MOSCOW 139 



The city, although still the greatest in Russia, began to de- 

 cHne until the reign of Ivan III (1462-1505). He was the 

 first to call himself "Ruler of all the Russias" {Hospodar 

 vseya Rossii), and made Moscow pre-eminently the capital 

 and centre of Russia, besides constructing many beautiful 

 monuments and buildings. 



His wife, who was Sophia Palaeologus, was a Greek princess 

 from Constantinople, whose marriage to him was arranged 

 through the Pope, and who brought with her Greek and Italian 

 artists and architects to beautify the city. But even after that 

 the Tatars were often at the gates of Moscow, although they 

 only once succeeded in taking it. Under Ivan IV, surnamed 

 the Terrible (Ivan Grozny), the development of the city was 

 continued. He made Novgorod and Pskoff tributary to it, 

 and subdued Kazan and Astrakhan. He was the first prince 

 of Russia to call himself Tsar, the Slavonic name for king or 

 ruler found in the church liturgy, and that name has survived 

 to the present time, although Peter the Great again changed 

 the title and assumed the Latin name Imperator (Emperor). 

 This latter name is the one now commonly used and inscribed 

 on public monuments and buildings in Russia. Moscow was 

 almost completely destroyed by fire in 1547; in 1571 it was 

 besieged and taken by Devlet-Ghirei, Khan of the Crimean 

 Tatars, and again in 1591 the Tatars and Mongols under 

 Kara-Ghirei for the last time entered and plundered the city, 

 but did not succeed in taking the Kremlin. During the reign 

 of Ivan the Terrible the adventurer Yermak crossed the Ural 

 Mountains, explored and claimed Siberia for Russia ; the first 

 code of Russian laws, the Stoglav (hundred chapters), was 

 also issued under this emperor, and the first printing-ofiice 

 set up at Moscow. Ivan was succeeded by Feodor I, the 

 last of the Rurik dynasty, during whose reign (1584-98) serf- 

 dom was introduced and the Patriarchate of Moscow estab- 

 lished. During the latter part of the reign of Ivan the Terri- 

 ble, Boris Godunoff, a man of high ambitions who had risen 

 from the ranks of the Tatars, attained to great power, which 

 was augmented by the marriage of his sister to Feodor. To 

 ensure his brother-in-law's succession to the throne, he is said 

 to have caused the murder of Ivan's infant son, Demetrius, at 

 Uglich in 1582. When Feodor I died, Boris Godunoff was 

 made Tsar, and ruled fairly well until 1605. The year before 



