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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



agree as to who should be the Tsar. 

 Amid the divided camps it was easy for 

 the Polish king to overrun the country 

 and to seize ]\loscow, from which he ac- 

 tually reigned. So exhausted was Russia 

 that the Empire seemed crumbling to 

 pieces before the attacks of Swede, Turk, 

 and Pole. But in this hour of adversity 

 the Russian church, as during the cen- 

 turies of Tatar rule, alone refused to 

 submit, and in her monastery fortresses 

 kept alive the spirit of resistance until a 

 butcher called Minin and a prince, Po- 

 jarski, started a revival of the masses so 

 violent that in a few months every Pole 

 was swept out of Russia. But Moscow 

 for perhaps the tenth time was burned 

 to the ground. 



At the Grand National Assembly which 

 followed, and in which princes and peas- 

 ants participated, Michael Romanov was 

 chosen Tsar. Thus the present dynasty, 

 which has brought stability, immense 

 growth, and enormous power to Russia, 

 was founded six years after the found- 

 ing of Jamestown, Virginia, and only 

 seven years before the Pilgrim fathers 

 landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. 



PETER THE GREAT 



Among the colossal figures that loom 

 up above the dead level of humanity as 

 a great mountain towers above the plain, 

 history offers no better example than 

 Peter the Great, Russia's remarkable 

 ruler at the close of the seventeenth and 

 during the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century. He found Russia an all but 

 barbaric nation ; he left it on the high- 

 road to civilization and one of the earth's 

 greatest powers. 



He was born as rich as Midas, with 

 the silver spoon of plenj^ in his mouth ; 

 but he lived as poor as a hermit, and 

 toiled with hand as well as with brain 

 that his country might come out of its 

 barbaric stupor and into civilized activ- 

 ity. He justified his savage treatment of 

 his people by saying that it was only 

 through such methods that he was able 

 to "dress his herd of animals like men :" 

 and yet he lived with them and shared 

 their toil when Russia's welfare was in 

 the balance. 



A very remarkable man was Peter 

 the Great — a queer combination of auto- 

 crat and democrat, as austere as a monk 

 when Duty called and as self-indulgent 

 as Bacchus when Pleasure beckoned. 



Peter was born in Moscow in 1672. 

 At his election to the throne, ten years 

 later, he saw one of his uncles dragged 

 from the palace and butchered by a sav- 

 age mob, and his mother's beloved men- 

 tor and his own best friend (who had 

 probably given him his thirst for knowl- 

 edge) torn from his restraining grasp 

 and hacked to pieces. As a youth he 

 cared little who ruled his empire, so long 

 as he was left undisturbed in his pastime 

 of shipbuilding, sailing, drilling, and 

 fighting sham battles. 



A disastrous campaign against the 

 Turks and an attempt to capture Azov, 

 which failed, simply aroused the latent 

 forces in the great ruler, and he imme- 

 diately sent to Austria and Prussia for 

 sappers, miners, engineers, and carpen- 

 ters, whom he took with him to the for- 

 ests of the Don, where they constructed 

 scores of vessels for his "sea caravan,'' 

 with which he proposed to drive out the 

 Turks from Azov. He himself lived in 

 a hut in the woods and worked like a 

 slave during this time, and when his gal- 

 ley flotilla started it was under the com- 

 mand of "Captain Peter Aleksyeevich" 

 in the galley Principmm, which he had 

 built with his own hands. His expedi- 

 tion was successful — Azov was captured. 



But after his victory Peter foresaw 

 that he could not stand out single-handed 

 against the Turks permanently; so he 

 sent a deputation of nearly three hun- 

 dred persons, including nobles, generals, 

 merchants, and interpreters, to western 

 Europe to ask support for his cause. 

 He himself accompanied the embassy 

 incognito : but soon, becoming impatient 

 with the progress such a large party 

 could make, he abandoned it and trav- 

 eled alone, visiting Germany, Holland, 

 England, France, and Austria. 



Wherever he went he was indefatiga- 

 ble in learning new arts and gathering 

 new ideas. In the factories he worked 

 unknown with his own hands until they 

 Jaecame hard and callous — in gun-mak- 



