russia before the 20th century weather inspired by lust for wealth and power or by a conviction that the security and prosperity of the Russians required the unification of Russia Ivan the third achieved for his country what louis xi was doing for france Henry the seventh for England Ferdinand and Isabella for Spain Alexander the sixth for the papal States the simultaneity of these events revealed the progress of nationalism and monarchy dooming the supranational power of the papacy the boyars lost their independence the principality's send tribute to Moscow Ivan took the title sovereign of all the Russia's possibly at the behest of his Greek wife he assumed also the Roman Greek title of Tsar or Caesar adopted the Imperial double eagle as the national emblem and claimed inheritance to all the political and religious authority of defunct Byzantium Byzantine theories and ceremonies of government and of the church is an organ of the state followed Byzantine Christianity the Byzantine Greek alphabet and Byzantine art forms into Russia and so far as Byzantium had been oriental eyes by its proximity to Asia so Russia already oriented by Tata rule became in many ways in Oriental monarchy alien and unintelligible to the West 3 Ivan the Terrible 1533 to 1584 Vasily the third Ivanovitch from 1505 to 1533 continued the integration of Russia he brought Smolensk within his realm and compelled the principalities of reason and Novgorod svorski to acknowledge his sovereignty only the infants at the breast said a Russian analyst could refrain from tears when the once proud Republic of Peskov submitted to Vasilis rule in 1510 Russia was now a major European power Vasily corresponded on equal terms with Maximilian the first Charles v Suleiman the Magnificent and Leo the tenth when some boyars tried to limit his autocracy he checked them with the contemptuous word peasants and had one noble head cut off getting no children from his wife he divorced her and married the accomplished and masterful Helena glinska after his death she took the Regency for her three-year-old son ivan the fourth Vasilyevich the boyars resumed their turbulence when she died their rival factions controlled the government in turn they disordered the cities with their violence and spilled the blood of their helpless musiques in civil war amid these struggles the young sovereign of all the Russia's was almost ignored even at times left destitute seeing brutality everywhere around him he took it as an accepted mode of behavior and after the most cruel sports and grew into a moody and suspicious youth suddenly while still a boy of 13 in 1544 he threw to his dogs andreas key leader of a Boyar faction and seized command of the state three years later he had himself crowned czar by the Metropolitan of Moscow then he ordered a selection of noble virgins to be sent to him from diverse parts of his realm from them he chosen married Anastasia romanovna whose family name would soon designate a dynasty in 1550 he summoned the first National Assembly or zimsky sobor of all Russia he confessed to it the errors of his youth and promised to Justin merciful government perhaps influenced by the Reformation in Germany in Scandinavia the assembly considered a motion to confiscate ecclesiastical wealth for the support of the state the proposal was rejected but a related motion was passed by which all allodial lands those free from liens deeded to the church were to be restored all gifts made to the church during Ivan's minority were cancelled and monasteries were no longer to acquire certain kinds of property without the Tsar's consent the clergy were partly appeased when Ivan took the priests Sylvester as his spiritual director and made him and Alexis add a chef his chief ministers supported by these able aides Ivan at 21 was master of a realm reaching from Smolensk to the Urals and from the Arctic Ocean almost to the Caspian Sea his first care was to strengthen the army and to balance the forces provided by the unfriendly Nobles with two organizations responsible directly to himself Cossack cavalry and Streltsy infantry armed with aqua buses matchlock firearms invented in the 15th century the Cossacks originated in that century is peasants whose position in South Russia between Muslims and Muscovites obliged them to be ready to fight at short notice but gave them irresistible opportunities to rob the caravans that carried trade between north and south the main Cossack hosts the Don Cossacks in southeast Russia and the zapper oak cossacks in the southwest with semi-independent republics strangely democratic male householders chose a hitman from german Hauptmann or head man as executive officer of a popularly elected assembly all land was owned in common but was leased to individual families for temporary use and all classes were equal before the law famous for their dashing courage the Cossack horseman became the main support of Ivan the 4th at home and in war his foreign policy was simple he wanted Russia to connect the Baltic Sea with the Caspian the Tatar still held Kazan Astrakhan and the Crimea and still demanded tribute from Moscow though in vain Ivan was sure that Russia's security and unity required its possession of these khan aids and control of the volga to its outlet in 1552 the Youngs are led 150,000 men against the gates of Kazan in a siege that lasted 50 days the 30,000 Moslems resisted with religious pertinacity they sallied out in repeated sorties and when some of them were captured and hanged on gibbets before the walls the defenders shot them with arrows saying that it was better for these captives to receive death from the clean hands of their countrymen than to perish by the impure hands of Christians when the besiegers lost heart after a month of failure ivan sent to Moscow for a miraculous cross this displayed to them reanimated his men on both sides God was conscripted into military service a German engineer mined the walls they collapsed the Russians poured into the city crying God with us and massacred all who could not be sold as slaves Ivan we are told wept with pity for the defeated they are not Christians he said but they are men here II peopled the ruins with Christians Russia acclaimed him as the first Slav to take a Tatar stronghold and celebrated the victory as France had hailed the check of the Moslems a tour in 732 in 1554 Ivan took Astrakhan and the Volga became a complete Russian stream the Crimea remained until 1774 but the cossacks of the dawn now bowed to Moscow having cleared his frontier in the east Ivan looked longingly toward the West he dreamed of Russian Commerce flowing west and north along great rivers into the Baltic he envied the industrial and commercial expansion of Western Europe and looked for any opening by which the Russian economy might attach itself to that development in 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor were commissioned by London merchants to find an Arctic route around Scandinavia to China they sailed from Harwich in three vessels two crews perished in a Lapland winter but Chancellor reached the site of Arkhangelsk which the British so named after the Archangel Michael Chancellor made his way through a hundred perils and hardships to Moscow with him and later with Anthony Jenkinson Ivan signed treaties giving the London and muscovite company special trading privileges in Russia but - Ivan these treaties were not holes not a door or window into the West he tried to import German technicians 123 were gathered for him at Lubeck but Charles the fifth refused to let them go a great river the southern Divina flowed from the heart of Russia into the Baltic near Riga but through hostile Livonia the headwaters of the de vino' and the Volga were not far apart the two rivers could be connected by canals here by manifest destiny was the water route that might atone for the disproportion of Russia's enormous landmass to her coasts and ports so the Baltic would mingle with the Caspian and the Black Sea east and west would meet and amid the interchange of goods and ideas the West could repay some of its ancient cultural debt to the east so in 1557 Ivan invented a casus belli usually a case of the belly with Livonia he sent it against an army under shali lately tatar khan of kazan it ravaged the country brutally burning houses and crops enslaving men raping women till they died in 1558 another Russian army captured Narva only eight miles from the Baltic desperate Livonia appealed to Poland Denmark Sweden Germany all Central Europe trembled at the prospect of a slob inundation reaching westward as in the sixth century to the Elbe Stevan battery aroused the polls and led them to victory over the Russians at Polotsk in 1582 Ivan defeated yielded Livonia to Poland long before this decisive setback the failure of his campaigns had led to revolt at home the merchants whom Ivan had thought to enrich with new avenues of trade lost stomach for the costly and disruptive war the nobles had opposed it is bound to unite the Baltic powers with their superior armament against a Russia still futile in political and military organization during him before the war Ivan had suspected the boyars of conspiracies against his throne in a nearly fatal illness in 1553 he learned that a powerful group of nobles was planning when he died to repudiate his son Dmitri and Crown Prince Vladimir whose mother was dispersing large gifts to the army his closest advisors Sylvester and other chef were flirting with treasonable boyars for seven years after suspecting them Ivan kept these officials in power then in 1560 he dismissed them but without violence Sylvester died in a monastery at a chef in one of the livonian campaigns several of the boyars deserted to Poland and took up arms against Russia in 1564 Ivan's bosom friend and leading general Prince Andrei Kurbsky joined this flight alleging that the Tsar was planning to kill him from Poland Kurbsky sent to Ivan what amounted to a declaration of war denouncing him as a leprous criminal tradition claims that Ivan when this letter was read to him nailed the foot of the bearer to the floor with a blow of the Royal staff but the Tsar condescended to reply to Kurbsky in a rebuttal 62 pages long eloquent and chaotic passionate and biblical recounting the intrigues of the boyars to depose him believing that they had poisoned Anastasia he asked why did you divide me from my wife and you not taken from me my young heifer never had there been the slayings of the boyars in vain I have looked for some man to have pity on me that I have found none Kurbsky in the evening of his life wrote a relentlessly hostile history of Ivan which is our chief source for Ivan's terrible eita these plots and desertions illuminate the most and peculiar event of the rain on December 13 1560 for Ivan left Moscow with his family his icons his Treasury and a small force of soldiery withdrew to his summer home at Alexandrov sck and sent to Moscow two proclamations one alleged that the boyars the bureaucracy in the church had conspired against him in the state therefore with great sorrow he now resigned his throne and would henceforth live in retirement the other assured the people of moscow that he loved them and that they might rest assured of his lasting goodwill in fact he had consistently favored the Commons and merchants against the aristocracy and the present action of the middle and lower classes attested it they broke out in threatening cries against the nobility and the clergy and demanded that a deputation of fish absent boyars should go to the Tsar and beg him to resume his throne it was done and Ivan agreed to take unto him his state anew on conditions that he would later specify he returned to Moscow in February 1565 and summoned the National Assembly of clergy and boyars he announced that he would execute the leaders of the opposition and confiscate their property he would henceforth assume full power without consulting the nobles or assembly and he would banish all who should disobey his edicts the assembly fearing a revolt of the masses yielded and dissolved Ivan decreed that in the future Russia should be divided into two parts one the Zhen scheana or assemblage of provinces was to remain under the government of the boyars and their Duma it was to be taxable engrossed by the Tsar and be subject to him in military and foreign affairs but would otherwise be self governed and free the other part the oprichnina or separatist state was to be ruled by him and was to be composed of lands assigned to him by the oprichniki or separate class chosen by the Tsar to police and administer this half Rome to guard it from sedition and to give him personal protection and special military service the new officials at first a thousand ultimately six thousand were selected cheaply from the younger sons of the nobility who being landless were ready to support Ivan in return for the estates now conferred upon them these lands were taken partly from the possessions of the crown largely from the confiscated properties of rebellious boyars by the end of the reign the oprichnina included nearly half of Russia much of Moscow and the most important trade routes the Revolution was akin to that which Peter the Great attempted 150 years later the elevation of a new class to political power and the promotion of Russian Commerce and Industry in a century when practically all the military power was held by the aristocracy the enterprise required a wildly courage and hazhar armed only with his personal soldiery and the unreliable support of the merchants and the populace some contemporaries assure us that in this critical period Ivan than 35 aged 20 years Ivan now made Alexandrovsk his regular residence and transformed it into a fortified Citadel a strain of his revolt against the boyars added to the failure of the long war against Livonia may have disordered and never quite balanced mind he closed his Guardsmen like monks and black Kasich's and skullcaps called himself their abbot sang in their choir attended Mass with him daily and so fervently frustrated himself before the altar that his forehead was repeatedly bruised this added to the or that he inspired Russia began to mingle reverence with the fear it felt for him and even the armed oprichniki were so abject before him that they came to be called his Devore or court Ivan's revolution like others had its terror those who opposed it and were caught were executed without mercy alla nastic chronicle presumably hostile to him reckoned the casualties of his wrath in those years from 1560 to 1570 at 3470 often it reports the victim was executed with his wife or with his wife and children and in one case with 10 men who came to his help Prince Vladimir and his mother were put to death but his children were spared and provided for the Tsar we are told ask the monks to pay for the repose of his victims souls he defended the executions as the usual punishment for treason especially in time of war an agent of Poland conceded the argument and an Englishman who witnessed some of the butchery prayed would to God our own stiff-necked rebels could be taught their duty to their Prince after the same the climax of the terror came in novgorod ivan had recently given its archbishop a large sum to repair churches and thought himself popular with at least the clergy there but he was informed that a document not indisputably genuine had been found behind a picture of the Virgin in a Novgorod monastery pledging the cooperation of Novgorod and Peskov with Poland in an attempt to overthrow the Tsar On January 2nd 1570 a strong military force led by oprichniki pounced upon Novgorod sacked its monasteries and arrested 500 monks and priests arriving in person On January 6th ivan ordered those clerics who could not pay 50 roubles ransom to be flogged to death the archbishop was unfrocked and jailed according to the third Chronicle of Novgorod a massacre of the population ensued for five weeks sometimes five hundred persons were slain in a day the official records number 2770 dead ivan protested they were only 1505 since many merchants eager for the reopening of trade with the West were believed to have shared in the conspiracy the soldiers of the Tsar burned all the shops in the city and the homes of the merchants in the suburbs even the farmhouses in the environs were destroyed unless unfriendly monastic chroniclers have exaggerated the carnage we must go back to the punishment of rebellious Liege by Charles the bold in 1468 or the sack of Rome by the troops of charles v in 1527 to find analogies for Ivan's savage revenge of girl'd never recovered its old prominence in the commercial life of Russia Ivan passed on to pass coffe where he restricted his soldiers to pillage then he returned to Moscow and celebrated with a royal masquerade ball his escape from a dangerous conspiracy so turbulent arraign hardly favoured economic progress or cultural pursuits Commerce was favored in peace and wounded in war in the lands allotted to the oprichniki and then on other lands as well the peasant was legally attached to the soil as a means of promoting continuous cultivation serfdom rare in Russia before 1500 became by 1600 the law of the land taxation was predatory inflation was precipitous the ruble in 1500 was worth 94 in 1624 times the ruble of 1910 we need not follow the decline further except a note as one of the lessons of history that money is the last thing that a man should save the improvident fertility of families in the exhaustion of soils can felled a restless migration to fresh terrain when this passed the euros it found that Tatar khanates established over a population of Bashkirs and Asti arcs around the capital known by the Cossack word Sabir in 1581 semion stroganoff enlisted 600 cossacks and sent them under Ermac timofeyevich to conquer these tribes it was done Western Siberia became part of the swelling Russian realm and air Mach then a brigand chief was canonized by the Orthodox Church the church remained the real ruler of Russia for the fear of God was everywhere while Ivan's reach was limited strict rules of ritual if not of morality bound even thes are the priests saw to it that he washed his hands after giving audience to ambassadors from outside the Orthodox pale no Roman Catholic worship was allowed but Protestants were tolerated as fellow foes of the Roman Pope Ivan the fourth like Henry the eighth prided himself on his knowledge of theology he indulged in a public debate in the Kremlin with a Bohemian Lutheran divine and it must be admitted that the most violent of the czars conducted the discussion with more courtesy than appeared in the religious disputes of contemporary Germany he did not come off so well with another theologian at a Sunday service in the Cathedral of the Assumption in 1568 Philipp metropolitan of moscow conspicuously refused the blessing that Ivan solicited thrice the Czar asked for it in vain when his attendants demanded reason for the refusal Philip began to list Ivan's crimes and debaucheries hold thy peace cry Bazaar and give me thy blessing my silence answered the prelate lays a sin upon my soul and calls down my death Ivan departed unblessed and for a wandering month Philip remained unhurt then a servitor of the Tsar entered the cathedral seized the Metropolitan and dragged him to a prison in to verb his fate is the baited the account accepted by the Russian churches that he was burned alive in 1652 he was canonized and his relics remained until 1917 an object of reverence in the who spent skaia sabor the church still produced most of the literature and art of Russia printing arrived about 1491 but the only books printed during this rain were manuals of prayer the leading scholar was the Metropolitan Macarius in 1529 aided by secretaries he began to compile the surviving literature of his country in 12 huge volumes which again were almost entirely religious mostly monkish chronicles Ivan's confessor Sylvester composed a famous Dumas Troy or household book as a guide to domestic economy manners and eternal salvation we note in it the admonition to the husband to beat his wife lovingly and precise instructions for spitting and for blowing the nose ivan himself in his letters was not the least vigorous writer of his time the most brilliant product of russian art under his rule was the Church of Basel the Blessed or from Vasily oblige annoy which still stands aloof from the Kremlin at one end of the Red Square unruhe turning from his triumphant campaigns against Kazan and Astrakhan in 1554 ivan began what he called for cross ki sabor the Cathedral of the intercession of the virgin to me judiciously ascribed his victories around this central shrine of stone there later rose seven chapels in wood dedicated to Saints on whose festivals Ivan had overcome his foes each Chapel was crowned with a graceful painted cupola each bulbous but varying from the others in ornament the final Chapel raised to Saint Basil in 1588 gave its name in time to the whole charming ensemble inevitable legend credited the architecture to an Italian and told how Ivan had gouged out his eyes lest he should ever rival this masterpiece but it was to Russians Varma and post Nick off who designed it merely adopting some Renaissance motives in its decoration every year on Palm Sunday as part of the wisdom of government the Lords and clergy of Moscow walked in awesome procession to this Cathedral the Metropolitan Road sideways on a horse equipped with artificial ears to simulate the ass which Christ was described as entering Jerusalem and the Tsar on foot humbly led the horse by the bridle banners crosses icons and censors flourished and children raised hosannas of praise and gratitude to inclement skies for the blessings of Russian life by 1580 Ivan seemed to have triumphed over all his enemies he had survived several wives was married to a sixth and thought of adding another in friendly bigamy he had four children the first died in infancy the third theodore was a half-width the fourth Dmitri was alleged to have epileptic fits one day in November 1580 bizarre seeing the wife of his second son Ivan in what seemed to him immodest attire reproved and struck her she miscarried the saga vich reproached his father the Tsar in unpremeditated rage struck him on the head with the imperial staff the son died from the blow the Tsar went insane with remorse he spent his days and nights crying aloud with grief each morning he offered his resignation but even the boyars now preferred him to his sons he survived three years more then a strange disease attacked him which made his body swell and emit an unbearable stench on March 18th 1584 he died while playing chess with Boris good enough gossip accused boris of poisoning him and the stage was set for Grand Opera in the history of the Tsar's we must not think of Ivan the fourth is merely an ogre of brutality tall and strong he would have been handsome but for a broad flat nose that overlay a spreading mustache and a heavy auburn beard the appellation grozny is mistranslated terrible it meant rather awesome like the augustus that was applied to the Caesars Ivan the third it also received the name to our minds and even to his cruel contemporaries he was repulsively cruel and vengeful and he was a merciless judge he lived in the age of the Spanish Inquisition the burning of Servetus the decapitating habits of Henry the eighth the Marian persecution the massacre of Saint Bartholomew when he heard of this Holocaust which a pope welcomed with praise he denounced the barbarism of the West he had some provocations which set on fire a readily combustible temper made violent by hereditary or environment sometimes says a witness a small annoyance made him foam at the mouth like a horse he confessed and at times exaggerated his sins and crimes so that his enemies could only plagiarize him in their accusations he studied zealously and made himself the best educated layman of his land and time he had a sense of humor and could roar with Jovian laughter but a sinister cunning showed often in his smile he paved his hell with wonderful intentions he would protect the poor and the weak against the rich and the strong he would favor Commerce and the middle classes as checks on the futile and quarrelsome aristocracy he would open a door of trade in goods and ideas to the West he would give Russia a new administrative class not found like the boyars too ancient and stagnant ways he would free Russia from the Tatars and raise her out of chaos into unity he was a barbarian barbarously struggling to be civilized he failed because he never matured to self mastery the reforms that he had planned were have forgotten in the excitement of revolution he left the peasants more bitterly subject to the landlords than before he clogged the avenues of trade with war he drove able men into the arms of the enemy he divided Russia into hostile halves and guided her into anarchy he gave his people a demoralizing example of pious cruelty and uncontrolled passion he killed his ablest son and bequeathed his throne to a weakling whose incapacity invited Civil War he was one of the many men of his time of whom it might be said that it would have been better for their country and humanity if they had never been born
