Before the Eastern menace had been entirely removed the ambitious
Relations with Poland and Lithuania.
Moscow princes had begun to look with envious eyes beyond their western frontier. Here lay the principality of Lithuania and beyond it the kingdom of and Poland, two loosely conglomerated states which had been created by the Piast and Gedymin dynasties in pretty much the same way as the tsardom of Muscovy had been created by the descendants of Rurik. When the two became united under one ruler towards the end of the 14th century they formed abroad strip of territory stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and separating Russia from central Europe. For Russian ambition the barrier was a formidable one, but it did not entirely preclude possibilities of expansion in a more or less remote future. When examined closely it was found to contain many internal flaws. In no sense could it be considered a homogeneous political unit, for in Lithuania the majority of the population were Russian in nationality, language and religion, whereas in Poland the great majority of the inhabitants were Polish and Roman Catholic. Gradually, it is true, the Lithuanian nobles, who possessed all the land and held the peasantry in a state of serfage, adopted Polish nationality and culture, but this change did not secure homogeneity, because the masses clung obstinately to their old nationality and religion, and all the efforts of the Church of Rome to bring them under papal authority proved fruitless. A further source of weakness was the political organization. Nominally it was an hereditary monarchy, but the warlike, turbulent nobles systematically encroached on the sovereign power till they reduced it to a mere shadow and made it elective, with the result that the kingdom of Poland, including the principality of Lithuania, was at last, politically speaking, the most anarchical country in Europe.
As the Muscovite and the Lithuano-Polish princes were equally ambitious and equally anxious to widen their borders, they naturally came into conflict. At first the Muscovite was decidedly the aggressor. On the death of Casimir, king of Poland and grand-prince of Lithuania, in 1492, the kingdom and the principality ceased to be united and Ivan III. considered he had a good opportunity for attacking the latter. After a short campaign a peace was concluded and Ivan's daughter was given in marriage to the Lithuanian grand-prince, but the matrimonial alliance did not improve the relations between the two countries. On the contrary it served as a pretext for Ivan to interfere in Lithuanian affairs. He not only insisted that his daughter's religion should be duly respected, but he constituted himself the protector of the Orthodox population and this led to a new war in 1499, which went on till 1503, when it was concluded by the cession to Russia of Chernigov, Starodub and 17 other towns. His successor, Basil, tried to get himself elected grand-prince of Lithuania when the throne became vacant by the death of his brother-in-law in 1506, but the choice fell on the late prince's brother Sigismund, who was likewise elected king of Poland. The two countries were thus once more united and better able to resist aggression, but some of the great nobles were discontented and Basil hoped with their assistance to attain his ends. He began war therefore in 1514 and at once captured Smolensk, but in the following year he was defeated, and the war dragged on during more than seven years, with varying successes and without any important result. In the negotiations for peace the inordinate pretensions of the Muscovite prince were put forward boldly: he not only refused to restore Smolensk, but claimed Kiev and a number of other towns on the ground that in the old time of the independent principalities they had belonged to descendants of Rurik.
The policy of expansion westwards, inaugurated by Ivan III., was modified and enlarged by Ivan the Terrible. The former
Ivan IV. and western Europe.
had aimed simply at making annexations in Lithuania; the latter aspired to obtaining a firm footing on the Baltic coast and establishing direct relations, diplomatic and commercial, with the Western Powers. In this respect he was a precursor of Peter the Great, but he greatly underestimated the difficulties of the task. To reach the Baltic he had to overcome the resistance, not only of the Lithuanians and the Poles, but also of the Teutonic and Livonian military orders, the Swedes and the Danes, who all had possessions in the intervening territory and who all objected to the barbarous Muscovites, already sufficiently formidable, strengthening themselves by direct foreign trade with western Europe and especially by the importation of arms and cunning foreign artificers. Like the European settlers on the coast of Africa in more recent times, they wished the barbarians of the interior to be restricted to the use of their primitive weapons. One of the Polish kings, for example, threatened with death the English sailors who should attempt to carry on the illicit trade in arms, on the ground that “the Muscovite, who is not only our opponent of to-day but the eternal enemy of all free nations, should not be allowed to supply himself with cannons, bullets and munitions or with artisans who manufacture arms hitherto unknown to those barbarians.” This was precisely the reason why Ivan IV. was so anxious to force his way to the coast. His grandfather had obtained from Venice an “artist” who undertook “to build churches and palaces, to cast big bells and cannons, to fire off the said cannons and to make every sort of castings very cunningly”; and with the aid of that clever Venetian he had become the proud possessor of a “cannon-house,” subsequently dignified with the name of “arsenal” In imitation of the grandfather the grandson gave a commission to a Saxon, in whom he had confidence, to collect artists and artisans in Germany and bring them to Moscow, but he was prevented from carrying out his scheme by the Livonian Order (1547). A few years later (1553) he found unexpectedly a different route for communication with the West. A ship of an English squadron which was trying
First relations with England.
to reach China by the North-East passage, entered the northern Dvina, and her captain, Richard Chancellor, journeyed to Moscow in quest of opportunities for trade. He met with such a favourable reception from the tsar that on his return to England a special envoy was sent to Moscow by Queen Mary, and he succeeded in obtaining for his countrymen the privilege of trading freely in Russian towns. In return the Russians were allowed to trade freely in England. This afforded great satisfaction to Ivan, but it did not entirely satisfy his requirements, because the new route by the White Sea and North Cape was long and uncertain and for a great part of the year communications were stopped by the ice. He continued, therefore, his efforts to reach the Baltic coast, and he soon came into collision with the Swedes. After a dilatory war of three years he concluded a peace on the ground of free commercial relations, and then he attacked the Livonian Order, on the pretext that the Livonian town of Dorpat had not paid tribute according to ancient treaties. Finding himself unable to resist the Muscovites, the grand master of the Order put himself under Polish protection, and this led to a seven years war (1563-70) with Poland, during which the Swedes and Danes intervened on their own account. Ivan did not display much military talent, but he showed a remarkable amount of tenacity. No sooner had he made peace with the Poles and failed to get himself elected as their king, than he began a war with the Swedes which dragged on for more than a decade (1572-1583), and before it was ended he was again at war with Poland (1579-81). Though severely tried by disappointments and defeats he never lost hope, and when he died in 1584 he was preparing to renew the struggle and endeavouring to form for that purpose an alliance with England; his great idea, however, was not to be realized till more than a century later, and meanwhile the tsardom of Muscovy had to pass through a severe internal crisis in which its existence was seriously endangered.