The Empire of Russia: From the Remotest Periods to the Present Time

The question, "Have we a Bourbon among us?" has agitated the whole of the United States. The question, "Have we a Dmitri among us?" then agitated Russia far more intensely. It was a question of the utmost practical importance, involving civil war and the removal of the new dynasty for the restoration of the old. Whether the person said to be Dmitri were really such, is a question which can now never be settled. The monk Griska Utropeja, who declared himself to be the young prince, sustained his claim with such an array of evidence as to secure the support of a large portion of the Russians, and also the coöperation of the court of Poland. The claims of Griska were brought up before the Polish diet and carefully examined. He was then acknowledged by them as the legitimate heir to the crown of Russia. An army was raised to restore him to his ancestral throne. Sigismond, the King of Poland, with ardor espoused his cause.

Boris immediately dispatched an embassy to Warsaw to remind Sigismond of the treaty of alliance into which he had entered, and to insist upon his delivering up the pretended Dmitri, dead or alive. A threat was added to the entreaty: "If you countenance this impostor," said Boris, "you will draw down upon you a war which you may have cause to repent."

Sigismond replied, that though he had no doubt that Griska was truly the Prince Dmitri, and, as such, entitled to the throne of Russia, still he had no disposition personally to embark in the advocacy of his rights; but, that if any of his nobles felt disposed to espouse his claims with arms or money, he certainly should do nothing to thwart them. The Polish nobles, thus encouraged, raised an army of forty thousand men, which they surrendered to Griska. He, assuming the name of Dmitri, placed himself at their head, and boldly commenced a march upon Moscow. As soon as he entered the Russian territories many nobles hastened to his banners, and several important cities declared for him.

Boris was excessively alarmed. With characteristic energy he speedily raised an army of two hundred thousand men, and then was in the utmost terror lest this very army should pass over to the ranks of his foes. He applied to Sweden and to Denmark to help him, but both kingdoms refused. Dmitri advanced triumphantly, and laid siege to Novgorod on the 21st of December, 1605. For five months the war continued with varying success. Boris made every attempt to secure the assassination of Griska, but the wary chieftain was on his guard, and all such endeavors were frustrated. Griska at length decided to resort to the same weapons. An officer was sent to the Kremlin with a feigned account of a victory obtained over the troops of Dmitri. This officer succeeded in mingling poison with the food of Boris. The drug was so deadly that the usurper dropped and expired almost without a struggle and without a groan.

As soon as Boris was dead, his widow, a woman of great ambition and energy, lost not an hour in proclaiming the succession of her son, Feodor. The officers of the army were promptly summoned to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. Feodor was but fifteen years of age, a thoroughly spoilt boy, proud, domineering, selfish and cruel. There was now a revolt in the army of the late tzar. Several of the officers embraced the cause of Griska, declaring their full conviction that he was the Prince Dmitri, and, they carried over to his ranks a large body of the soldiers.

The defection of the army caused great consternation at court. The courtiers, eager to secure the favor of the prince whose star was so evidently in the ascendant, at once abandoned the hapless Feodor and his enraged mother; and the halls of the Kremlin and the streets of Moscow were soon resounding with the name of Dmitri. A proclamation was published declaring general amnesty, and rich rewards to all who should recognize and support the rights of their legitimate prince, but that his opponents must expect no mercy. The populace immediately rose in revolt against Feodor. They assailed the Kremlin. In a resistless inundation they forced its gates, seized the young tzar, with his mother, sister and other relatives, and hurried them all to prison.

Dmitri was at Thula when he received intelligence of this revolution. He immediately sent an officer, Basilius Galitzan, to Moscow to receive the oath of fidelity of the city, and, at the same time, he diabolically sent an assassin, one Ivan Bogdanoff, with orders to strangle Feodor and his mother in the prison, but with directions not to hurt his sister. Bogdanoff reluctantly executed his mission. On the 15th of July, 1605, Dmitri made his triumphal entry into Moscow. He was received with all the noisy demonstrations of public rejoicing, and, on the 29th of July, was crowned, with extraordinary grandeur, Emperor of all the Russias.

The ceremonies of the triumphal entrance are perhaps worthy of record. A detachment of Polish horse in brilliant uniform led the procession, headed by a numerous band of trumpeters. Then came the gorgeous coach of Dmitri, empty, drawn by six horses, richly caparisoned, and preceded, followed and flanked by dense columns of musqueteers. Next came a procession of the clergy in their ecclesiastical robes, and with the banners of the church. This procession was led by the bishops, who bore effigies of the Virgin Mary and of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Russia. Following the clergy appeared Dmitri, mounted on a white charger, and surrounded by a splendid retinue. He proceeded first to the church of Notre Dame, where a Te Deum was chanted, and where the new monarch received the sacrament. He then visited the tomb of Ivan IV., and kneeling upon it, as the tomb of his father, implored God's blessing. Perceiving that the body of Boris Gudenow had received interment in the royal cemetery, he ordered his remains, with those of his wife and son, all three of whom Dmitri had caused to be assassinated, to be removed to a common churchyard without the city.

Either to silence those who might doubt his legitimacy or being truly the son of Ivan IV., he sent two of the nobles, with a brilliant retinue, to the convent, more than six hundred miles from Moscow, to which Boris had banished the widow of Ivan. They were to conduct the queen dowager to the capital. As she approached the city, Dmitri went out to receive her, accompanied by a great number of his nobles. As soon as he perceived her coach, he alighted, went on foot to meet his alleged mother, and threw himself into her arms with every demonstration of joy and affection, which embraces she returned with equal tenderness. Then, with his head uncovered, and walking by the side of her carriage, he conducted her to the city and to the Kremlin. He ever after treated her with the deference due to a mother, and received from her corresponding proofs of confidence and affection.

But Dmitri was thoroughly a bad man, and every day became more unpopular. He debauched the young sister of Feodor, and then shut her up in a convent. He banished seventy noble families who were accused of being the friends of Boris, and gave their estates and dignities to his Polish partisans. A party was soon organized against him, who busily circulated reports that he was an impostor, and a conspiracy was formed to take his life. Perplexities and perils now gathered rapidly around his throne. He surrounded himself with Polish guards, and thus increased the exasperation of his subjects.

To add to his perplexities, another claimant of the crown appeared, who declared himself to be the son of the late tzar, Feodor, son of Ivan IV. This young man, named Peter, was seventeen years of age. He had raised his standard on the other side of the Volga, and had rallied four thousand partisans around him. In the meantime, Dmitri had made arrangements for his marriage with Mariana Meneiski, a Polish princess, of the Roman church. This princess was married to the tzar by proxy, in Cracow, and in January, 1606, with a numerous retinue set out on her journey to Moscow. She did not reach the capital of Moscow until the 1st of May. Her father's whole family, and several thousand armed Polanders, by way of guard, accompanied her. Many of the Polish nobles also took this opportunity of visiting Russia, and a multitude of merchants put themselves in her train for purposes of traffic.

The tzarina was met, at some distance from Moscow, by the royal guard, and escorted to the city, where she was received with ringing of bells, shoutings, discharge of cannons and all the ordinary and extraordinary demonstrations of popular joy. On the 8th of May, the ceremony of blessing the marriage was performed by the patriarch, and immediately after she was crowned tzarina with greater pomp than Russia had ever witnessed before. But the appearance of this immense train of armed Poles incensed the Russians; and the clergy, who were jealous of the encroachments of the church of Rome, were alarmed in behalf of their religion. An intrepid noble, Zuski, now resolved, by the energies of a popular insurrection, to rid the throne of Dmitri. With great sagacity and energy the conspiracy was formed. The tzarina was to give a grand entertainment on the evening of the 17th of May, and the conspirators fixed upon that occasion for the consummation of their plan. Twenty thousand troops were under the orders of Zuski, and he had led them all into the city, under the pretense of having them assist in the festival.

At six o'clock in the morning of the appointed day these troops, accompanied by some thousands of the populace, surrounded the palace and seized its gates. A division was then sent in, who commenced the indiscriminate massacre of all who were, or who looked like Polanders. It was taken for granted that all in the palace were either Poles or their partisans. The alarm bells were now rung, and Zuski traversed the streets with a drawn saber in one hand and a cross in the other, rousing the ignorant populace by the cry that the Poles had taken up arms to murder the Russians. Dmitri, in his chamber, hearing the cries of the dying and the shrieks of those who fled before the assassins, leaped from his window into the court yard, and, by his fall, dislocated his thigh. He was immediately seized, conveyed into the grand hall of audience, and a strong guard was set over him.

The murderers ransacked the palace, penetrating every room, killing every Polish man and treating the Polish ladies with the utmost brutality. They inquired eagerly for the tzarina, but she was nowhere to be found. She had concealed herself beneath the hoop of an elderly lady whose gray hairs and withered cheek had preserved her from violence. Zuski now went to the dowager tzarina, the widow of Ivan IV., and demanded that she should take her oath upon the Gospels whether Dmitri were her son. He reported that, thus pressed, she confessed that he was an impostor, and that her true son had perished many years before. The conspirators now fell upon Dmitri and his body was pierced with a thousand dagger thrusts. His mangled remains were then dragged through the streets and burned. Mariana was soon after arrested and sent to prison. It is said that nearly two thousand Poles perished in this massacre.

Even to the present day opinion is divided in Russia in regard to Dmitri, whether he was an impostor or the son of Ivan IV. Respecting his character there is no dispute. All that can be said in his favor is that he would not commit an atrocious crime unless impelled to it by very strong temptation. There was now no one who seemed to have any legitimate title to the throne of Russia.

The nobles and the senators who were at Moscow then met to proceed to the election of a new sovereign. It was an event almost without a parallel in Russian history. The lords, though very friendly in their deliberations, found it difficult to decide into whose hands to intrust the scepter. It was at last unanimously concluded to make an appeal to the people. Their voice was for Zuski. He was accordingly declared tzar and was soon after crowned with a degree of unanimity which, though well authenticated, seems inexplicable.

The Poles were exasperated beyond measure at the massacre of so many of their nobles and at the insult offered to Mariana, the tzarina. But Poland was at that time distracted by civil strife, and the king found it expedient to postpone the hour of vengeance. Zuski commenced his reign by adopting measures which gave him great popularity with the adjoining kingdoms, while they did not diminish the favorable regards of the people. But suddenly affairs assumed a new aspect, so strange that a writer of fiction would hardly have ventured to imagine it. An artful man, a schoolmaster in Poland, who could speak the Russian language, declared that he was Dmitri; that he had escaped from the massacre in his palace, and that it was another man, mistaken for him, whom the assassins had killed. Poland, inspired by revenge, eagerly embraced this man's cause. Mariana, who had been liberated from prison, was let into the secret, and willing to ascend again to the grandeur from which she had fallen, entered with cordial coöperation into this new intrigue. The widowed tzarina and the Polish adventurer contrived their first meeting in the presence of a large concourse of nobles and citizens. They rushed together in a warm embrace, while tears of affected transport bedewed their cheeks. The farce was so admirably performed that many were deceived, and this new Dmitri and the tzarina occupied for several days the same tent in the Polish encampment, apparently as husband and wife.

CHAPTER XVII

A CHANGE OF DYNASTY

From 1608 to 1680

Conquests by Poland.—Sweden in Alliance with Russia.—Grandeur of Poland.—Ladislaus Elected King of Russia.—Commotions and Insurrections.—Rejection of Ladislaus and Election of Michael Feodor Romanow.—Sorrow of His Mother.—Pacific Character of Romanow.—Choice of a Bride.—Eudochia Streschnew.—The Archbishop Feodor.—Death of Michael and Accession of Alexis.—Love in the Palace.—Successful Intrigue.—Mobs in Moscow.—Change in the Character of the Tzar.—Turkish Invasions.—Alliance Between Russia and Poland.

This public testimonial of conjugal love led men, who had before doubted the pretender, to repose confidence in his claims. The King of Poland took advantage of the confusion now reigning in Russia to extend his dominions by wresting still more border territory from his great rival. In this exigence, Zuski purchased the loan of an army of five thousand men from Sweden by surrendering Livonia to the Swedes. With these succors united to his own troops, he marched to meet the pretended Dmitri. There was now universal confusion in Russia. The two hostile armies, avoiding a decisive engagement, were maneuvering and engaging in incessant petty skirmishes, which resulted only in bloodshed and misery. Thus five years of national woe lingered away. The people became weary of both the claimants for the crown, and the nobles boldly met, regardless of the rival combatants, and resolved to choose a new sovereign.

Poland had then attained the summit of its greatness. As an energetic military power, it was superior to Russia. To conciliate Poland, whose aggressions were greatly feared, the Russian nobles chose, for their sovereign, Ladislaus, son of Sigismond, the King of Poland. They hoped thus to withdraw the Polish armies from the banners of the pretended Dmitri, and also to secure peace for their war-blasted kingdom.

Ladislaus accepted the crown. Zuski was seized, deposed, shaved, dressed in a friar's robe and shut up in a convent to count his beads. He soon died of that malignant poison, grief. Dmitri made a show of opposition, but he was soon assassinated by his own men, who were convinced of the hopelessness of his cause. His party, however, lasted for many years, bringing forward a young man who was called his son. At one time there was quite an enthusiasm in his favor, crowds flocked to his camp, and he even sent embassadors to Gustavus IX., King of Sweden, proposing an alliance. At last he was betrayed by some of his own party, and was sent to Moscow, where he was hanged.

Sigismond was much perplexed in deciding whether to consent to his son's accepting the crown of Russia. That kingdom was now in such a state of confusion and weakness that he was quite sanguine that he would be able to conquer it by force of arms and bring the whole empire under the dominion of his own scepter. His armies were already besieging Smolensk, and the city was hourly expected to fall into their hands. This would open to them almost an unobstructed march to Moscow. The Poles, generally warlike and ambitious of conquest, represented to Sigismond that it would be far more glorious for him to be the conqueror of Russia than to be merely the father of its tzar.

Sigismond, with trivial excuses, detained his son in Poland, while, under various pretexts, he continued to pour his troops into Russia. Ten thousand armed Poles were sent to Moscow to be in readiness to receive the newly-elected monarch upon his arrival. Their general, Stanislaus, artfully contrived even to place a thousand of these Polish troops in garrison in the citadel of Moscow. These foreign soldiers at last became so insolent that there was a general rising of the populace, and they were threatened with utter extermination. The storm of passion thus raised, no earthly power could quell. The awful slaughter was commenced, and the Poles, conscious of their danger, resorted to the horrible but only measure which could save them from destruction. They immediately set fire to the city in many different places. The city then consisted of one hundred and eighty thousand houses, most of them being of wood. As the flames rose, sweeping from house to house and from street to street, the inhabitants, distracted by the endeavor to save their wives, their children and their property, threw down their arms and dispersed. When thus helpless, the Poles fell upon them, and one of the most awful massacres ensued of which history gives any record. A hundred thousand of the wretched people of Moscow perished beneath the Polish cimeters. For fifteen days the depopulated and smouldering capital was surrendered to pillage. The royal treasury, the churches, the convents were all plundered. The Poles, then, laden with booty, but leaving a garrison in the citadel, evacuated the ruined city and commenced their march to Poland.

These horrors roused the Russians. An army under a heroic general, Zachary Lippenow, besieged the Polish garrison, starved them into a surrender, and put them all to death. The nobles then met, declared the election of Ladislaus void, on account of his not coming to Moscow to accept it, and again proceeded to the choice of a sovereign. After long deliberation, one man ventured to propose a candidate very different from any who had before been thought of. It was Michael Feodor Romanow. He was a studious, philosophic young man, seventeen years of age. His father was archbishop of Rostow, a man of exalted reputation, both for genius and piety. Michael, with his mother, was in a convent at Castroma. It was modestly urged that in this young man there were centered all the qualifications essential for the promotion of the tranquillity of the State. There were but three males of his family living, and thus the State would avoid the evil of having numerous relatives of the prince to be cared for. He was entirely free from embroilments in the late troubles. As his father was a clergyman of known piety and virtue, he would counsel his son to peace, and would conscientiously seek the best good of the empire.

The proposition, sustained by such views, was accepted with general acclaim. There were several nobles from Castroma who testified that though they were not personally acquainted with young Romanow, they believed him to be a youth of unusual intelligence, discretion and moral worth. As the nobles were anxious not to act hastily in a matter of such great importance, they dispatched two of their number to Castroma with a letter to the mother of Michael, urging her to repair immediately with her son to Moscow.

The affectionate, judicious mother, upon the reception of this letter, burst into tears of anguish, lamenting the calamity which was impending.

"My son," she said, "my only son is to be taken from me to be placed upon the throne, only to be miserably slaughtered like so many of the tzars who have preceded him."

She wrote to the electors entreating them that her son might be excused, saying that he was altogether too young to reign, that his father was a prisoner in Poland, and that her son had no relations capable of assisting him with their advice. This letter, on the whole, did but confirm the assembly of nobles in their conviction that they could not make a better choice than that of the young Romanow. They accordingly, with great unanimity, elected Michael Feodor Romanow, sovereign of all the Russias; then, repairing in a body to the cathedral, they proclaimed him to the people as their sovereign. The announcement was received with rapturous applause. It was thus that the house of Romanow was placed upon the throne of Russia. It retains the throne to the present day.

Michael, incited by singular sagacity and by true Christian philanthropy, commenced his reign by the most efficient measures to secure the peace of the empire. As soon as he had notified his election to the King of Poland, his father, archbishop of Rostow, was set at liberty and sent home. He was immediately created by his son patriarch of all Russia, an office in the Greek church almost equivalent to that of the pope in the Romish hierarchy. While these scenes were transpiring, Charles IX. died, and Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the throne of Sweden. Gustavus and Michael both desired peace, the preliminaries were soon settled, and peace was established upon a basis far more advantageous to the Swedes than to the Russians. By this treaty, Russia ceded to Sweden territory, which deprived Russia of all access to the Baltic Sea. Thus the only point now upon which Russia touched the ocean, was on the North Sea. No enemies remained to Russia but the Poles. Here there was trouble enough. Ladislaus still demanded the throne, and invaded the empire with an immense army. He advanced, ravaging the country, even to the gates of Moscow. But, finding that he had no partisans in the kingdom, and that powerful armies were combining against him, he consented to a truce for fourteen years.

Russia was now at peace with all the world. The young tzar, aided by the counsels of his excellent father, devoted himself with untiring energy to the promotion of the prosperity of his subjects. It was deemed a matter of much political importance that the tzar should be immediately married. According to the custom of the empire, all the most beautiful girls were collected for the monarch to make his choice. They were received in the palace, and were lodged separately though they all dined together. The tzar saw them, either incognito or without disguise, as suited his pleasure. The day for the nuptials was appointed, and the bridal robes prepared when no one knew upon whom the monarch's choice had been fixed. On the morning of the nuptial day the robes were presented to the empress elect, who then, for the first time, learned that she had proved the successful candidate. The rejected maidens were returned to their homes laden with rich presents.

The young lady selected, was Eudocia Streschnew, who chanced to be the daughter of a very worthy gentleman, in quite straitened circumstances, residing nearly two hundred miles from Moscow. The messenger who was sent to inform him that his daughter was Empress of Russia, found him in the field at work with his domestics. The good old man was conducted to Moscow; but he soon grew weary of the splendors of the court, and entreated permission to return again to his humble rural home. Eudocia, reared in virtuous retirement, proved as lovely in character as she was beautiful in person, and she soon won the love of the nation. The first year of her marriage, she gave birth to a daughter. The three next children proved also daughters, to the great disappointment of their parents. But in the year 1630, a son was born, and not only the court, but all Russia, was filled with rejoicing. In the year 1634, the tzar met with one of the greatest of afflictions in the loss of his father by death. His reverence for the venerable patriarch Feodor, had been such that he was ever his principal counselor, and all his public acts were proclaimed in the name of the tzar and his majesty's father, the most holy patriarch.