462 R U S 
beasts of prey, glutted their appetite for blood among the 
wretched inhabitants. The princess, and other ladies of 
distinction, dreading the brutality of the relentless con¬ 
querors, had taken refuge in the choir of a church, an asy¬ 
lum which all the assurances of the Tartars that they should 
suffer no injury, could not prevail on them to abandon. It 
was therefore set on fire by the barbarians, who feasted their 
ears with the shrieks and groans of the women, as the flames 
surrounded them. 
Yury, incensed almost to desperation at the fate of his 
capital, and the horrible death of his wife and children, 
was determined to take signal vengeance on the assailants. 
He assembled all the forces which he could draw together, 
and though his army was greatly inferior in numbers to the 
Tartars, he marched against the enemy, and attacked them 
with the most determined valour. The struggle was short, 
but bloody; the Tartars were victorious, and the body of 
Yury was found among the slain. 
This appears to have been the only vigorous stand made 
by the Russian princes. The Tartars pushed forward with 
rapidity, and successively overpowered the principalities of 
Novgorod and Kief. 
The Tartars had now established themselves in the Russian 
territories, and their khan or chief, though he did not him¬ 
self assume the nominal sovereignty, reigned as paramount 
lord, and placed on the throne any of the native princes 
whom he found most obsequious to his will, or who had 
ingratiated themselves by the magnificence of their presents. 
The throne was successively occupied by Yaroslaf II., Alex¬ 
ander Yaroslavitch, Yaroslaf Yaroslavitch, Vasilii Yarosla- 
vitcli, Dimitri Alexandrovitch, Andrei, Daniil, both bro¬ 
thers of Dimitri, Mikaila Yaroslavitch, Yury Danilovitch, 
Alexander Mikailovitch, Ivan Danilovitch, Simeon Ivano- 
vitch, and Ivan Ivanovitch. 
Among the princes whom we have enumerated, we must 
particularly notice Alexander, the son of Yaroslaf II. This 
prince was installed grand prince of Russia by the Tartar 
khan in 1252, and continued to reign till 1264. He is 
remarkable chiefly for a decisive victory gained by him over 
the Danes on the banks of the Neva;—a victory which 
procured him the honourable surname of Neffsky (the con¬ 
queror). This victory is said to have taken place in 1239, 
while Alexander was governor of Novgorod, under his 
father Yaroslaf, who then reigned at Vladimir. After his 
accession to the throne on the death of his father, he en¬ 
gaged in a successful war with Sweden. This prince is held 
in great veneration by the Russians, and several miracles are 
attributed to him. His reputation for sanctity occasioned 
him to be ranked among the tutelary saints of the Greek 
church, where he still holds a distinguished place, by the 
title of St. Alexander Neffsky. 
During these several reigns, which all historians have 
passed over for want of records concerning them, the miseries 
of a foreign yoke were aggravated by all the calamities of 
intestine discord and war; whilst the knights of Livonia, 
a kind of military religious order, on one side, and the Poles 
on tire other, catching at the opportunity, attacked Russia, 
and took several of its towns, and even some considerable 
countries. Casimir the Great, one of their kings, carried his 
conquests still farther. 
The newly-conquered Russians were ill disposed to endure 
the government of the Poles, whose laws and customs were 
more contrary to their own than those of the Tartars had 
been. They joined the latter to rid themselves of the yoke, 
and assembled an army numerous enough to overwhelm all 
Poland, but destitute of valour and discipline. Casimir, king 
of Poland, undaunted by this deluge of barbarians, presented 
himself at the head of a few troops on the borders of the 
Vistula, and obliged his enemies to retire. 
About the year 1362, Dimitri Ivanovitch received the 
sovereignty from the Tartar chief, and established the seat of 
his government at Moscow. This prince possessed consider¬ 
able ambition, and contrived to inspire the other Russian 
princes with so much respect for his person and government, 
that they consented to hold their principalities as fiefs under 
SI A. 
him. This increased the consequence of the Russian prince, 
but excited the jealousy of Mammai the Tartar khan, who 
determined to take measures for maintaining his supe¬ 
riority. He began by demanding an increase of tribute, and 
when Dimitri seemed to demur at consenting to this new 
encroachment, the khan not only insisted on his demand, 
but required the grand prince to appear before him in person. 
This requisition Dimitri thought proper to refuse, and pre¬ 
pared to support his refusal by force of arms. The terror 
with which the Tartars had inspired the inhabitants of Russia 
had now considerably subsided, whilfe the hatred which the 
Russians bore these haughty masters, was kept alive by the 
barbarity of their manners, and the difference of their 
religion. The Christian ministers, justly dreading that the 
Tartars, in their furious progress, might extirpate Christianity, 
contributed all in their power to confirm the spirit of revolt 
among the people; and they promised the crown of martyr¬ 
dom to such as should fall in battle against the infidels. 
Thus, the contest into which the grand prince determined to 
enter in support of his authority, became in some measure a 
holy war, undertaken in defence of the national religion. 
The combination of favourable circumstances operated so 
strongly in favour of Dimitri, and the princes that had con¬ 
federated with him, that they soon collected an army of 
200,000 men. With this force the grand prince left Moscow, 
and marched towards the Don, on the southern bank of 
which the Tartars were encamped. Arrived at this river, he 
left it to the choice of his troops, either to cross the river, and 
encounter the enemy on the other side, or to await the attack 
where they were. The general voice declared for passing 
over to the assault. The grand prince accordingly trans¬ 
ported his battalions across the river, that he might cut off 
all hope of escaping by retreat. The fight now commenced, 
and though the numbers of the foe far exceeded their own, 
the Russians defended themselves valiantly against the furi¬ 
ous onset of the Tartars; but as these barbarians were con¬ 
tinually relieved by fresh reinforcements, they appeared to be 
gaining ground. Indeed, nothing but the impossibility of 
retreating across the river, and the firm persuasion that death 
would immediately transport them to the mansions of eternal 
bliss, restrained the Russians from a general flight. At this 
moment when the day seemed entirely lost, a detachment of 
the grand prince’s army which he had stationed in reserve, 
and had remained out of the view of the enemy, came up 
with unabated force, fell on the rear of the Tartars, threw 
them into such terror and confusion, that they fled with 
Mammai at their head, and left the Russians masters of the 
field. This contest must have been extremely bloody, as we 
are told that eight days were employed by the remains of the 
Russian army, in buryiug the bodies of their slaughtered 
companions, while those of the Tartars were left uninterred 
upon the ground. 
This glorious victory, which took place in 1380, was 
attended with numerous advantages to the Russian cause. 
The Tartars appear to have been so much humbled by this 
defeat, that for a time they left the Russians to enjoy in peace 
their recovered liberty. This forbearance, however, was not 
of long duration. Before the death of Dimitri they returned 
with increased numbers, laid siege to Moscow, which, after an 
obstinate defence, was at length induced to surrender, and 
Russia once more submitted to her old masters. 
Dimitri died in 1389, and was succeeded by his son Vasilii 
Dimitrievitch. In the reign of this prince a new incursion 
of the Tartars took place, under the great Timur or Tamer¬ 
lane, who after having subdued all the neighbouring Tartar 
hordes, extended his conquests to the Russian territories, car¬ 
ried Moscow by assault, and obtained immense plunder. 
The grand principality of Vladimir, or as it may now be 
called, of Moscow, had, at the end of the 14th century, at¬ 
tained its greatest height, while that of Kief had porpor- 
tionally declined. This latter principality was, at the time 
of which we are now writing, under the dominion of the 
Poles, having been seized on in 1320 by Gedemin, duke of 
Lithuania. 
The latter end of the 15th century forms a splendid epoch 
in 
