YOUNG RUSSIA 



431 



important than all in Russian eyes, she 

 made Moscow the lawful heir to Con- 

 stantinople and the head of the Greek 

 Orthodox Church. 



Sophia found the Tatar yoke unbear- 

 able, and kept asking her husband, "How 

 long am I to be the slave of the Ta- 

 tars?" Her husband had been most 

 successful in overcoming- neighboring 

 princes and adding their domains to his 

 principality, and finally, in 1478, when 

 the customary messengers came from 

 the Tatar Khan demanding the usual 

 tribute, Ivan threw the edict on the 

 ground, stamped and spat on it, and 

 killed all the ambassadors save one, 

 whom he sent back to his master. The 

 enraged Tatars sought revenge, but their 

 efforts availed naught against Ivan's 

 armies. 



the: results of TATAR RULE 



Moscow, after nearly 300 years of 

 subjection to the Tatars, was freed. But 

 the hatred of Mohammedan rule had 

 been bred in the bone of every Slav for 

 ten generations — a hatred that has re- 

 mained in the race to this day, and has 

 prompted Russia always to help the op- 

 pressed in any fight to throw off the 

 Mohammedan yoke. For this reason 

 they were willing to sacrifice 379,000 

 lives in their wars against the Turk ; to 

 help Greece to freedom in 1828, and 

 again Servia, Rumania, and Bulgaria in 

 1878, whereas no other European nation 

 ever expended anything but words in be- 

 half of the subject Christian; for this 

 reason, Russia alone of the great Chris- 

 tian powers (England, France, and Ger- 

 many) has not once been the ally of the 

 Turk. 



But the influence of the Tatar upon 

 the blood of the Russian people has been 

 much exaggerated. The expression, 

 "Scratch a Russian and you find a Tatar 

 underneath," is commonly attributed to 

 Napoleon. If Napoleon did originate this 

 remarkable statement, he partly revenged 

 himself for his defeat, for the quotation 

 is widely but wrongly accepted as a true 

 description of the Russian. As a matter 

 of fact, the Tatars did not settle among 

 the Slavs. They were content to rule 

 from afar, with periodic visitations to 



ravage and plunder, in order that there 

 might be no delay in the remittance of 

 tribute. But their contribution to the 

 racial stock of Russia was comparatively 

 little. 



IVAN THE TERRIBLE 



Some years after the Ivan who mar- 

 ried the heiress to Constantinople came 

 another Ivan, called the Terrible, who 

 assumed the title of Tsar, crushed the 

 nobles, conquered Siberia, and extended 

 his dominion to the Pacific. "All his- 

 tories are spotless in comparison with 

 that of Moscow under him — a creature 

 of unparalleled ferocity and inconceiv- 

 able wickedness. . . . He went to 

 the torture-rooms with joy, and came 

 away from its fiendish practices invigo- 

 rated, refreshed, and gay." 



This was the age of Shakespeare and 

 Bacon in England. 



Ivan slew his oldest son with his own 

 hand in a fit of rage. His greatest crime 

 was the sacking and destruction of the 

 ancient city of Novgorod, whose infidelity 

 he suspected. "The Tsar and his son 

 went to an enclosure specially reserved 

 for the torture of their victims, and with 

 their lances prodded those who were not 

 quickly enough dragged to the place of 

 torment. Chroniclers say that from 500 

 to 1,000 were slain in cold blood before 

 him each day of his stay. Some were 

 burned, some racked to death, others 

 drowned in the Volkhof, run in on 

 sledges or thrown in from the bridge — 

 soldiers in boats spearing those who 

 swam. Infants were impaled before the 

 eyes of their mothers, husbands butch- 

 ered along with their wives. Novgorod, 

 at that time larger and of greater com- 

 mercial importance than Moscow, was so 

 injured that she never since acquired the 

 rank of even a third-rate town." 



But in spite of his cruelty and super- 

 stition, Ivan was in many respects a suc- 

 cessful ruler, reducing the Tatar king- 

 dom and extending the Russian domin- 

 ions to the Pacific by the help of a free- 

 booter, Yermak, who swept the Siberian 

 steppes as clean of Russian foes as Drake 

 at the same time was clearing the seas 

 for England. A hundred years before 

 Peter the Great, Ivan "opened the Rus- 

 sian window to the West" — brought in 



