Of all the princes who sought to advance their fortunes in this way the most dexterous and successful were those of Moscow.
The princes of Moscow. Dimitri Donskoi, 1362-1389.
They made themselves responsible for the tribute of The other principalities as well as of their own, and gradually they became lieutenants-general of their Mongol suzerain. So long as the Mongol empire remained united and strong, they were most submissive and obsequious, but as soon as it was weakened by internal dissensions and began to fall to pieces, they assumed airs of independence, intrigued with the insubordinate Tatar generals, retained for their own use the tribute collected for the grand khan, and finally put themselves at the head of the patriotic movement which aimed at throwing off completely the hated Mongol yoke. For this purpose Dimitri Donskoi formed in 1380 a coalition of Russian princes, and gained a great victory over Khan Mamai of the Golden Horde on the famous battlefield of Kulikovo, the memory of which still lives in the popular legends. For some time longer the Tatars remained troublesome neighbours, capable of invading and devastating large tracts of Russian territory and of threatening even the city of Moscow, but the Horde was now broken up into independent and mutually hostile khanates, and the Moscow diplomatists could generally play off one khanate against the other, so that there was no danger of the old political domination being re-established.
Having thus freed themselves from Tatar control, the Moscow princes continued to carry out energetically their traditional policy of extending and consolidating their dominions at the expense of their less powerful relations. Already Dimitri of the Don was called the grand-prince of all Russia, but the assumption of such an ambitious title was hardly justified by facts, because there were still in his time principalities with grand princes who claimed to be independent. The complete suppression of these small moribund states and the creation of the autocratic tsardom of Muscovy were the work of Ivan III., surnamed the Great, his son Basil and his grandson Ivan IV., commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, whose united reigns cover a period of 122 years (1462-1584).
III. The Tsardom of Muscovy .—What may be called the home policy of these three remarkable rulers consisted in absorbing
Ivan III. 1462-1505.
the few principalities which still remained independent, and in creating for themselves an uncontrolled monarchical authority. In the pursuit of both of these objects they were completely successful. When Ivan III. came to the throne the remaining independent principalities were Great Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Ryazan and Novgorod-Seversk. He first directed his attention to Novgorod, and by gradually undermining and then destroying the ancient republican liberties he reduced the haughty city, which had long styled itself Lord Novgorod the Great, to the rank of a provincial town. Then he annexed its colonies and thereby extended his dominions to the Polar Ocean and the Ural Mountains. At the same time he took possession of Tver, on the ground that the
Basil III. 1505-1533.
prince had allied himself with Lithuania. His successor Basil followed in his footsteps, and dealt with the municipal republic of Pskov was Ivan had dealt with Novgorod. Finding the inhabitants too much attached to their ancient liberties, he abolished the popular assembly, removed the great bell to Novgorod, installed his own boyars in the administration, transported 300 of the leading families to other localities, replaced them by 300 families from Moscow, and left in the town a strong garrison of his own troops. Ryazan shared the same fate. In 1521 the prince, being suspected of forming an alliance with the Crimean Tatars, was summoned to Moscow and arrested. Two years later the prince of Novgorod-Seversk was accused of intriguing with the Poles and imprisoned for the rest of his life. Thus all the principalities were brought under the power of Moscow, and in that respect there remained nothing for Ivan the Terrible to do. He took precautions, however, against any of the dead or moribund principalities being resuscitated, and punished with merciless severity any attempt to resist or undermine his authority.
With the suppression and absorption of the independent principalities the problem was only half solved. The tsars of
Character of the tsardom.
Muscovy meant to be autocratic rulers alike in their old and in their new territories. Their forefathers had been trained in the Tatar school of politics and administration, and in their ideas of government they had come to resemble Tatar khans much more than grand-princes of the old patriarchal type. Their autocratic tendencies were fostered also by the Church. As Christianity was brought into Russia from Constantinople it was only natural that the ecclesiastics, many of whom were Greeks, should admire Byzantine ideals and recommend them as models to be imitated. For the ambitious Moscow princes many of the Byzantine ideas were very acceptable. They liked to consider themselves as the Lord's anointed, placed high above all ordinary mortals even of the most exalted rank; and when Constantinople fell into the hands of the infidel they began to imagine that, as the most powerful potentates of the Eastern Orthodox world they were the protectors of the Orthodox faith and the political heirs of the East Roman emperors. With a view to strengthen this claim Ivan III. married a niece of the emperor Constantine Palaeologus, who had fallen fighting when his capital was taken by the Turks (1453). From that moment Ivan's subjects noticed a change in his attitude towards them, and attributed it to the evil influence of the Greek princess. In the old times the grand-prince was simply primus inter pares among the minor princes, and these lived with their boyars almost on a footing of equality. Now the tsar of Muscovy and of all Russia adopted the airs and methods of a Tatar khan and surrounded himself with the pomp and splendours of a Byzantine emperor. Ivan III., notwithstanding the influence of his Greek consort, showed some respect for the ancient traditions and the susceptibilities of those around him, but his successor Basil did not follow his father's example. All through his reign he preferred to employ as officials men of humble origin, and habitually treated the boyars and great nobles very unceremoniously. For disobedience to his orders he imprisoned a boyar who was his own brother-in-law, and he caused another to be beheaded for complaining that the boyar-council was not consulted in important affairs of state. A boyar of Nizhniy-Novgorod who allowed himself to criticize the new order of things, and attributed the change to the influence of the Greek princess, had his tongue cut out. From the ecclesiastics Basil likewise insisted on unquestioning obedience, and he did not hesitate to depose by his own authority a metropolitan who was at that time the highest dignitary of the Russian Church. According to Siegmund von Herberstein (1486-1566), an Austrian envoy who visited Moscow at that period, no sovereign in Europe was obeyed like the grand-prince of Muscovy, and his court was remarkable for barbaric luxury. In his palace were numerous equerries, chamberlains and other court dignitaries, and when he went out he was attended by a guard of young nobles dressed in gaudy costumes and armed with silver halberds. [53]
Such radical changes naturally produced a great deal of dissatisfaction among men of Slavonic temperament, whose grandfathers had been independent princes, boyars or free lances, and the malcontents could not adopt the old practice of emigrating to some other principality. There was no longer within the Russian land any independent principality in which an asylum could be found, and emigration to a principality beyond the frontier, such as Lithuania, was regarded as treason, for which the property of the fugitive would be confiscated and his family might be punished. In these circumstances the only outlet for discontent was sedition, and the malcontents awaited impatiently a favourable opportunity for an attempt to curb or overthrow the autocratic power. That opportunity came when Basil died in 1533, leaving as successor a child only three years old, and the chances seemed all on the side of the nobles; but the result belied the current expectations, for the child came to be known in history as Ivan the Terrible, and died half a century later in the full enjoyment of unlimited autocratic power. The fierce struggle between autocratic tyranny and oligarchic disorder, which went on in intermittent fashion during the whole of his reign, cannot be here described in detail, but the chief incidents may be mentioned.