Chapter IV: From Ivan the Great to Ivan the Terrible (1)

The great ruler who occupied the throne of Moscow at the end of
the fifteenth century, was richly endowed with understanding;
to his contemporaries he appeared more lucky than active,
but meanwhile it was his active mind that directed all the
complicated and tangled threads of the foreign and domestic
relations. If his contemporaries did not always do justice
to the great unificator of the land of Russia, neither is
posterity always just to him. We must allow that much had been
prepared by his predecessors, and this was also recognised
by contemporaries; but it is nevertheless impossible not to
acknowledge that Ivan towers far above his predecessors,
both by his solution of ancient problems--the unification of
Russia (which he had almost completed) and the throwing off
of the Tatar yoke--and the raising of new ones. The ability
to take advantage of circumstances places Ivan in the rank
of great men. If we do not recognise his greatness, then we
must apply the same judgment in part to Peter, who was largely
only the more determined successor of his brother, father, and
grandfather.--BESTUZHEV RIUMIN.[b]

ACCESSION OF IVAN (III) VASILIEVITCH

[Sidenote: [1462-1584 A.D.]]

The dynasty of the Muscovite princes, which commenced in the person of Ivan Kalita, and was preserved unbroken in the lineal descent, was fortunately strengthened by the accident of the longevity of his successors. The reigns of Ivan, of Simeon the Proud, of Dmitri Donskoi, of Vasili, and of Vasili the Blind, embraced a period of 130 years. During that time the people had become habituated to a right which saved them from the contests of rival competitors. So many protracted reigns had stamped the legitimate authority with an unquestioned ascendency, and with this growth of time its powers inevitably increased. The manners of the Russians were now formed under a rule in which the succession was fixed and immutable, and under which a progressive system of legislation was gradually assuming a compact and tangible form. The chaos of antagonistic principles--of that misrule which is born of short-lived theories, of constant interruption, and unsettled governments--was rapidly dissolving; the light of defined administration and regulated power was rising upon the empire; and the people, who were now beginning to understand the benefits of constituted rights, were ready to support their maintenance.

Under these auspicious circumstances, Ivan III, or, as he is called by some historians, Ivan the Great, ascended the throne.

It was not to be expected that a liberal and enlightened government could at once spring from the materials which were accumulated in seasons of anarchy, relieved only by interstitial gleams of peace. The natural issue of a power purchased by enormous sacrifices, and reared up amidst difficulties, was unmitigated despotism. The grand princedom was erected in storms. Its power was built up by constant accessions won at the point of the sword, or procured by profligate bribery. It was not the growth of steady improvement, of public opinion, of the voluntary acquiescence of the people. It began by direct oppression, absolute tyranny, and open injustice. The acts of outrage which the grand princes committed in their efforts to sustain their authority were acts of necessity. They were placed in a situation of peril that exposed them equally to barbarian spoilers without, and insidious enemies within; and they were compelled to vindicate their authority by the force of arms and the arts of perfidy. Their whole career was a fluctuating war against a series of resistances. They conciliated less than they subdued, and the unity which was at last gained by perseverance in a mixed policy of violence and hypocrisy was more the bond of an interest in common, than the reasonable allegiance of a free people to a government of their own choice.

Throughout the struggle for the concentration of the supreme control in one head the church, as will already have been perceived, bore a prominent part. The authority of the clergy had gone on gradually assuming a more stern and arbitrary aspect, even while the political affairs of the country were undergoing daily vicissitudes. The evils that afflicted the state passed harmless over the church; and while the one was subjected to disasters that checked its progress towards prosperity, the other was constantly enlarging its powers, profiting by the misfortunes that surrounded it, and gleaning its share of the good fortune that occasionally improved the hopes of the people. In the early periods when Russia was merely the victim of her own dissensions, the church was freely admitted as a mediator, partly in virtue of her office as the dispenser of charity and peace, and partly from the veneration in which religion and its ordinances were held. When the Tatars invaded Russia, they perceived the mighty influence which the priests exercised over the passions of the people, and, fully persuaded of the wisdom of attaching to their cause an order of men who wielded so enormous a power, they increased their privileges, exonerated them from taxes, and placed such premiums of gain and protection upon the monkish habit, that the highest amongst the nobility, and many of the princes, embraced the clerical profession, and added their rich possessions to the revenues of the church. To such an extravagance was this estimation of the benefits of the cowl carried, that the majority of the grand princes took vows before their death, and died in the retired sanctuaries of the religious houses. The monks of the Greek religion, loaded with the spoils of friends and enemies, lived in fortified dwellings, like the nobles of other lands, and were defended by formidable retinues. The primate held a court superior in magnificence to that of the grand prince, and surrounded by boyars, guards, and all the luxuries of the east, he possessed almost unlimited power over life and death; he was the first person who was consulted on all questions of difficulty, and, as a means of exhibiting the supremacy of his station, he instituted public ceremonies, at which the princes assisted, holding the bridle of the ass on which he rode. This tendency of the church to outgrow the space wherein its roots were laid, was greatly forwarded by the fertilizing contributions which flowed in upon it from all quarters. Whenever a phenomenon in the physical world alarmed the superstitions of the people, the major part of the population bequeathed their wealth to the monasteries, with the hope of propitiating the favour of Heaven and securing happiness in the next world. The corruptions of the church of Rome had already crept into the administration of the Greek faith. The system of donations that prevailed in Papal Italy, where even the kingdoms of earth were bartered for the kingdom of heaven, had set an example of which the Russian clergy were not slow to avail themselves. It was, perhaps, a natural conclusion that the clemency of the Godhead could be purchased in a country where earthly justice and exemptions from punishments were sold for pecuniary considerations.

But the lenity and favour shown by the Tatars to the Greek clergy did not produce the effect upon which they calculated. The Tatars, accustomed to rule people of different religions, and possessing within themselves no ecclesiastical foundations, for their wandering mode of life prevented their priesthood from resolving itself into a corporation, viewed with comparative indifference the spreading institutions and growing strength of the church. They only contemplated in the honours and advantages they heaped upon it, the policy of gaining over to their side a powerful body of auxiliaries. But the indestructible spirit of Christianity shrunk from a union with the creed of the pagans; while the barbarous intolerance of the Tatars furnished a further motive to array the priests against the enemies of their religion and their country. They knew that in the grand princedom resided the sole power by which the Tatars were ultimately to be driven out of the land; they saw that to arm that power with sufficient means it was necessary to enrich its treasury, to enlarge its bounds, and to attract within the circle of its sway the allegiance of the whole of the Russian principalities; they perceived in the civil commotions that oppressed the empire a constant source of internal weakness, and they dedicated their energies and their influence to the one object of rendering the grand prince supreme. Mohammedanism assailed them on the one hand, and the papal church on the other: they wanted a rallying point of resistance against both; and they could only find it in the elevation of the throne to an imperial height. Hence, the clergy supported the principle of legitimacy, which by its consistency and perpetuity was calculated to promote the progressive ascension of the princely authority; and thus by degrees, and the inevitable progress of an active doctrine that survived through every obstacle, the church became blended with the state; and the policy of the priesthood, exercising its subtle influence governed and directed the motions of the civil jurisdiction.

CHARACTER AND AIMS OF IVAN

Ivan the Great, favoured by such auspicious dispositions on the part of the clergy, and by the rapid coherence of the principalities, ascended the throne in 1462, at the age of twenty-two. He was a man of great cunning and prudence, and was remarkable for indomitable perseverance, which carried him triumphantly to the conclusions of his designs in a spirit of utter indifference to the ruin or bad faith that tracked his progress. Such a man alone, who was prepared to sacrifice the scruples of honour and the demands of justice, was fit to meet the difficulties by which the grand princedom was surrounded. He saw them all clearly, resolved upon the course he should take; and throughout a long reign, in which the paramount ambition of rendering Russia independent and the throne supreme was the leading feature of his policy, he pursued his plans with undeviating consistency. But that policy was not to be accomplished by open and responsible acts. The whole character of Ivan was tinged with the duplicity of the churchmen who held so high a place in his councils. His proceedings were neither direct, nor at first apparently conducive to the interests of the empire; but the great cause was secretly advancing against all impediments. While he forbore to risk his advantages, he left an opportunity for disunion amongst his enemies, by which he was certain to gain in the end. He never committed himself to a position of the security of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of a despot.

[Sidenote: [1467-1472 A.D.]]

The objects of which he never lost sight were, to free himself from enemies abroad, and to convert the princedom at home into an autocracy. So extensive a design could not have been effected by mere force of arms, for he had so many domestic and foreign foes to meet at once, and so many points of attack and defence to cover, that it was impossible to conduct so grand a project by military means alone. That which he could not effect, therefore, by the sword, he endeavoured to perform by diplomatic intrigue; and thus, between the occasional victories of his armies, and the still more powerful influence of his subtle policy, he reduced his foes, and raised himself to an eminence to which none of his most ambitious predecessors had aspired.

The powers against whom he had to wage this double war of arms and diplomacy were the Tatars and Lithuanians, beyond the frontier; and the independent republics of Novgorod, Viatka, and Pskov, and the princes of the yet unsettled appanages within. The means he had at his command were fully sufficient to have enabled him to subdue those princes of the blood who exhibited faint signs of discontent in their appanages, and who could have been easily reached through the widely diffused agency of the boyars; but the obstinate republics of the north were more difficult of access. They stood boldly upon their independence, and every attempt to reduce them was followed by as fierce a resistance, and by such a lavish outlay of the wealth which their commercial advantages had enabled them to amass, that the task was one of extraordinary difficulty. Kazan, too, the first and greatest of the Tatar cities, claimed a sovereignty over the republics, which Ivan was afraid to contest, lest that which was but a vague and empty claim might end in confirmed authority. It was better to permit the insolent republicans to maintain their entire freedom, than to hazard by indiscretion their transference to the hands of those Tatars who were loosened from the parent stock.

His first act, therefore, was to acknowledge, directly or indirectly, according to the nature of their different tenures, the rights of all his foes within and without. He appeared to admit the justice of things as he found them; betrayed his foreign enemies into a confidential reliance upon his acquiescence in their exactions; and even yielded without a murmur to an abuse of those pretensions to which he affected to submit, but which he was secretly resolved to annihilate. This plausible conformity procured him time to prepare and mature his designs; and so insidiously did he pursue his purpose, that he extended that time by a servility which nearly forfeited the attachment of the people. The immediate object of consideration was obviously the Golden Horde, because all the princes and republics, and even the Poles and Lithuanians, were interested in any movement that was calculated to embarrass the common enemy. Ivan’s policy was to unite as many of his enemies as he could against a single one, and finally to subdue them all by the aid of each other. Had he ventured upon any less certain course, he must have risked a similar combination against himself. He began by withholding the ordinary tribute from the khan, but without exhibiting any symptoms of inallegiance. He merely evaded the tax, while he acknowledged the right; and his dissimulation succeeded in blinding the Tatar, who still believed that he held the grand prince as a tributary, although he did not receive his tribute. The khan, completely deceived, not only permitted this recusancy to escape with impunity, but was further prevailed upon to withdraw the Tatar residents, and their retinues, and the Tatar merchants, who dwelt in Moscow, and who infested with the haughty bearing of masters even the avenues of the Kremlin.[g]

IVAN VASILIEVITCH MARRIES THE GREEK PRINCESS SOPHIA (1472 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1472 A.D.]]

By completing the work of his predecessors in destroying the independence of the townships and the appanaged princes, Ivan created the empire of Moscow. The form of government of this empire and all the outward surroundings of power were greatly influenced by the marriage of Ivan to Sophia, daughter of Thomas Palæologus, and niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, who brought to Moscow the customs and traditions of the Byzantine Empire. Ivan had lost his first wife in 1467, and two years later the question arose of his marriage with the Greek princess. Thomas Palæologus had retired with his family to Rome; the idea of finding a bridegroom for his daughter belongs to the Greek vissarion, one of the most zealous partisans of the union and at that time cardinal. The cardinal and pope had naturally in view the finding of a new champion against the then terrible Turks, and at the same time of bringing Russia into the union. The envoy sent to Moscow was a Greek by the name of Iuri, who said that Sophia had several suitors, whom she had refused because she did not wish to enter the Latin church. Ivan, after taking counsel with his mother and boyars, sent to Rome Karl Friazin (whose brother Ivan had been coiner of money at the court of Moscow) to see the bride and confer with the pope; the latter gave his consent and required that boyars should be sent from Moscow to fetch the bride; Friazin was sent for the bride and carried on the negotiations; finally in June, 1472, Sophia, accompanied by the papal legate, left Rome. She was met with honours at Pskov in November of the same year, and was afterwards greeted with like homage at Novgorod. When Sophia was drawing near Moscow, warm disputes arose in the grand prince’s council as to whether it could be allowed that a Latin crucifix should be carried before the legate. The metropolitan declared that in the event of it being permitted, the pope’s legate should enter by one gate and he at another: it is unbecoming to us to hear of such a thing, not to say witness it, for he who shows honour and love to another religion offends his own; finally the legate had to enter without the crucifix. On the day of the entry the marriage ceremony took place (November 12), after which the legate presented his credentials and entered into a controversy with the metropolitan Philip, who called to his aid the scribe Nikita Popovitch. The chronicler says that being in despair of getting the better of the Russian scribes, the legate gave up the controversy, saying that he had no books with him.[b]

The marriage of the sovereign of Moscow with the Greek princess was an event of great importance in Russian history. Properly speaking, an alliance with the Byzantine emperors was not a novelty, and such marriages, excepting the first of them--that of St. Vladimir--had no important consequences and changed nothing essential in Russian life. But the marriage of Ivan with Sophia was concluded under peculiar circumstances. In the first place, his bride did not come from Greece, but from Italy, and her marriage opened the way to intercourse between Muscovite Russia and the west. In the second place, the empire of Byzantium had ceased to exist, and the customs, political conceptions, the manners and ceremonies of court life, deprived of their original soil, sought a fresh field and found it in a country of a like faith--Russia. As long as Byzantium had existed, although Russia adopted her entire ecclesiastical system, yet in political respects she had always remained purely Russian, and the Greeks had no inclination to transform Russia into a Byzantium; now, however, that Byzantium no longer existed, the idea arose that Greece ought to re-incarnate herself in Russia and that the Russian monarchy ought to be a continuation by right of succession of Byzantium, in the same degree as the Russian Church was by order of succession bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the Greek church. It happened opportunely that eastern Russia had freed herself from the subjugation of the Tatars precisely at the time when Byzantium was enslaved by the Turks, and there arose the hope that the youthful Russian monarchy, strengthened and consolidated, would become the chief mover in the liberation of Greece.

The marriage of Sophia with the Russian grand prince thus acquired the signification of a transfer of the hereditary rights of the descendants of Palæologus to the ruling house of Russia. It is true that Sophia had brothers who had otherwise disposed of their hereditary rights; one of them, Manuel, had submitted to the Turkish sultan, another, Andrew, had twice visited Moscow, but had not stayed there long, and had gone to Italy and sold his hereditary rights, first to the French king Charles VIII, and afterwards to the Spanish Ferdinand the Catholic. But in the eyes of the orthodox a transfer of the rights of the Byzantine monarchs to Catholic kings could not be regarded as lawful; and such being the case a far greater right was represented by Sophia, who had remained faithful to orthodoxy, who was the wife of an orthodox sovereign, who must become and did become the mother and ancestress of his successors, and who during her lifetime earned the reproaches of the pope and his partisans, who had been greatly mistaken in counting on her mediation to bring Muscovite Russia into the Florentine union.

THE GROWTH OF AUTOCRACY

The first visible and outward sign of the fact that Russia came to regard herself as a successor to Greece, was the adoption of the two-headed eagle, the arms of the eastern Roman Empire, which thenceforth became the arms of Russia. From that time much in Russia was changed and assumed a Byzantine likeness; the change was not effected suddenly, but proceeded during the entire reign of Ivan Vasilievitch and continued after his death. In the court household the high-sounding title of czar was introduced, and the custom of kissing the monarch’s hand. Court ranks were established also: master of the stables, master of the horse, and chamberlains (the latter, however, appeared only at the end of Ivan’s reign). The importance of the boyars as the highest class of society fell before an autocratic sovereign; all became equal, all alike were his slaves. The honourable appellation of boyar was bestowed by the grand prince as a reward for services; besides the boyars there was also created a somewhat lower rank--that of the Iokolnitchi[24]--the commencement of the Russian hierarchy of ranks. To the time of Ivan Vasilievitch may also be attributed the establishment of bureaus (_prikazi_) with their secretaries and clerks. But most important and essential of all was the change in the dignity attaching to the grand prince, strongly to be felt and clearly visible in the actions of the deliberate Ivan Vasilievitch; the grand prince had become an autocratic sovereign. Even in his predecessors do we notice an approximation to this, but the first autocrat in the full sense of the word was Ivan Vasilievitch, and he became so especially after his marriage to Sophia. From that time all his activity was consistently and unswervingly consecrated to the strengthening of monarchy and autocracy.[c]

SUBJUGATION OF THE REPUBLICS

From the beginning of Ivan’s reign there was no change in political policy; the old system of the gradual annihilation of the independent republican communities and appanaged princes continued, as well as the old waiting policy in regard to the Tatars, which was based on the exploitation of their internecine quarrels. Vasili had already prepared to deal the final blow to Novgorod, but had been prevented by the interference of Archbishop Jonas; and the inhabitants, remembering this, were in expectation of fresh action on the part of Moscow and sought support from other quarters. Such support could at that time be afforded them only by the grand prince of Lithuania, but it was difficult for the people of Novgorod to enter into relations with him, because such relations would have the signification of a betrayal of orthodoxy. This being well understood at Moscow, the rulers there hastened to forestall the danger: the grand prince wrote a letter to Archbishop Jonas, declaring to him that the Lithuanian metropolitan Gregory was a disciple of Isidore and a defender of the “unia,” and that relations with him must not be entered into. In order to support the right on his side, the metropolitan of Moscow in the interests of Novgorod rejected the solicitations of the people of Pskov who wished to have a separate bishop; the grand prince himself left unheeded the insults shown to men of Moscow in Novgorod, and even the infringement of his ancient princely rights. Occupied in a war with Kazan, he only exchanged embassies with Novgorod.

[Sidenote: [1475 A.D.]]

Meanwhile the party in Novgorod which was hostile to Moscow became more and more rampant; the leaders of this party were the Boretski, the children of the dead burgomaster (_posadnick_). They were incited by their mother Martha, who as an “honourable widow” enjoyed great esteem; the Boretski were wealthy and had great influence in the _vetché_. At their instigation Prince Michael Olelkovitch, brother of Simon, prince of Kiev, was invited to come from Lithuania to Novgorod. Previously the Lithuanian princes that had been called upon to serve Novgorod had lived together with the Muscovite lieutenants; now the question was already different and the Lithuanian party decided to go further. At the end of 1470 Jonas died and the question was raised in the vetché of having the archbishop nominated in Lithuania; this time, however, the archbishop Theophilus was chosen and his partisans stood out for his consecration in Moscow and were successful, so that a consent to his passing through was obtained from the grand prince. An ambassador coming from Pskov with the news that the grand prince called the men of Pskov upon Novgorod, and offering proposals of mediation, again gave preponderance to the Lithuanian party. The vetché assembled, and people in it began to cry out: “We are free men of great Novgorod and the grand prince of Moscow does us many wrongs and much injustice; we are for the king of Poland;” with the help of the “wicked peasants of the vetché” they gained the victory, and an embassy was sent to Casimir, the result of which was a convention for the submission of Novgorod to him. Olelkovitch soon left Novgorod, having wronged the provinces of Novgorod in various ways. The grand prince still wished to try peaceful measures and sent his ambassador to Novgorod with an exhortation, and the metropolitan Philip sent a letter of admonishment. After the failure of this embassy the grand prince assembled his council (_douma_) and proposed the question: Shall we march on Novgorod now or wait until winter? It was well known that a march to Novgorod in summer was very difficult, yet it was decided to go at once, and a declaration of war was sent. In July, 1471, the grand prince himself with troops from Moscow and Tver, and accompanied by his brothers, set out from Moscow; the men of Pskov joined the Moscow troops on the way. A religious character was given to the expedition. Before starting, the grand prince went to pray in the cathedral of Moscow, and chroniclers liken this expedition to that of Gideon against the Midianites and that of Dmitri against Mamai.

After the battle at Tskorost, Prince Kholmski, a voyevod of Ivan, decisively defeated the people of Novgorod at the river Shelon (July 14th, 1475?) and the same day the Moscow voyevod Obrazets defeated Prince Vasili Shuiski, who was in the service of Novgorod, at the river Shilenga, and subjugated all the Dvinsk territories; “everywhere the Lord God helped the grand prince to defend his rights.” Nothing remained for Novgorod but to submit, for Casimir, occupied with his own affairs, had not come to her defence. Ivan, coming after his armies, first had Boretski and three other prisoners put to death, then he relented, accepted the petition of Theophilus which was supported by a letter from the metropolitan, took a ransom of 15,500 roubles from Novgorod, and concluded a treaty by which the inhabitants were bound not to be subject to Lithuania and to have their archbishop nominated at Moscow.

[Sidenote: [1477-1479 A.D.]]

In October, 1475, Ivan visited Novgorod and remained there until February, 1476. Received with honours and gifts by great Novgorod and her dignitaries, the grand prince administered justice as of old; the Slavnovski and Nikitinski appeared with a complaint against the honourable burgomaster (_posadnick_), Vasili Annanin, and nineteen other boyars who had attacked and robbed them; a similar complaint was brought by the boyars Ponarin against other boyars who had made incursions into their lands and robbed them; for such incursions were of very frequent occurrence in Novgorod. Ivan sent the guilty persons to be imprisoned in Moscow, observing in his judgment all the ancient forms, and requiring that with his commissaries there should also be sent commissaries from Novgorod; it was also then that he allowed the authorities of Novgorod to conclude, as in ancient times, a treaty with Sweden. In 1477 complainants from Novgorod came to Moscow; “Such a thing,” says the chronicle, “had never happened before since the beginning of Novgorod and since it began to have grand princes from the house of Rurik.” Their coming was quite comprehensible; the smaller folk were persuaded that it was only by appealing to the tribunal of the grand prince that they could obtain redress against the greater, and therefore they had recourse to him. Such a result having been attained, it only remained to await the first pretext in order to put an end to the independence of Novgorod. The occasion soon presented itself; in 1477 the envoys from the bishop and from all Novgorod, Nazar of Podvoiski and Zacharias, the secretary of the vetché, called Ivan and his son, young Ivan, _gospodá_ and not lords,[25] as had always been previously done, and the grand prince sent ambassadors to Novgorod to demand the confirmation of this title. Tumults, brawls, and even murder took place in Novgorod, and the ambassador was sent away with an insulting message. Then Ivan assembled his troops to go against Novgorod; he called upon Tver and Pskov for aid, ordered his brothers to assemble, and sending before him the Tatar prince, Daniar Kasimovitch, he set out himself. The people of Novgorod began to negotiate while the grand prince was still on the way; they had even tried to do so before, but Ivan, properly calculating that a satisfactory result could only be obtained by a warlike demonstration, avoided negotiations. All December, 1477, and the beginning of January, 1478, passed in negotiations; finally Novgorod submitted when her defender, Prince Vasili Shuiski, bent his knee[26] before Ivan and refused to serve Novgorod any longer. Novgorod submitted to the “entire will” of Ivan; the vetché was abolished and its great bell taken to Moscow to ring with other bells; estates were taken from the monasteries, and allotted to the grand prince, the first example of secularisation: till then the princes had not possessed estates in Novgorod. When he left, Ivan took with him the boyars and Martha Boretski, who is said to have died at Staritza.

It is reported that in 1479 Novgorod again tried to enter into relations with Casimir, and taking advantage of threatening danger from the Golden Horde, re-established the ancient form of government, and that the grand prince came to the town, ordered the gates to be opened, frustrated the attempt at the very beginning, and took away many of the inhabitants with him. This account is confirmed by the fact that other chronicles speak of the arrival of the grand prince at Novgorod, and of the imprisonment of the archbishop Theophilus. The loss of their independence was a heavy blow to the people, and as a consolation legends were composed of the foolishness of the first bishop sent from Moscow, Sergius by name, and of the flame that came out of the tomb of St. Bartholomew of Khoutinski and burned the feet of the grand prince.

Viatka, whose inhabitants refused to help the Moscow troops in the war against Kazan in 1469, was definitively subdued in 1489. The policy of the transfer of the natives to the ancient provinces and of sending others to take their places, was also applied to Viatka.

Pskov remained submissive and thereby preserved a shadow of independence; but the grand prince kept a zealous watch over all that was done there and did not allow any aspirations to greater independence. Although consenting that the inhabitants might ask for any prince they wished, he did not approve of any wilful change of princes, and strongly took the part of Prince Iaroslav Obolenski, who had had a quarrel with Pskov and whom the people wished to get rid of; it was only the desire to have done with Novgorod that induced the grand prince to give way to Pskov and give them a new lieutenant--Prince Vasili Shuiski (1477). When, later, Ivan named his son Vasili grand prince of Novgorod and Pskov, the inhabitants sent an envoy begging that they might be separated, but the grand prince replied wrathfully that he would give the principality to whomsoever he liked; Pskov also endeavoured in vain to get its province separated from the rule of the bishop of Novgorod.

[Sidenote: [1482-1485 A.D.]]

Towards the appanaged princes Ivan pursued the same policy as towards the townships. Vasili, prince of Riazan, had already been taken by Vasili the Dark to be educated in Moscow; in 1464 he was sent back to Riazan, returned to Moscow, married a sister of the grand prince and went back to Riazan. He died in 1483, leaving two sons: Ivan and Theodore. Ivan, as grand prince, concluded a treaty with Moscow by which he was placed on a level with the brother of the grand prince of Moscow, Andrew Vasilievitch. In 1496 a treaty was concluded between the brothers, by which the younger was bound, in case he were to die childless, to leave his share to his elder brother; but Prince Theodore survived his brother and bequeathed his share to the grand prince of Moscow. In the year 1500 Ivan, grand prince of Riazan, died, leaving a young son under the guardianship of his mother and grandmother, who were entirely subservient to the prince of Moscow.

Since 1461 the prince of Tver, Michael Borisovitch, was Ivan’s brother-in-law. When he came to the throne Ivan concluded a treaty with him, but although Michael helped Ivan against Novgorod, yet in their mutual relations the signs that usually preceded the fall of a separate principality might be observed. In 1476 certain boyars of Tver went over to Moscow. In 1484 it became known in Moscow that the prince of Tver had concluded a treaty with Casimir and married his granddaughter. Ivan sent troops to lay waste the districts around Tver; Michael hastened to appease him and concluded a new treaty with him, by which the prince of Tver was placed on a level with the second brother of the Moscow grand prince and bound himself not to appeal to Lithuania without his consent. Meanwhile the departure of the boyars from Tver continued and Ivan encouraged them by his policy; in the event of frontier disputes, if the men of Tver were injured they could not obtain justice, but if those of Moscow were injured, Ivan rigorously demanded satisfaction. Michael entered into relations with Casimir, but the envoy was seized, and Ivan sent his troops to Tver; the town surrendered, and Michael fled to Lithuania. In 1463 the princes of Iaroslav ceded their domain to the Muscovite monarch, and in 1474 the princes of Rostov, who ruled over only half of Rostov, for the other half had already been acquired by Kalita, sold their half to the grand prince. Equally slowly and gradually did the grand prince also crush the appanaged princes of Moscow; all these princes were his brothers, with the exception of Michael Andreevitch Vereiski (the son of Andrew Dmitrievitch, brother of Ivan of Mozhaisk). With Michael Ivan concluded several treaties that gradually cut down his rights; finally by the treaty of 1482 Michael ceded, after his death, Belozero to the grand prince. There was no pretext for this annexation, but one was soon found; desiring to make a present to his daughter-in-law Helen[27] (upon the occasion of the birth of his grandson Dmitri) of the ornaments that had belonged to his first wife, Ivan learned that the grand princess Sophia had given away much to her niece, who was married to a son of Michael named Vasili; the irritated grand prince then ordered Vasili to be seized, but he fled to Lithuania; whereupon Ivan took Vereia from Michael and only returned it to him as a possession for life. Michael Andreevitch died in 1485, leaving his domains by will to the grand prince. The appanages of the brothers also little by little, for one reason or another, were joined to the grand principality; in 1472 Iuri Vasilievitch, of Dmitriev, died, without leaving any testamentary disposition of his territory; the grand prince took possession of it; the brothers were angered, but satisfying them with some provinces, the grand prince concluded a treaty with two of them, Andrew of Uglitch and Boris of Volotsk, by which they recognised the priority of their nephew Ivan the Younger and renounced the succession after their brother.

In 1480 the younger brothers again rose against the elder, and Prince Obolenski Liko went from Moscow to enter the service of Boris; Ivan, probably learning of his brother’s relations with the people of Novgorod, ordered Prince Obolenski to be seized at the court of Boris. The princes went to Rzhev, thence to the boundary of Lithuania, and entered into relations with Casimir, who however did not help them. Until then they had rejected negotiations, but seeing Casimir’s inaction, they asked for the intercession of their mother, but Ivan refused them; they also sought support in Pskov, but were unsuccessful. The invasion of Ahmed induced Ivan to make peace with his brothers, and Andrew received a part of the appanage of Iuriev. Andrew the younger died in 1481, leaving his domain to the grand prince. In 1484 the mother of the grand prince, who had in some degree restrained the dissensions of the brothers, died, and in 1486 Ivan bound his brothers by a new treaty to renounce their rights of inheritance in regard to appanages. In 1491 Andrew was seized and thrown into prison, where he died in 1494; his sons were imprisoned with him. Boris also died soon after, leaving his domains to his sons Theodore and Ivan: the latter, dying in 1504, left his part by will to the grand prince, whom he calls “gossudar”[28] (sovereign or sire).

THE FINAL OVERTHROW OF THE TATARS

The most conspicuous event in the reign of Ivan--the casting off of the Tatar yoke--is connected by many with his marriage. But it should be borne in mind that this was the ancient and sacred ideal of the Moscow princes, to the fulfilment of which all their desires had long been directed, and for which they had been gradually preparing the means. Such an event cannot be explained by one merely accidental circumstance, although it is impossible not to agree that the dependence of her husband upon the Tatar khan must have been humiliating to the proud Sophia, and therefore it cannot be denied that there is some truth in the traditions relating to this subject. But in any event the circumstance was a merely accessory one, for it is known that long before this the expression: “May the Lord cause the horde to perish,” was to be met with in the wills of the Moscow princes; the same expression also occurs in the testament of Vasili the Dark. The Moscow princes had prepared for this by taking into their service Tatar princes, in whom they saw the best means of fighting their enemies, the Tatars. And in this work bequeathed to him by his forefathers, Ivan Vasilievitch remained true to the deliberate, persistent policy of his predecessors, never losing sight of his aim, but never hurrying too much in its attainment.

At the time when Ivan Vasilievitch began to reign, the Tatar horde no longer constituted an undivided kingdom; previously it had been sometimes divided and then again reunited, but at this period it was definitively divided into three chief hordes; the Golden, the Kazanese, and the Crimean, at the head of the last of which, during the reign of Vasili the Dark, was Azi Girai.

Ivan’s policy consisted in exploiting one horde against the other and one pretender against the other. Of the principal Tatar hordes, the nearest and weakest was the Kazan horde, and it was the first which he attempted to bring under his influence. In 1467 the vassal Kasim, who was in the service of Ivan, was invited by some of the Tatar princes (_mourzas_) to come to Kazan, but the khan Ibrahim met him at the Volga and prevented him from crossing the river; after insignificant mutual devastations in 1469 a great army was sent against Kazan, composed of sons of the boyars and Moscow troops, under the leadership of Constantine Bezzubtiev. The troops marched right up to the town, but beyond ravaging its territory nothing was done. In the summer of the same year, two of the grand prince’s brothers, Iuri and Andrew the Big, marched against Kazan, besieged the town, and Ibrahim hastened to conclude peace “at the entire will of the grand prince and his voyevods,” and liberated the prisoners that had been taken during the preceding forty years. For eight years there was peace, but in 1479 the Kazanese army made a raid on Russian territory (at Ustiug and Viatka). To avenge this, troops were sent from Moscow under the leadership of the voyevod Vasili Obrazets, while from the other side came the men of Viatka and Ustiug and besieged Kazan. Ibrahim again concluded peace “according to the will of the grand prince.” At the death of Ibrahim disturbances arose in Kazan; one of his sons Ali Khan or Alegam, from the younger wife, became khan, and Muhammed Amin, the son of the elder wife, came to Moscow and asked for help against his brother.

[Sidenote: [1487 A.D.]]

In 1487 troops were despatched from Moscow under the leadership of Daniel Kholmski, the town was taken, Alegam made prisoner, and Muhammed Amin established on the throne of Kazan; he was so entirely subject to Moscow that he asked the grand prince’s permission to marry, and even paid a certain tribute to Moscow. In 1496 the people of Kazan, dissatisfied with Muhammed Amin, called in the Nogaians; the Moscow troops came to the aid of the khan, but hardly had they been dismissed before the Nogaian prince Mamuk came to Kazan, and the khan fled to Moscow. Mamuk, fearing treason, seized the very persons who had called for him, and in general began to act arbitrarily. When he went to attack the princes of Arsk, the inhabitants of Kazan shut the gates against him and sent to Moscow to ask for another khan, only not Muhammed Amin. Ivan sent them Muhammed’s brother, Abdul Letiv, and gave to the former Koshira and Serpukhov as fiefs. In 1502, at the complaint of the people of Kazan, Abdul Letiv was deposed and banished to Belozero. Muhammed Amin again returned, but he was already dissatisfied with Moscow, and in this attitude he was supported by his wife, the widow of Alegam. In 1505, under the pretext that the grand prince had not satisfied his complaints, Muhammed Amin plundered some Russian merchants that had come to the fair and marched against Nijni-Novgorod; Ivan died soon after, before he was able to revenge himself.

The extension of the Russian possessions in the east was accomplished in another way; in 1472 the grand prince sent troops to the territory of Perm--which was numbered amongst the Novgorodian possessions--and its prince was taken prisoner; but until 1505 native princes were left to reign there, and it was only in that year that Prince Vasili Kover was sent to Perm as lieutenant. The continual incursions of the Voguls obliged Ivan to send troops to the Ugrian territory and Prince Kurbski even crossed the Ural. While leaving there native princes, Ivan nevertheless included the lands of Perm and Ugria in his title. With the Golden Horde Ivan did not begin war, although from the very beginning he did not pay tribute punctually. Ivan’s enemy, the grand prince of Lithuania, incited the Tatars against Moscow, and in 1471 Casimir called upon Ahmed to rise against the grand prince of Moscow; Ahmed however took a whole year to assemble his troops, and meanwhile during the migration of the Tatars from Sarai, which took place every summer, the people of Viatka came and plundered it. In 1472 Ahmed at last assembled his troops and took Alexin, but on meeting the grand prince’s brothers with a strong army at the river Oka, he decided not to go further.

After this, until 1480, the relations with the Golden Horde remained indefinite. Meanwhile intercourse was established with the Crimean horde. Azi Girai died in 1467, and his son Nordovlat succeeded him, but he was deposed by his brother Mengli Girai, and sought a refuge with Casimir. Ivan hastened to enter into relations with Mengli Girai through the intermediation of a Jew of Feodosia, named Kokos; Mengli Girai, without breaking with Casimir, hastened to affirm these relations, which, however, were not very profitable, on account of the disturbances in the Crimea: the overthrow of Mengli Girai, by Aidar, the taking of Feodosia by the Turks, and the consequent destruction of the power of the Genoese in the Crimea; the capture of Mengli Girai and his liberation on the condition of his becoming a Turkish tributary; the devastation of the Crimea by the son of Ahmed, and the rise of the czarevitch Zenebek to the supreme power. It was only in 1479 that Mengli Girai finally established himself in the Crimea and that his constant relations with Moscow commenced.[29]

In 1480 the khan of the Golden Horde, Ahmed, incited by Casimir of Lithuania, prepared to march against Russia. It is reported that about that time Ivan refused to pay tribute, and that Sophia persuaded Ivan not to go out to meet the Tatar envoys under the pretext of illness, and also by her cunning managed to destroy the hospice of the Tatars in the Kremlin; it is said that she wrote to the wife of the khan telling her that she had had a vision in which she had been commanded to build a church upon the very same site, and that the wife of the khan, who was bribed with presents, managed to arrange the matter, and when the envoys came there was no resting place to be found for them in Moscow. However this may be, it is certain that Ivan ceased to pay tribute. When he heard of Ahmed’s coming Ivan took up his position on the banks of the Oka, where he remained encamped from July until September; Ahmed being informed that the passage was here occupied, passed through the territories of Lithuania and came to the Ugra, but here he also found the passages occupied. The two armies remained in this position until November, and in the camp of the grand prince councils were held as to what should be done, for two parties had arisen, the one proposing to offer a ransom, while the other was for fighting; the famous letter of Archbishop Vassain of Moscow was written in the latter spirit. The grand prince was sometimes at Kolomna and sometimes at Moscow to consult with the metropolitan. When the frosts set in, by which the Tatars greatly suffered, the grand prince commanded the Russians to fall back on Kremenets, and meanwhile the Tatars fled.[30] Soon after his return to Sarai, Ahmed was killed by Ivak, prince of the Nogaian Tatars; and Mengli Girai delivered Russia from the sons of Ahmed, with whom he was constantly at war.

The relations with the Crimea, which were of importance in the struggle against the Golden Horde, were also of importance in the conflict with Lithuania, and therefore Ivan constantly maintained them; but zealously looked after his own interests. Of course many presents had to be given to the Tatars of the Crimea, although Ivan was economical to such a degree that when sheep were given to the envoys he required the skins to be returned; but he spent his wealth all the more willingly for this object, because Lithuania on her side also endeavoured to bribe the horde, and a regular auction went on in the Crimea. The conquest of Feodosia by the Turks made it necessary for the Russians to enter into relations with them for commercial reasons.

AFFAIRS OF LITHUANIA

[Sidenote: [1494-1495 A.D.]]

The friendship of Mengli Girai, which had been of value to Ivan in his conflicts with the Tatars, was of still greater importance in his dealings with Lithuania: Casimir, occupied with matters in the west, principally the establishment of his son on the throne of Bohemia, had incited both the inhabitants of Novgorod and the Golden Horde against Ivan, while Ivan on his side had instigated Mengli Girai against Lithuania and carried on relations with Casimir’s enemy, the king of Hungary, Matthias (I) Corvinus. The quarrels of the border princes serving in the various armies, and their passing into the service of the Muscovite sovereign, served as the chief pretext for dissatisfaction. The grand prince of Moscow, taking advantage of the fact that in the treaty concluded between Vasili Vasilievitch and Casimir, the subject of the princes had been treated very vaguely, began to receive those that passed into his service. Thus he received together with their domains Prince I. M. Vorotinski, Prince I. V. Bielski, and Prince D. Th. Vorotinski. The complaints at their desertions, the quarrels of the border princes, and in general, the frontier disagreements, were a continual subject of friction, which occasionally went as far as slight skirmishes. In 1492 Casimir died, and Lithuania chose as king his son Alexander, while Poland took as king his other son John. Ivan again roused Mengli Girai against Lithuania and sent detachments of his troops to lay waste the frontiers. Propositions of peace were sent from Lithuania and negotiations for a marriage with one of the daughters of Ivan were entered upon. In Moscow it was insisted that the negotiations for peace should precede those for marriage. Meanwhile more princes passed into the Russian service: two more princes Vorotinski, Prince Mezetski and Prince Viazemski; the frontier incursions also continued. Finally in 1494 Alexander sent his ambassadors to open negotiations both for peace and for the marriage. The treaty concluded by them recognised the passing of the princes into Ivan’s service, and what was of even greater importance, Ivan was therein called sovereign of all Russia. Ivan then gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter Helen with the grand prince of Lithuania, Alexander, stipulating however that a promise in writing should be given that Helen would not be constrained to change her religion. When all this was concluded, in 1495 Ivan sent Helen to Lithuania, giving her detailed instructions. At the celebration of the marriage ceremony the Russian ambassadors insisted that the ceremony should also be celebrated by an orthodox priest. But even from the very beginning it was manifest that seeds of discord lay hidden in this alliance. Alexander refused to build an orthodox church at his court, the boyars from Moscow who were with Helen were soon sent back, and finally Alexander ceased to give Ivan the title of sovereign of all Russia. The dissatisfaction grew, so that Ivan wrote to Mengli Girai: “If Alexander makes peace with you now, let us know if he does not, also let us know, and we are with you, our brother.” More princes passed into the service of the grand prince of Moscow, amongst them Prince Simon Bielski, who asserted that persecutions against orthodoxy had commenced in Lithuania, and accused the bishop of Smolensk, Joseph, of co-operating with the Latins; Prince Simon Ivanovitch (son of Ivan of Mozhaisk) with Tchernigov, and Prince Vasili Ivanovitch (a grandson of Shemiaka) with Novgorod Severski also came over (1499). Ivan sent Alexander a declaration of war; which began with incursions of the vassal princes, and on the 14th of July, 1500, Prince Daniel Kholmski, who led the troops of Tver and Moscow, and the vassal Tatars and princes, met the Lithuanian hetman Prince Constantine, defeated him, and took him prisoner; on the other hand the grand prince’s son, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch, was unable to take Smolensk, and in general during four years warlike action proceeded very feebly. Diplomatic intrigue was however carried on with great activity; Moscow incited Mengli Girai against Lithuania, who sent his sons to devastate Lithuania and Poland, in spite of tempting offers from Alexander.

[Sidenote: [1495-1503 A.D.]]