RUSSIA fHrSTORY OF). 



rnercial cities. Events wore recorded in monkis)i 

 chronicles (\i'i in tin- language of tin- country'), of 

 which, since Nestor (who died about 1113), a long 

 series is extant. Whilst the Mongols oppressed the 

 Russians, the Livonians. Teutonic knights, and 

 Swedes, at tucked them on the other side. An an- 

 nual tribute was paid to the Mongols, and nothing 

 w;t< to be undertaken which should appear danger- 

 ous to the latter; yet, even in this condition, the 

 Russian princes carried on some successful wars. 

 Alexander defeated the Swedes, in 1241, on the 

 Neva, and received the surname of Newsky. (See 

 Alexander Newsky.) His youngest son, Daniel, 

 came to the throne fourteen years after Alexander's 

 death, lived in Moscow, and, in 1290, first assumed 

 the title of grand-prince of Moscow. The Russians 

 struggled against the Tartars, and even defeated 

 them, in 1360, but were obliged, nevertheless, to 

 return to the condition of tributaries. 



II. Middle Period. Iwan I. (Wasiliewitsch the 

 Great, who reigned from 1462 to 1505) succeeded, 

 after a struggle which continued from 1477 to 1481, 

 in freeing Russia from the Tartars. The conquests 

 of Timour, and partitions of the Tartar territory, 

 had weakened the power of the Mongols. In this 

 period, the Cossacks arose. The Poles and Lithu- 

 anians had conquered the whole of Western Russia 

 to Kiev, and subjected the vanquished people to 

 religious persecution, as well as political oppression. 

 On the east, the Tartars of the Crimea bore hard 

 upon Russia. The discontented therefore retired 

 into the fertile but uninhabited Ukraine, and adopted 

 a military organization, under the control of atamans 

 (hetmans). The wife of Iwan I. (Zoe, a Greek 

 princess, through whom the double-headed eagle 

 came into the Russian arms) did much good in 

 Russia. Iwan made the indivisibility of the realm 

 a fundamental law; he introduced fire-arms into 

 Russia, and made Kasan dependent upon her. His 

 son Wasilei had many conflicts with the Poles. 

 The German emperor Maximilian endeavoured to 

 make peace between them, in order to institute a 

 sacred league of Christian princes against the Turks, 

 and sent baron von Heberstein to the czar. Pope 

 Clement VII. strove to win the czar over to the 

 Roman Catholic church, and offered him the royal 

 title ; but Poland did not enter into the pope's plan. 

 In the promotion of civilization, Iwan Wasiliewitsch 

 II. surpassed all his predecessors. German artists 

 and learned men went, by the way of Lubeck, to 

 Russia; printing-offices were established; commerce 

 was promoted by a treaty with Elizabeth of Eng- 

 land, in 1553, as the English had just found the 

 way by sea to Archangel. Iwan established a 

 standing army, the Strjelzi, or Strelitzes (shooters) ; 

 conquered Kasan in 1552, the kingdom of Astrach- 

 an in 1554, and strove to drive the Teutonic knights 

 from Livonia; but Denmark, Poland and Sweden 

 attacked him, and a conspiracy in the interior broke 

 out. In this embarrassment, he implored the em- 

 peror Rodolph II. and pope Gregory XIII. to inter- 

 fere; and the nuncio of the latter brought about 

 the peace of Zapolia between Iwan II. and Stephen 

 Bathory, king of Poland, in 1582, by which Livonia 

 was ceded to Poland. Towards the end of Ivvan's 

 reign, the Cossack Yermak discovered Siberia (about 

 1578). Iwan died in 1584. Feodor, his successor, 

 conquered Siberia entirely in 1587, and surrendered 

 Esthonia to Sweden in 1595. Feodor, the last of 

 Ruric's descendants, died in 1598; and Russia was 

 shaken by internal convulsions and external wars, 

 which greatly retarded her progress in civilization. 



The war of the Polish party with the party of the 

 pseudo-Demetrius* was not ended until Michael 

 Fedorowitsch ascended the throne in 1613; after 

 which a treaty of peace was concluded at Stolbowa, 

 with Sweden, in 1017, and at Divelina, with Poland, 

 in 1618. 



III. Modern History. The Russians elected 

 Michael, a son of Philaret, metropolitan of Rostoff, 

 and, at a later period, patriarch (Philaret 's original 

 name was Feodor Nikitowitsch Romanoff), in 1 1 i I .", 

 dzar, with unlimited and hereditary power. After 

 having overcome many obstacles, he reigned in com- 

 parative tranquillity, till 1645. Under his son 

 Alexei, the last pseudo-Demetrius was beheaded, 

 in 1653. In this period, also, begin the wars with 

 the Turks (neighbours of the Russians since 1472), 

 on account of the Ukraine, in 1671. Alexei (died 

 in 1676), and his son, Feodor III. (died in 1082), 

 did much for the industry, commerce, internal or- 

 ganization, legislation, &c. of the empire. The 

 former established the first posts in Russia, and 

 humbled the patriarchs; whilst the latter put an 

 end to the claims of the nobility to the higher offi- 

 ces, by burning their pedigrees. He appointed hia 

 half-brother, Peter, his successor, passing over the 

 weak Iwan. After 1689, Peter ruled alone, 

 having put Sophia, sister to Feodor, in a convent, 

 and having received from Iwan a surrender of his 

 claims to the government. Russia now extended 

 from Archangel to Azoph; but was as n yet sepa- 

 rated from the Baltic. The inhabitants of this 

 vast territory formed one nation, united by the ties 

 of language and religion. Peter made the Russians 

 Europeans, as Philip had made the Macedonians 

 Greeks. (See the article Peter I.) By the acqui- 

 sition of the coasts of the Baltic, Russia entered into 

 the series of European powers. At Pultawa, July 

 8, 1709, the supremacy of Sweden in the north was 

 destroyed; and, in 1721, Sweden, exhausted by a 

 struggle of twenty years, concluded the peace of 

 Nystadt, under hard conditions. (See Northern 

 War.) Peter's views respecting Persia, the Porte, 

 and Poland, were realized by his successors. 



His wife, Catharine I., reigned from 1725 to 

 1727, under MenschikofTs influence, only occupied 

 with the concerns of the interior. Under Peter 

 II., her successor, who died in 1730, the DoJgo- 

 rucky, who had overthrown Menschikoff, found so 

 much to occupy them in the domestic affairs of the 

 country, that they did not pay much attention to 

 the foreign relations. 



When Anna, niece of Peter I . and, from 1711, 

 widow of Frederic, duke of Courknd, ascended the 

 throne, the nobles endeavoured to limit the power 

 of the sovereign; but their plans were frustrated, 

 and a cabinet composed of foreigners was the conse- 

 quence. Miinnich and Ostermann, of Peter's 

 school, turned their thoughts to foreign aggrandize- 

 ment. Russia established her influence over Poland, 

 by putting Augustus III. on the throne. Miinnich 

 took Azoph and Oczakow by storm; the victory 

 of Stewutschan, in 1739, threw Choczim and Mol- 

 davia into the Russian power advantages, how- 

 ever, which were lost, in consequence of the un- 

 fortunate campaign of the Austrians, and the peace 

 of Belgrade, in 1739. Russia, nevertheless, had 

 acquired, by these conquests, much influence among 



* The genuine Demetrius, younger son of I\v;m II., and 

 brother to Feodor, is said to have boon murdered l>y the 

 usurper Boris ; but modern inquiries have thrown much 

 doubt on thii. bubject. The murdered Demetrius is a saint in 

 KUSU&. 



