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The history of Russia during the next two hundred years is little more than a long chronicle of aimless and inconsequent feuds between the multiple Princes of the Blood—“the much-too-many” of their crowded little world—overlaid and beclouded with strange-sounding names recurring and clashing in a luxuriant tangle of pedigree, and further embarrassed by a perpetual shifting and reshifting of the family appanages. Here and there the figure of some particular kniaz stands out for a space from the ravelled skein that the old historians painstakingly wove upon the loom of their chronicles, but for the most part the student searches in vain for glimpses of the real life-story of Russia during this barren and over-trampled period.

The city of Kiev, carrying with it the dignity of the Grand-princedom and the nominal authority over the whole realm, was the key-stone of the body politic as Yaroslav left it, but the loosely-ordered theory of succession which obtained in the Slavonic world led to a perpetual dislocation of this local and ill-defined supremacy, and robbed the arch-throne of any chance of making good its claimed dominion over the other units of the State. Under Isiaslav I. and the brothers, son, and nephew who succeeded him in promiscuous order,22 Kiev became merely a focussing point for the profusion of quarrels and petty revolutions which were set in perpetual motion by the restless ambition of the neighbouring Princes of Polotzk, Smolensk, and Tchernigov. The last-named province passed into the possession of Oleg Sviatoslavitch23 (nephew of Isiaslav), and from him sprang the house of Olgovitch, which held the fief of Tchernigov for many generations and convulsed South Russia again and again in its attempts to grasp the throne of Kiev, this hereditary feud of the Olgovitchie with the branch of Vsevolod being the most understandable feature of the prevailing strife-storms of the period. A factor which might have been supposed to make for unity and self-help among the detached Russian rulers, but which instead frequently served to complicate the distresses of the country, was the appearance in the south-east, shortly after the death of Yaroslav, of a new enemy, rising phœnix-like on the ruin of the Petchenigs. The Polovtzi, or Kumans, a nomad race of Turko origin, were even fiercer and more cruel than the tribe they had replaced, and their fighting value was such that the princes, though frequently banding in short-lived leagues against them, were often tempted to invoke their aid in pressing family quarrels, and even stooped to mate with their chieftain women—a woful falling away from the bridal splendours of the Court of Yaroslav.

During the reigns of Isiaslav’s three immediate successors two figures stand out prominently amid the bewildering plurality of princes, respectively playing the part of good and evil geniuses of the country. Vladimir Monomachus, son of Vsevolod, sometime Prince of Kiev, fulfils the former function with commendable assiduity, righting wrongs and averting national disasters after the most approved chivalric pattern, and ever ready to improve the occasion by the delivery of irreproachable sentiments—if these were not fathered upon him by the chroniclers of the time. Throughout the turmoil which distinguishes the close of the eleventh century he hovers in the background, like the falcon of Ser Federigo, with his air of “if anything is wanting I am here.” The other side of the picture—and picture it doubtless is, in a large measure, painted by the prejudice and ornamented by the fancies of the old-time annalists—is the wayward Prince of Polotzk,24 ever ready to devise new troubles for his groaning country, always managing to elude the consequences of his transgressions against the peace. Naturally he achieves the reputation of having more than human powers; rumour has it that he traversed the road from Kiev to Tmoutorakan in a single night, and the unholy wight could in Kiev hear the clock of the Sofia church at Polotzk striking the hours. The suddenness with which he would appear before the gates of some distant town gave rise, no doubt, to the belief that he assumed the form of a wolf on these occasions: “He sped, in blue obscurity hidden, as a wild beast, at midnight to Bielgrad, at morning ... opened the gate of Novgorod, destroyed the glory of Yaroslav, and hunted as a wolf from Dudutki to Nemiga.”25 Wonders of an evil nature were reported from his capital, where malevolent spirits rode on horseback through the streets day and night, wounding the inhabitants. What with the intermittent attacks of the princes of the house of Yaroslav and the eerie enemies within the town, it must have required exceptional nerve to be a citizen of Polotzk. In 1101 closes the eventful life of the wehr-wolf prince, who makes his last lone journey into the “blue obscurity,” where perhaps his “white soul” yet hies in wolf’s gallop over the eternal plains.

Four years earlier (1097) an interesting gathering had taken place of the numerous princes of the line of Yaroslav, who were assembled together in the town of Lubetch, “on the same carpet,” and swore on the Holy Cross to live in peace and friendship with each other. With a limited number of fiefs and a superabundant supply of Princes of the Blood, many of whom were necessarily in the position of have-nots, it was scarcely likely that the public pact would be very long-lived, but a decent lull might have been looked for before the outbreak of new dissensions. David Igorovitch, cousin of the Grand Prince Sviatopalk, went straight from the council of peace, from the carpet-in-common and the bekissed cross, to stir up fresh strife in the West Russian country, and the series of wars which ensued was remarkable for the armed participation of Kalman, King of Hungary. The reason for this foreign intermeddling, which ended in signal discomfiture and a hurried retreat across the Karpathians, is not obvious. “What were the causes of this war,” wrote a Hungarian annalist,26 “are not to be ascertained.” It was, however, the opening of a long chapter of western encroachments in the affairs of the Red Russian provinces, while in the steppe-lands of the south, Tmoutorakan and other territory slipped into the hands of the Kuman tribesmen.

1113

The accession of Vladimir Monomachus to the dignity of Velikie Kniaz gave Kiev for the time being greater importance as the sovereign State, since the lands of Péréyaslavl, Novgorod, and Souzdal were also held in the monarch’s family. Under his son Mstislav the Novgorodskie pushed their arms into Livland and took the town of Odenpay (bear’s head), and later these hardy and enterprising folk swept the desolate Finnish northlands into their wide dominion. The character of Vladimir (who died in 1125, and was succeeded by Mstislav) exercised a lively hold on the imaginations of his countrymen, and he is yet reckoned among those sovereigns “whose earthly diadems beamed in anticipation of the crowns they were to receive in Paradise.” This much may fairly be said of him, that during his career, and particularly during his reign, Russia enjoyed a greater measure of cohesion than she experienced under his immediate successors, and that this was in no small measure the outcome of a carefully thought-out and scrupulously applied policy. But the greatest monument to Vladimir’s memory is the parchment document which he left for the guidance of his sons, and which is preserved in the archives of his country as a precious historical relic.

“Bear in mind that a man ought always to be employed” is one of the admonitions of this remarkable homily, though if the persons addressed imitated the example therein displayed it was scarcely needed. “For my part I accustomed myself to do everything that I might have ordered my servants to do. Night and day, summer and winter, I was perpetually moving about. I wished to see everything with my own eyes.... I made it my duty to inspect the churches and the sacred ceremonies of religion, as well as the management of my property, my stables, and the eagles and hawks of my hunting establishment. I have made eighty-three campaigns and many expeditions. I concluded nineteen treaties with the Polovtzi. I took captive one hundred of their princes, whom I set free again; and I put two hundred of them to death by throwing them into rivers. No one has ever travelled more rapidly than I have done. Setting out in the morning from Tchernigov, I have arrived at Kiev before the hour of vespers.” (A feat surpassed by the goblin-post of the Prince of Polotzk.) “In hunting amidst the thickest forests, how many times have I myself caught wild horses and bound them together? How many times have I been thrown down by buffaloes, wounded by the antlers of stags, and trodden under the feet of elks? A furious boar rent my sword from my baldrick; my saddle was torn to pieces by a bear; this terrible beast rushed upon my steed, whom he threw down upon me. But the Lord protected me.”

There is a suspicion of exaggeration in the number of campaigns enumerated, besides “many expeditions,” and the hunting reminiscences are almost too full of incident; neither do wild horses, as a rule, inhabit the thickest forests. Allowing for these enlargements of old age, however, the outlines are probably true.

“Oh, my children,” the testator continues, “fear neither death nor wild beasts. Trust in Providence; it far surpasses all human precautions.” In order, presumably, not to risk all his eggs in one basket, he qualifies this pious aphorism with the following excellent advice: “Never retire to rest till you have posted your guards. Never lay aside your arms while you are within reach of the enemy. And, to avoid being surprised, always be early on horseback.”

With the disappearance of Vladimir Russian political life lapsed into the distracting turmoil of family feuds, embittered now afresh by the jealousies of the elder and younger branches of his descendants, in addition to the existing elements of discord furnished by the houses of Tchernigov and Galitz and the sporadic turbulence of the people of Novgorod.

It is interesting to compare and contrast the condition of the Russian State at this period with that of the neighbouring Germanic Empire, whose constitution and scheme of government was not widely different, and to examine the possible causes of the decay of the Grand-princely power in the one, and the survival of the Imperial ascendency in the other. The Western Empire had, like Russia, her periods of internal confusion, but however weak or unfortunate an individual Kaiser might be, his title and office always carried a certain weight of authority, a certain glamour of reverence with it, while in the Eastern State it is sometimes difficult to remember who was at any given time in possession of the arch-throne of Kiev. Probably the greater stability of German institutions was due to their greater complexity; side by side with the oligarchy of sovereign Dukes and Margraves there had grown up, fostered by the sagacious foresight of successive Emperors, a crop of free cities and burghs, enjoying a large measure of independence, while another element was introduced by the extensive temporal possessions and powers of many of the German prelates. These interwoven and antagonistic interests were naturally fertile of disputes and petty conflicts, in which events appeal was sure to be made, sooner or later, to the Emperor, whose intervention was seldom fruitless; for where a man, or a community, had many possible enemies, it was less easy to defy the sovereign power. If, therefore, each little fragment of the State was a law unto itself, the final supremacy of the Emperor was always in evidence, and in the same way some overweening vassal preparing to wage war on his sovereign liege might have his hand stayed by the irritating incursion of the Herrschaft of a mitred abbot or an aggrieved Burg upon his own dominions. In the Russian Weal, on the contrary, no such delicately adjusted conditions existed. With the exception of Velikie Novgorod, nothing was independent besides the princes of the house of Rurik; towns, clergy, and boyarins “went with” the various appanages to which they belonged, and shared the fortunes of the prince who for the time being ruled over them. Hence there was nothing beyond an empty title and the control of an uncertain quantity of treasure to advance the Grand Prince above the standing of his brothers and cousins. In consequence of this weakness of the central authority it follows that there was little to bind the mass together in a cohesive whole. Besides the kinship of the princes there were, perhaps, only two elements which prevented a splitting asunder of the federation: one was the physical aspect of the country, which presented no natural divisions which might have been resolved into political ones. As certainly as Denmark was destined to break away, in spite of artificial acts of union, such as that of Kalmar, from the other Skandinavian lands, so certainly was Russia likely to remain united. The wide plains, intersected by far-winding rivers, offered no obvious barriers which might have marked off a separate kingdom of Tchernigov or Polotzk, and each district was too dependent on the others to become permanently estranged. The other factor which made for unity was the bond of a common, and as regards their western neighbours, a distinct religion. The Greek-Christian faith, with all its attendant ceremonials and mysteries, had taken deep root among the Slavs of Russia, and had assimilated itself with the national life of the people. The beauties of the old cathedrals of S. Sofia at Kiev, S. John Theologus at Rostov, and S. Dimitri at Vladimir, bore evidence of the care that was lavished on the decoration of these temples of Christian worship. The Metropolitan of Kiev, as Primate over all the Russian churches, served as a link with the capital city which the Grand Prince did not always supply.

Novgorod, which has been mentioned as an exception to the state of subserviency prevalent among the other Russian towns, derived her strength and importance from her situation, which commanded both the Baltic and the Russian overland trade. Although the Hansa League had not yet taken definite shape, the elements of the later organisation were already in existence. The commercial life of the Baltic centred in Wisby, capital of the island of Gothland, and to this convenient meeting-place came, twice a year, German, Swedish, Russian, Danish, and Wendish merchants to exchange their various wares and supply the needs of their respective trade-circles. After the Wisby markets were over many of the traders from Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, etc., made their way to Novgorod, where they early possessed a factory and a separate place of worship, even as the Novgorodskie, since the middle of the twelfth century, had their church and quarter at Wisby. The intercourse with enterprising merchant folk from other lands—and merchants needed to be adventurous in those days—infused a spirit of energy and independence into the inhabitants of Novgorod, while the wealth at their disposal enabled them to extend their domination far over the bleak, but by no means barren, northlands of Russia, even to the further side of the Ourals. This extensive over-lordship, again, gave them control of many sources of commerce, and the produce of Arctic seas and sub-Arctic forests filtered through their hands into the channels of Baltic trade. Walrus teeth, the blubber oil from seals, and the down of sea-haunting birds formed the harvest of the frozen ocean; forest and lake furnished their markets with furs, raw leather, tallow, fish, and tar; cultivated lands yielded flax and hemp, honey and wax—the latter an important commodity in the times when the Church kept tapers burning day and night in thousands of shrines throughout the greater part of Europe. In exchange for these products the merchants of Wisby and of the German “Hof” at Novgorod bartered metal wares and manufactured goods. Of raw metals came tin from the celebrated mines of Cornwall, copper from the Swedish uplands, and iron from Bohemia and the Netherlands. Spanish lead found its way through Bruges and Antwerp.27 Thus Novgorod was the staple of a flourishing and far-reaching trade, even though the rise of the Italian maritime republics had in a large measure diverted the commerce of the East from its old Russian waterway, and the wealth and importance of this world-faring traffic took the city out of the limitations of the Russian realm, even as Lubeck and her sister towns stood beyond the bonds of the Empire. To the other Russian cities their respective rulers were the mainspring of their being, and each prince might have locally adapted the boast of the great Louis; to the Novgorodskie their prince was only an incident in a busy existence. This spirit of liberty and impatience found vigorous expression in the year 1138 when the citizens of Novgorod, with those of the subject towns of Pskov and Ladoga, in Vetché assembled, solemnly deposed their prince on the following grounds: that he had no care for the poorer people; that he only loved pleasures, falcons, and dogs; that he had coveted the government of Péréyaslavl; that in a battle with the Souzdalians he had been the first to leave the field; that he had no fixed policy, but was at times on the side of the house of Tchernigov, at times on the side of its enemies. The citizens had a quaint and effective way of dealing with a troublesome minority in carrying through their frequent prince-purgings. According to an old Slavonic custom (retained in Poland till her downfall), the decisions of the Vetché or the Diet had to be of one voice; however, “the majority had the resource of drowning the minority in the Volkof,”28 and the bridge over that river was not unseldom the scene of violent party strife. The great bell of Yaroslav would clang out the curfew of the dethroned kniaz, who was thenceforth “shown the way” out of his erstwhile principality. On an occasion when the Grand Prince Sviatopalk II. wished to foist his son on the people of Novgorod, the elders of the city grimly sent him word to keep the young prince at home, “unless he has a head to spare.”

With the onward march of days and deeds in the stormy times of the twelfth century two facts, indeed, begin to stand forth. One is the waning power and import of Kiev, consequent on the many changes of masters to which she was subject; “the Mother of Russian cities” passed into the keeping of one prince after another, like a dainty piece of carrion dropped and snatched and fought over by a parcel of kites or crows. Side by side with this decline of the southern city is to be marked the silent growth of a new principality in the lands of the north-east, where Urii “Dolgoroukie” (the Long-armed), son of Vladimir Monomachus, had nursed the savage, forest-choked marchland of Souzdal into a well-ordered province, enjoying from its very remoteness and seclusion a domestic calm which was to be found nowhere else in the wide Russian realm. Among the towns which he founded, or advanced from the position of tribal villages, was one on the banks of the Moskva, to which was given the name of the river that watered it, a name to be one day of first importance in Russian history. On the death of Urii (1157) his son Andrei, albeit one of a numerous family, succeeded him in the undivided sovereignty of Souzdal. Turning his back on glittering but unprofitable Kiev, with its thousand shrines and general odour of sanctity and its unhealthy political atmosphere, he established himself at Vladimir-on-the-Kliasma, strong in the possession of a bejewelled ikon of the Virgin, of Greek manufacture—if it were not, as was asserted, the handiwork of the Apostle Luke. From this vantage-ground of possession and authority the wary kniaz proceeded to sweep away with unsparing hand the gaping brood of his brothers and nephews, who were exiled wholesale, together with such boyarins as were suspected of favouring a splitting-up of Andrei’s dominion. The banished Urievitch princes retired to Constantinople, where they were honourably received by the Greek Emperor Manuel, who, amid the vigorous wars which he carried on with most of his neighbours, maintained terms of friendship with the princes of Russia. Shortly after this state-stroke the Prince of Souzdal became embroiled with the turbulent Novgorodskie, whose newly-elected Prince Roman was son of the then Velikie Kniaz of Kiev. Andrei was minded to show who really was master in the Northern Russian world, and turned his arms, not upon Novgorod, but upon Kiev. 1169Against the devoted city gathered, in obedience to the behest of Andrei, a mighty host of princes, with their boyarins and followers; Mstislav of Souzdal, Roman of Smolensk, Vseslav of Polotzk, Oleg of Sieversk, the Rostislavitches, and many another, banded themselves together, under the leadership of the first-named, to assist at the death of a fiction. The Grand Prince entrenched himself in his capital and defended the walls for two days against the assaults of his enemies. On the 8th March the walls were stormed and the “Mother of Russian cities” was given over to sack and pillage. In one wild moment all the reverence and religious piety of the Slavonic nature was scattered to the winds, and churches, monasteries, and the cathedrals of S. Sofia and the Dime shared the general disaster. Sacrilegious hands bore gleefully through the roaring streets a spoil of holy ikons, illuminated missals, crosses, priestly robes, and all the trappings of an outraged religion; even the bells were torn down from their campaniles to serve as plunder for the victorious invaders.

Kiev still existed as a city, but on her Golden Gate the conquerors might fitly have hewed the epitaph, “Ichabod. Thy glory is departed from thee.”

The Grand Prince made his escape from the toils of his enemies, and one of the sons of Urii succeeded to what was left of the submerged dignity; but the real centre of authority had shifted. Souzdal extended its influence over nearly the whole of the Russian land; the Princes of Galitz and Tchernigov and the republic of Novgorod alone maintained their independence. The latter government, indeed, despite the internal disorders with which it was from time to time afflicted, had risen to a power which might well cry halt to the most ambitious potentate. Not only had it held its own against the leagued princes of Northern Russia, but it had valiantly repelled the onslaught of a foreign enemy. The union of the crowns of Sweden and Gothland, the pact between the houses of Swerker and Jeswar, and the gradual dying out of the pagan minority had given the Swedes comparative domestic quiet, and at the same time leisure to turn their attention to attacks on their neighbours. Hence it was that Karl VII., in the year 1164 (while Sviatoslav yet reigned at Novgorod), invaded the Russian northlands and besieged Ladoga, which was defended by the citizens with great spirit. The arrival of Sviatoslav with the Posadnik Zakharie and the Novgorodskie forces was followed by the complete defeat of the Swedish host, only a remnant of which, according to the city Chronicles, succeeded in making good its escape. This exploit gives some idea of the power and position of Velikie Novgorod, which at this period matches the standing of Lubeck in the days of the Kaiser Karl IV. Against so dangerous a rival it was inevitable that Andrei, dreaming of autocracy 300 years before its time, should bend the whole crushing weight of his resources and influence, and seek to whelm Novgorod in the same humiliation that had befallen Kiev. The inhabitants of the threatened city saw an ominous league of their enemies gathering together; the Princes of Smolensk, Polotzk, Mourom, and Riazan joined their forces to those of Mstislav Andreivitch, the conqueror of Kiev, under whose banner marched the men of Souzdal, Rostov, Vladimir, and Bielozersk. At the head of the citizens stood their Kniaz, Roman, the Posadnik Yakun, and the Archbishop Ivan. These prepared by every means in their power to resist the formidable army whose skirmishers were ravaging the country for miles around and lighting the winter sky with the fires of hundreds of blazing villages. The doubt voiced by a poet of a later century—

Though kneeling nations watch and yearn,

Does the Primordial Purpose turn?

found no expression in the minds of these early Russians, in whose civil discords the members of the Holy Family of heaven were supposed to take as keen an interest as the gods of Olympus in the skirmishes round Troy. 1170When the attack closed in upon the city the Archbishop, attended by his clergy, carried round the ramparts, during the thick of the fight, a standard with a representation of the Virgin. An impious arrow struck the sainted ikon, which thereupon turned its face towards Novgorod and let fall a shower of tears upon the Archbishop; this was too much for the nerves of the Souzdalians, who seemingly were near enough to witness the miracle, and a headlong flight ensued, in which many were slain and many taken prisoners. In the words of the Novgorodskie Chronicle, “You could get ten Souzdalians for a grivna.” It is difficult to discern, under the mass of legend, what was the real cause of this panic. The warriors who had laid ruthless hands on the hallowed sanctuaries of the Russian capital were not likely to be cowed by a provincial representation of the Virgin; had they not their own apostle-wrought ikon of the Mother of God at Vladimir? Whatever the cause of defeat, it gave a serious check to Andrei’s projects of undisputed supremacy. Novgorod, however, was not secure from the enmity of the Prince of Souzdal, from whose province she drew her supplies of grain, and the Posadnik and Archbishop followed up their victory by timely overtures for peace, which was effected by the dismissal of Roman and the subsequent “free election” of a prince from the Souzdal family. Four years later the dreaded northern Kniaz suffered the penalty of being in advance of his times. The high hand with which he had ruled in his own province had inspired among his boyarins and courtiers a fear which might on occasion become dangerous. 1177 And the occasion arrived, when one summer’s evening a band of twenty conspirators, including the chamberlain of his household, burst into the old man’s sleeping-chamber in his palace at Bogolubov (a suburb of Vladimir) and stabbed wildly at him in the uncertain twilight. Favoured by the dusk and confusion, Andrei managed to crawl away into hiding; a light was procured, and by the track of his streaming wounds he was hunted down and the assassins finished their task. Vladimir, which he had raised to the position of his capital over the older towns of Souzdal and Rostov, mourned the grim fate of her patron, but throughout the rest of the province the long-repressed feelings of the inhabitants ran riot in bloodshed and pillage. The affrighted clergy, clad in their priestly vestments and bearing the sacred ensigns of their religion, went in solemn processions through the towns, invoking the assistance of the Most High God to quell a revolt which threatened the submersion of their world. Andrei had tried to weld into a disciplined kingdom materials that were as yet only fitted for a modified anarchy, tempered by attachment to a loosely-ordered succession of princes; dreaming of despotism, he had at least died the death of a despot.

And while they do to death the only prince who had shown them the way to the safety which lay in union and centralisation, far away on the banks of the Okon, in the desert region which borders Northern China and Manchuria, is growing from insignificance to an overmastering weight of supremacy the tribe, horde, locust-swarm of the swarthy Mongols.

The disorders which marked the disappearance of Andrei’s overshadowing personality from the throne of Souzdal were soothed, after a long struggle between his reflucted kinsfolk, by the final establishment of Vsevolod, brother of the murdered prince, surnamed “Big-nest” in allusion to his large family.29 Applying himself to the ordering of his own province, he meddled but languidly in the seething troubles of the Dniepr-watered principalities, where the house of Olgovitch was enjoying a fitful revival of importance. A scion of that strenuous family at this time embarked on an enterprise which, though fruitless from a military point of view, was crowned with a halo of glory and immortalised in an epic poem of great beauty. “The Song of the Expedition of Igor, Prince of Sieverski,” or, more shortly, the Song of Igor, one of the earliest Slavonic folk-songs that has been handed down from the dead past, has been translated into many languages, but never before into English, so that it is well worth reproducing in part in a history of Russian development. It deals with a campaign undertaken by Igor Sviatoslavitch, Prince of Severski, and his brother Vsevolod, against the Polovtzi in their own country, of its disastrous result, and the ultimate return of Igor.

Brothers, were it not well that we, after the old custom, began the song of the unlucky campaign of Igor, the seed of Sviatoslav? That we celebrate him in the heroic songs of our time, and not in the manner of Bōyan? If the sage Bōyan wished to tune to one a song, it was as if a squirrel sprang up the tree, or a gray wolf hied along the plain, or a blue eagle soared to the clouds....

Igor looked forth and saw that the sun had hidden his face, and a mist had enveloped his warriors. Then spoke Igor to his army: “Brothers and soldiers, it is better to fall in battle than to yield one’s life; so will we mount our mettlesome horses and gain the Blue Don by daylight.” Yearning filled the soul of the Prince, and the wish to see the noble Don led him to forget many evil tokens. “I will break a lance,” cried he, “on the farthest verge of the Polovtzi land, or bow my head with you, Russians, and with my helmet draw water from the Don.” O Bōyan, thou nightingale of the olden days, if thou hadst inspired these warrior-bands, alighting on the Tree of Thought and hovering in the spirit of the clouds, thou hadst, O nightingale, united this severed time (that which is Past with that which Is).... Not a storm-wind drove the falcons over the wide plain, nor hurried the flocks of daws to the glorious Don. Or thou mightest, sage Bōyan, thus have sung: The steeds are neighing this side the Sula, the war-song resounds in Kiev, the trumpets are crashing in Novgorod. The standards wave in Poutivl, where awaits Igor his loved brother Vsevolod. And to him saith the bold, war-lusting Vsevolod, “O Igor, my only brother, my bright Sun, truly are we twain the seed of Sviatoslav. Brother, let thy spirited war-horses be saddled; already are mine saddled and waiting at Koursk, and my Kourskies are right warriors, born ’neath the blare of the trumpets, and nurtured at the point of the lance. The roads are familiar to them; they know the passes, their bows are strung, the quiver is open, the sabres are burnished, and they themselves press forward, like gray wolves on the bleak wold, in pursuit of honour and princely renown.” Then set Prince Igor his foot in the golden stirrup and rode forth into the wide plain. The sun blurs the way through the gloom, the night groans in storm and wakes the birds, swells in chorus the howling of beasts, the evil Div shrieks down from the tree-tops and summons the strange lands to listen, from the Volga, and the sea-coast, and along the Sula and to the Suroz and Khorsun, to the idol at Tmoutorakan. The Polovtzi hastened by pathless ways to the glorious Don; at midnight shrieked the wheels of their carts, as though flight-circling swans screamed loud. Igor pressed with his war-men to the Don. But already the bird on the oak warned him of misfortune, the wolves set the ravines in alarm, the eagles with loud screams called hither the beasts to the banquet, the foxes barked at the purple shields.

O Russian band, already art thou this side the hill!

Long lasts the night, the twilight dawn not yet foretells the coming of the Sun, darkness clothes the fields, the flute of the nightingale is hushed, while the croaking of the daws resounds, but the Russians have bedecked the stretching plain with their purple shields, and strive after honour and the glory of princes.

On Friday early have our warriors defeated the war-hordes of the Polovtzi, and they thenafter scattered with arrow-swiftness in the plain, bearing away the lovely Polovtzi maidens, and with them also gold and precious silken stuffs; with costly rugs, with cloaks and vestments the Polovtzi strewed the streams, marshes, and swamps. The golden standards with the white pennons, the purple horse-housings and the silver staff fell to the brave Sviatoslavitch. Oleg’s brave nest-brood slept on the field, thenafter they are flown afar; they were not born to suffer ill, neither from falcon, nor sparhawk, nor from these, heathen Polovtzi, the black ravens. Gsak sped like a gray wolf, and Kontchak followed him on the road to the glorious Don.

Right early the other morning rose a blood-red promise of the sun, black clouds drew in from the sea, that would have darkened four suns, and torn were they by blue flashes; there was brewing a mighty storm of thunder, and bolts rained over the majestic Don; then at the stream Kayala, by the mighty Don, lances were broken and sabres blunted on Polovtzi helmets.

O Russian band, still art thou this side the hill!

There blew the Wind (Stribog’s grandchild)30 bolts from the sea against Igor’s brave fighters; the Earth shuddered, mournfully flowed the rivers, dew-drops spangled the fields, the banners rustled.

Forth from the Don, from the sea, and from all sides around came the Polovtzi; they surrounded the Russian troop, with yells the children of the devils filled the plain, but the brave Russians guarded themselves behind the purple shields. Thou Wild-Bull Vsevolod, thou art in the rank that is foremost, slinging thy arrows at the fighters, and with thy sword of steel batterest the helmets, and where thou chargest, there where thy golden helmet glitters, there lie the heads of the Heathen and the Avaric helmets, smashed by thy hardened sabre, thou Wild-Bull Vsevolod, and there was thy grief so great at the wound of thy brother, thou hadst both honour and life forgotten, and the town of Tchernigov, and the throne of thy fathers, even as the caresses of thy sweet and beauteous wife Glebovna.... So is it ever in the time of fighting and war, but never yet has been heard of such a battle as this; from early morn till the even, from eve to red dawn, nought but flying arrows, and the clashing of sabres on helmets, and steel lances splintering in the far plain of the Polovtzi-land. The black earth under the hoofs of the horses is with bones emplanted, which spring up from the Russian soil watered with blood amid stress of grievous sorrow. What is the stamping I hear? What is it I hear ringing in the morning early before the red Dawn?...

So for a day they fought, and for two days, but on the third, towards mid-day, sank the banner of Igor.

There on the banks of the rapid Kayala the brothers were sundered....

The grass drooped its head in mourning and the tree bowed sorrowfully earthward....

The war of the princes against the Heathen had ceased, for one brother saith to another, “That belongeth to me, and this belongeth also to me.” And of each little thing the princes say, “A great matter,” and stir up strife with one another, while on all sides of the Russian land the warlike heathen press forward.

But Igor’s brave war-men shall never wake again.... Loudly weep the Russian women, “Alas! that never more can our thoughts to our dear husbands be wafted, that our eyes shall never, never again behold them, and gold and silver never more be stored.” And therefore, brothers, Kiev groaneth aloud in sorrow and Tchernigov in grief; woe streameth through the land, and pain, in full flood, through Russia, but ever more and more were the princes growing in hatred, while the warlike Heathen raged through the land, and from every holding had as tribute a squirrel pelt....

(The despairing lamentations of the saga are changed to rejoicing over the unexpected return of Igor, who had made his escape from the Polovtzi land.)

The Sun shines in the heaven since Prince Igor is on Russian land. The maidens sing on the Danube, and their voices reach over the sea to Kiev. Prince Igor rides through the Boritchev-ford to the Holy Mother-of-God of Pirogosha. The country is gladsome and the towns rejoice.31

This folk-song, apart from its intrinsic beauty, is valuable as a relic of Russian thought and feeling at a time when the old pre-Christian ideas were still blended with the sentiments of the newer traditions, and it is interesting to mark how the ghosts and gods of old Slavonic myth are mixed up with the saints and virgins of the Orthodox faith. Not unworthy of notice, too, are the sage strictures on the political evils of the day, the perpetual quarrelling among the Princes of the Blood, which, however, continued with unabated vehemence despite the common bond which existed in a common enemy. On the north and north-east the armies of Novgorod and Souzdal extended the Russian influence in the lands of the Finns and Bulgars, but on the south-east, south, and west occurred encroachments which the princes were too enfeebled by internal feuds to resist. The Kuman (Polovtzi) hordes held the banks of the Dniepr almost up to the walls of Kiev and Biel-gorod, as the Petchenigs had done before them; amid the dense forests of Lit’uania, on the border of Polotzk, was rising into importance the Lettish State which was to become a formidable factor in Russian and Polish annals; and the kings of Hungary cast greedy eyes on the fair province of Galitz, held in the feeble and precarious grasp of Vladimir, unworthy successor of a line of valiant Red Russian princes.

The occupant of the throne of S. Stefan was not the only interested onlooker at the spectacle of misgovernment provided by the Prince of Galitz; his nearest neighbour on the Russian side was Roman of Volhynia, the same Roman who had held Novgorod against the might of Andrei, and who had been thrown over to procure for the city a substantial peace. This prince, whose forefathers in the direct line back to the first Igor had all been sovereigns of Kiev, was possessed of exceptional qualities of energy and enterprise, and saw himself fitted to replace the effete and impolitic Vladimir in the important and Magyar-threatened principality of Galitz. Between the warlike and strenuous efforts of this battle-loving kniaz, who was renowned for the eagle-swoop rapidity with which he was wont to hurl himself upon his enemies, the assiduous intrigues and invasions of Bela III. of Hungary, and the occasional intervention of the princes of Poland, the West Russian lands were kept in a continual ferment; in the words of the saga, “Men’s lives were shortened by the wars of the brother princes. Then seldom in the Russian land was heard the call of the husbandman, but often indeed the ravens croaking as they divided the corpse among them, and the cry of the corbies as they called to each other to come to the banquet.” Long time the clashing factions warred and schemed, but Roman at last broke down all opposition without and within. In dismal plight were then those notables of Galitz who had resisted his incoming; according to Polish accounts he treated the disaffected boyarins with a savagery unworthy of a brave prince. The unfortunate objects of his ill-will were dismembered, flayed, riddled with arrows, buried alive, and done to death in various other barbarous ways.32 “To eat a drop of honey in peace, one must first kill the bees,” was his explanation of this severity. This prince, who, in the words of the Russian Chronicles, “walked in the ways of God,” was soon called upon to defend his “drop of honey” against the Princes of Tchernigov and Kiev—a coalition brought together by jealousy and dislike of the vigorous Roman, for whom, however, it was no match. Gathering together his Galician and Volhynian retainers, and calling to his aid the Tchernie-Kloboukie (“Black-caps,” a name given to the nomads of the western steppes other than the Polovtzi), he threw himself with the famous eagle-swoop upon Kiev, the centre-point of his enemies. In vain did its Grand Prince Rurik and the Kniaz of Tchernigov apply themselves to repel his attack; the Kievians, who had a trained eye for the strongest side, threw open the Podolian Gate, and the redoubtable Roman swirled with his warriors into the lower city. His opponents did not stay to dispute the upper quarter with him, and the victorious Prince of Galitz was able, with the assent of Vsevolod of Souzdal, to bestow the time-worn capital on one of his own kinsfolk. 1202At the request of the Metropolitan, Alexis Comnenus, and on behalf of the Greek Imperial family, the indefatigable Roman made a diversion against the Polovtzi, who were ravaging the Thracian border. Having successfully drawn off their attack and destroyed their camps, he returned in triumph to Galitz. During his absence Kiev, which had betrayed the cause of Rurik, experienced in full measure the resentment of that prince; calling to his assistance the Polovtzi—“children of the devils,” but useful on occasion—he let them loose on the miserable inhabitants. The Kuman warfolk passed over the city like a swarm of locusts over a barley field; nothing escaped their devouring fury except the foreign merchants who defended themselves behind the stone walls of the churches, which became veritable sanctuaries in the midst of a blazing, blood-streaming Kiev. The cathedrals and monasteries suffered as severely from the heathen pillagers as they had done at the hands of the Christians at the previous sacking of the city: “They stripped the Cathedral of S. Sofia, the Church of the Dime, and all the monasteries, monks and nuns, priests and their wives, old and cripple, they killed, but the young and strong they drove into captivity.”33

The death of Roman in battle with the Poles near Zawichwost (1205) left Red Russia once more a prey to domestic strife and foreign inroad.

On the 14th April 1212 came to an end the thirty-seven years’ reign of Vsevolod, the last days of which were clouded by a quarrel with his eldest son and natural heir, Konstantin. The latter, whether from statesmanlike motives or mere grasping ambition, refused to cede to his brother Urii the patrimony of Rostov designed for him, in consequence of which Vsevolod bequeathed to the injured younger son the succession to the grand principality of Vladimir-Souzdal, which would otherwise have been the share of Konstantin. Vsevolod, overweighted by the Russian chroniclers with the title of “Great,” shared in his youth the exile of his brothers on the accession of Andrei, and received his education amid Byzantine influences. In this connection it is interesting to note that the scheme of policy unfolded during his long reign bears some resemblance to that favoured by the Greek Emperors. Avoiding for the most part the employment of open force against Novgorod, he contrived, nevertheless, to be always to the fore in the affairs of the republic, in the aspect either of a bogey or a patron, in any case a factor to be reckoned with. Kiev he allowed to pass backwards and forwards from one hand to another, and in this way contributed to the decline of her importance and the consequent advancement of his own capital as the head-town of Russia. This pacific policy gave his Souzdalian subjects a measure of peace and tranquillity unknown to their brothers in the other provinces, but it permitted the dangerous aggrandisement of princes of lesser strength and more limited resources.

The Grand Prince’s Greek upbringing and possible Greek sympathies may have influenced the Russian hierarchy in the decision they were called upon to make during his reign between adherence to or desertion of the distressed Church of Constantinople. For evil times had fallen upon the Orthodox communion; since the eastern and western Christians had solemnly and bitterly quarrelled over the merits of the respective formulas “proceeding from the Father by the Son,” and “proceeding from the Father and the Son,”—the celebrated controversy of the Filioque,—the two Churches had drifted wider and wider apart, and the hatred existing between them found expression in the massacre of the Latin or Roman Catholic inhabitants of Constantinople in the year 1183, when young and old, sick and infirm of both sexes were indiscriminately slaughtered; when the head of the Pope’s Legate, severed from its legitimate body and tied to the tail of a dog, went bumping and thudding along the public streets to the accompaniment of hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Now (in the year 1204) it was the turn of the Latins to revenge themselves on the stronghold and headquarters of the rival religion; the French and Venetian Crusaders, turning aside from the pious object of their expedition, the rescue of the “Holy Land” from the infidels, had carried Constantinople by assault, replaced the fugitive Greek Emperor by a Latin prince, and sacked the Tzargrad with systematic thoroughness. The furniture and adornments of S. Sophia and other sacred buildings became spoil for the western soldiery, and the Lion of S. Mark waved triumphantly over the scene of pillage and desecration. Then did the head of the Roman Church, the splendid Lotario Conti (Innocent III.), beneath whose despotic sway chafed and trembled most of the princes of Christendom, follow up the triumph of the Latin arms by an attempt to draw the heretic Church of Russia into the Catholic fold. In a pastoral letter to the prelates and clergy of the Orthodox faith he pointed out the temporal ruin which had overtaken the heads of the schismatic religion, and invited the Russian Christians to attach themselves to the glories and benefits of Rome. The appeal fell on hostile ears, and the next Metropolitan was consecrated at Nicæa, where the dispossessed Emperor had established his court.

In other quarters the zeal and activity of the Roman Church brought her into contact with Russian “spheres of influence,” to use a modern term. 1201Albrecht, Bishop of the new Livlandish see of Riga, had instituted in that district the Order of the Warriors of Christ, or Sword Brethren, whose mission was to convert the pagan Livlanders by fire, and steel, and thong to the worship of Jesus, and teach them the lesson of peace on earth and goodwill towards men with which His name was associated. As the scope of their endeavours included a temporal as well as a spiritual ascendancy over the lands they were able to conquer, their arms soon clashed with those of Vladimir, Prince of Polotzk, who claimed the over-lordship of Livland. Reinforced by Danish warmen, sent to their assistance by King Waldemar at the instance of the Pope, the knights of the Order were able to hold their own against the Russian kniaz, and the Catholic Church scored another triumph in Europe to make up for her disappointments in Asia Minor.

Vsevolod left to his successors the heritage of a ready-made feud, in which the members of his family took different sides, some supporting Urii, who held Souzdal and Vladimir, others ranging themselves with Konstantin, who kept his grasp on Rostov. After a campaign in which neither side could obtain a decided advantage, the brothers agreed to divide the principality between them, Urii retaining the largest share, which included Vladimir, Souzdal, and Moskva. Another brother, Yaroslav, became in an unlucky hour the choice of the people of Novgorod. In course of time they quarrelled with him, as was their wont. Yaroslav shook the dust of the ungovernable city off his feet, and settled himself down at Torjhok to starve it into submission. Its imports of grain were systematically cut off, supplies of every kind were intercepted, and famine stalked through the streets of Novgorod. Want, in its most fearful form, the starvation of an entire populace, tamed the spirit of the proud citizens. Pine-bark and moss were chewed in place of the bread that could not be bought for money; the bodies of those who died of hunger lined the streets—the dogs at least were fed. What manner of man was this who sat gloating, vampire-like, over the misery of a province which he would neither govern nor renounce? Vainly embassies and petitions were sent by the stricken citizens, who tendered their submission and besought him to take up his rule over them; the spokesmen were cast into prison and the dearth continued. Then like a god from the blue appeared to the famishing and despairing Novgorodskie their erstwhile prince, Mstislav of Toropetz. The bitter cry of their extremity had reached him in Southern Russia and drawn him to their succour. After vainly attempting to bring Yaroslav to reason, Mstislav took up arms against him. The first-named prince could count on the support of Urii, but on the other hand Mstislav had engaged Konstantin on his side, so that the province of Souzdal was drawn, town against town, into this local quarrel. The armies of the two leagues, burning with resentment against each other, met on the plain of Lipetsk. 1216After a desperate battle the troops of Rostov, Smolensk, and Novgorod scored a decisive victory and hewed down their scattering foes during an April afternoon with the fierce joy that a triumph in civil warfare inspires. Over 9000 of the vanquished are stated to have fallen in the fight and subsequent slaughter. Four days later the inhabitants of Vladimir, consisting for the most part of women, children, monks, and priests, and men too old to have marched to the war, saw in the gray distance a single horseman making with weary speed for the city—a courier, they fondly imagined, sent to announce their Prince’s victory. The Prince (Urii) himself rode in through the startled crowd, the forlorn herald of the disaster which had overwhelmed his army. The depleted province was in no plight to withstand the victors, and the Grand Principality was practically at the disposal of the upstart Kniaz of Toropetz. Konstantin, by his decree, became Prince of Vladimir-Souzdal, naming Urii, however, to succeed him at his death. Mstislav returned in triumph to Novgorod, where he was hailed with acclamations by the citizens, to whom he had been a friend in need. It was a bitter irony of circumstance that almost the only prince for whom they had had a lasting affection could not find it well to stay with them. Perhaps he was fearful of outstaying his welcome, or wished to secure for himself a more assured possession than the government of the fickle republic, and the foreign encroachments which disturbed Russia on her western marches attracted his adventure-loving spirit to play the rescuer in that direction. In Livland, Volquin von Winterstadt, Grand Master of the Sword Order, was ever seeking to push forward his military outposts; the Lit’uanians, harassed by Catholics on one side and Orthodox neighbours on the other, were drawing closer together in self-defence, and becoming more formidable to Polotzk and Pskov, while Red Russia was a prey to Hungarian domination and Polish interference. It was by invitation of the latter power, in the person of Duke Lesko, that Mstislav undertook to drive the Hungarians out of Galicia, and in consequence bade an affectionate farewell to the people of Novgorod, the tomb of his father, and the Cathedral of S. Sofia.

While foreign war flamed lurid in the west, a peaceable restoration had been witnessed in the north-east, where Urii, on the death of his brother Konstantin (1219), had come into possession of the Grand Principality. In the north-west, again, important happenings were forcing themselves disagreeably on the notice of the border princes. Many causes contributed to complicate the struggle for mastery which was beginning to be waged in the pagan-inhabited lands at the mouth of the western Dvina and along the “Baltic gull-sought strand.” The institution of the Crusades and the erection of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had aroused a spirit of religious and temporal colonisation and conquest, of which the seizure of Constantinople was a symptom, while on the other hand the comparative failure of the Asiatic expeditions and the recapture of Jerusalem by the Moslems had modified the crusading fervour and disinclined the champions of the Cross to seek adventures so far afield. Hence many Catholic princes and knights were glad to avail themselves of the Papal permission to divert their pious raids from the valley of the Jordan to the shores of the Baltic, a more convenient locality, where they might gain, in addition to their eternal salvation, welcome pieces of earthly territory. Danes, Swedes, the Sword Brothers, and later (in 1230) the Teutonic Order, fought indiscriminately with the native pagans, with the Russians, and with themselves for the advancement of the Catholic religion and of their own interests. Estland, Kourland, Livland, Lit’uania, and Prussia became happy hunting-grounds for these various adventurers and military companies, and the unfortunate inhabitants, confronted with an embarras du richesse in the way of spiritual guides, knew not which way to turn for safety. A Tchoud notable was hanged by the Danes for having received baptism from the Sword Order, and the Latin and Orthodox Christians systematically destroyed each other’s churches and settlements whenever they had the opportunity. Of the knights of the two Orders, however, it may be said that the cruelties and oppressions with which they sought to harry the heathen into their particular fold were in some measure condoned by the splendid bravery and devotion which they displayed in carrying out their self-imposed task. Moreover, it was to these northern crusaders that the Baltic provinces owed many of their most important towns: Riga was the creation of the Knights of Jesus; Thorn, Kulm, and Elbing marked the rise of the Teutonic Order; Revel sprang into existence under Danish auspices. It was during a combat in the neighbourhood of the latter town that the Danes received “from the clouds” the red flag blazoned with a white cross which has since remained their national standard—a mark of Divine favour which did not, however, cause the immediate withdrawal of their Christian competitors. The cruelties and dissensions of the invaders moved the inhabitants of Northern Livland to throw off the Catholic yoke and call the citizens of Novgorod to their assistance, propitiating them with a portion of the spoil they had wrested from the Germans and Skandinavians. Novgorod, by a curious revulsion of feeling, had, after a succession of princes of the house of Souzdal, elected the same Yaroslav who had treated her people with such heartless cruelty. Possibly, in the turn affairs were taking on their west, the Novgorodskie saw an opportunity for employing his malignant genius against their obnoxious enemies. But the warlike efforts of the men of Lake Ilmen and their Souzdalian prince were neutralised by the fact that the Germans, fighting behind the walls of their towns, were more skilled in the handling of the slings and stone-hurling engines, the rude artillery of the day; the old Russian proverb, “Who can resist God and Velikie Novgorod?” had to be modified in the face of such weapons of precision, and the Westerners remained masters of the greater part of the disputed territories.

Two hundred years of unending domestic strife, carving and shredding off into a crowd of incoherent provinces—Kiev, Tchernigov, Riazan, Souzdal, Smolensk, Polotzk, Novgorod, Pskov, Volhynia, Galitz, and others of less importance—had not fitted Russia to contend with the expanding powers of Catholic Christendom, or to show a solid front against the incursion of teeming Asiatic hordes on her east.

The Chronicles of Russian history at this period were wholly in the hands of the monks who wrote them around the deeds of the princes or of the luminaries of the Church; hence little can be gleaned from them of the social life and condition of the people, who existed therein solely for the purposes of supplying raw material for a massacre or a pestilence. The history of Novgorod is valuable as yielding occasional glimpses of the life-pulse that beat beneath the over-crust of court or cathedral annals, but this city was too impregnated with outside influences to furnish a faithful picture of the inward state of old-time Russia. Of the towns it may be broadly stated that they were yet little more in scope than walled villages; universities or seats of learning other than the monkish cloister there were none, and much of the trade was in the hands of foreign merchants. The wealthy boyarins had their houses and palaces clustered within the walls, and often possessed in addition other houses in the sloboda, or detached village, without, where there was more space available for gardens, etc. Freemen as well as slaves (the latter captured in war or bought) were in their service, but the abject poverty of the lower classes of freemen bound them in almost servile dependence on their masters. Even more grinding was the normal state of poverty in which the peasants eked out their livelihood, and the name smerd applied to them was one of contempt, something akin to our “rascallion.” For the most part the peasants tilled the soil for the landowners under a system which allowed them a half, or other fixed share, of the harvest produced, the freeman having this distinction from the kholop or bondman that he was able to move from one estate to another at will. Under these conditions of hand-to-mouth existence farm-craft remained at a very low ebb; with axe, scythe, and plough the peasant won precarious roothold for his crops, which might be blighted by an untimely frost-coming or damaged by a too-late thaw, leaving him to propitiate his appeal-court of saints by an involuntary emptiness ofstomach. With cattle-stock, horses, and horned beasts, the Russian lands, of the north especially, were ill-provided, and possibly this was partly the outcome of the unsettled state of the country, which discouraged the multiplication of movable property, even the heaviest church bells being now and again swept off in the wake of some pilfering kniaz-raid.34

22 See Table I. for Grand Princes of Kiev.

23 The affix vitch signifies son of: Sviatoslavitch—son of Sviatoslav.

24 Vseslav Briatcheslavitch.

25 “The Song of the Expedition of Igor.”

26 Georg Pray.

27 N. G. Riesenkampff, Der Deutsche Hof zu Nowgorod.

28 Rambaud, History of Russia.

29 See Table III. for house of Souzdal.

30 Stribog was the Slavonic wind-god.

31 Rendered into English partly from H. von Paucker’s German translation, Das Lied von der Heerfahrt Igor’s Fürsten von Seversk, and partly from a modernised Russian reproduction of the Slavonic text.

32 Kadlubek, Origine et rebus gestis Polonorum.

33 S. Solov’ev.

34 Karamzin; S. Solov’ev; Schiemann; Kostomarov, Sieverno Rousskiya Narodopravstva, Chronique de Nestor.