RUSSIA 



43 





Under this pressure of Asia upon Europe the 

 Ugrians, who inhabited the Urals, moved over the 

 south Russian steppes to Hungary; and the 

 Polovtsy, the Petchenegs, and other tribes were 

 making in succession their raids upon south-west 

 Russia. Now it was the turn of the nomads, who 

 inhabited the very heart of Asia, and whom 

 Genghis Khan (q.v.) had united into a great con- 

 federation, to enter Europe. They already had 

 conquered Manchuria, part of north China, Turk- 

 estan, and Bokhara, and devastated the encamp- 

 ments of the Polovtsy. The Polovtsy applied for 

 aid to the Russians, and their united forces met 

 the invaders on the Kalka River (a tributary of the 

 Don) in 1224. The Mongols and Tartars were 

 completely victorious, but retreated and did not 

 return to Russia till after thirteen years. In 1238 

 the hordes of Batu-khan invaded the whole of east 

 and central Russia. Ryazan, Rostov, Yaroslav, ; 

 Tver, and Torjok were burned ; only the marshes \ 

 of Novgorod protected the north-western republic 

 from the same fate. In 1239-40 they ravaged the 

 south-west, destroying Tchernigov, Galicia, and 

 Kieff, and entered Poland and Hungary. But, 

 being checked in Moravia, and receiving at the 

 same time the news of the Khan's death, Batu- 

 khan returned to Asia, and built his palace at 

 Sarai on the lower Volga. Thither the Russian 

 princes had to go to pay tribute and receive their 

 investiture by kissing the stirrup of the khan. 



After having ravaged Russia the Mongols did not 

 interfere much with her internal organisation. 

 They respected the church ; they left the peasants 

 in possession of their lands, and the princes in 

 possession of their authority ; but every prince had 

 to receive his investiture from the khan, and it 

 was at the khan's court, sometimes on the banks 

 of a tributary of the Amur, that intrigues for 

 supremacy between the Russian princes were settled 

 sometimes through the assassination of the 

 prince who was not rich enough to buy the support 

 of the advisers of the khan. It was especially with : 

 Mongol aid, and often with Mongol armies, that 

 the wealthy princes of Moscow succeeded in destroy- 

 ing the autonomy of the surrounding principalities, 

 and imposed upon them their own yoke. 



The taxes of Russia were originally farmed out 

 by the khan to oriental merchants ; but, to avoid 

 popular revolts, the princes undertook to collect 

 them with the aid of the Tartars. The courts of 

 the Russian princes, who surrounded themselves 

 with Tartar and Mongol advisers, took an oriental 

 character. The industrial, artistic, and literary 

 development of Russia was totally arrested. On 

 the whole, Mongol rule threw the country 

 more than 200 years behind the other states of 

 Europe. The principalities of Kieff and Tchernigov 

 never recovered afterwards. Their decline, how- 

 ever, made room for the rise of Galitch to pre- 

 eminence in western Russia, and, amidst wars 

 against Hungary and the Tartars, it preserved 

 greater independence than anv of the Russian prin- 

 cipalities till, in the later half of the 13th century, 

 it was taken possession of by Casimir III. of 

 Poland. About the same time Volhynia was 

 joined to Lithuania. The rise of this latter state 

 was much favoured by the prostration into 

 which Russia had fallen ; and after an existence of 

 several centuries, during which it extended its 

 power so as to include Livonia proper, the Russian 

 provinces of White Russia, Volhynia, Podolia, and 

 the Ukraine, it was joined in 1569 to Poland (q.v.). 

 On the north of Lithuania arose in the beginning 

 of the 13th century another power, the Livonian 

 Knights Sword-bearers, who took possession of 

 Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, as well as some 

 portions of the territory of Novgorod and Pskov ; 

 while the Scandinavians, blessed by Pope Gregory 



IX., undertook a crusade against Novgorod. 

 They were, however, defeated by Alexander 

 Nevski (q.v.; 1252-63). 



In the beginning of the 14th century eastern 

 Russia consisted of the principalities of Suzdal, 

 Nijni-Novgorod, Ryazan, Tver, and Moscow, and 

 long contests took place between them, especially 

 between the latter two. At last Moscow a small 

 village fortified by Yuriy Dolgorouki (1147) took 

 the upper hand. It was entirely free of municipal 

 traditions, and the powers of the prince could 

 freely develop there, unchecked by the ve.tche. It 

 occupied an advantageous position at the junction 

 of several main routes, and on a then navigable 

 river, amidst a territory thickly peopled by boyars' 

 peasants, who enriched the prince and the boyars. 

 The church, always prosecuting its aim of creating 

 a monarchy in Russia, soon perceived the import- 

 ance of Moscow as a centre of a future state, and 

 its head, the metropolitan, removed thither from 

 Vladimir in 1325. The church, the boyars, and 

 the princes thus created at Moscow the power 

 which was necessary at that moment to oppose 

 the encroachments of Catholic Lithuania, Poland, 

 and Livonia. Ivan Kalita (1328-40), Simeon 

 the Proud (1340-53), and the regency of boyars 

 which administered the affairs under his weak- 

 minded son Ivan II. (1353-59), as also during 

 the minority of Ivan's son Dmitri Donskoi (1359- 

 89), all pursued the same policy of increasing the 

 powers of Moscow by weakening the neighbouring 

 principalities Nijni-Novgorod, Tver, and Ryazan. 

 Taking advantage of the weakness of the Mongol 

 khanate, now divided into the hordes of Nogai, 

 Crimea, Kazan, and Astrakhan, the east Russians 

 made in 1380 the first attempt at throwing off the 

 yoke; their armies federated under Dmitri, and 

 they ventured for the first time to meet the Mongol 

 armies in a battle on the field of Kulikovo, on the 

 banks of the Don. The battle was not decisive, 

 but the church ascribed the victory to the holy 

 icons of the Moscow monasteries and to Dmitri. 

 True, next year the Khan Tpkhtamysh advanced 

 suddenly on Moscow, burned it, killed no less than 

 24,000 people, and exacted a heavy tribute. But 

 this was the last time that Moscow fell into the 

 hands of the Tartars. Its Kreml (citadel), which 

 had resisted in 1368 and 1371 the assaults of the 

 Lithuanians under Olgerd, was more strongly forti- 

 fied, and when Khan Edighei besieged it in 1408 

 he could only ravage the suburbs. 



The gradual increase of the Moscow principality 

 continued under Vassili I. (1389^1425) who 

 bought from the khan the right of ruling at Nijni- 

 Novgorod, and conquered Rostov and Murom and 

 Vassili II. the Blind (1425-62). Still the prince, 

 though assuming the title of Great Prince, was 

 merely recognised as the eldest by other princes, 

 and the cities maintained their independence, 

 simply paying to his delegates a tribute in ex- 

 change for military protection, while Moscow was 

 ruled in reality by the duma (council) of the boyars, 

 especially after Vassili II. became blind. It was 

 under Ivan III. (1462-1505), named 'the Great' by 

 some historians, that the prince of Moscow, after 

 having for forty years seized every opportunity for 

 abolishing the autonomy of other principalities, 

 and having married Sophia, a niece of Constantino 

 Paloeologus (who came to Moscow with a numerous 

 following of Greeks imbued with ideas of Roman 

 autocracy), assumed the title of ' Ruler of all 

 Russia ' (Hospodar Vseya Rossii), and adopted 

 the arms of the Byzantine empire. He took ad- 

 vantage of the divisions at Novgorod between 

 the oligarchy of merchants, who were appealing 

 for assistance to the Poles, and the people, and, 

 supported by Tartar cavalry, marched against the 

 republic (1471). Novgorod was defeated and sub- 



