SUBMISSION OF NOVGOROD--ANNEXATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES
OF TVER, ROSTOF, AND IAROSLAVL
AT the death of Vassili the Blind, Russia was all but stifled between
the great Lithuanian empire
and the vast possessnons of the Mongols. To the north, she had two restless
neigbbots, the
Livonian Order and Sweden- In spite of the labors of eight Muscovite princes,
the little Russian
State could not yet make its unity a fact; Riazan and Tver, though weakened,
still existed.
Novgorod and Pskof hesitated between the Grand Princes of Moscow and Lithuania.
The heirs of
Kalita, by creating new appanages, incessantly destroyed the unity after
which they toiled, by
means of a pitiless policy. Muscovy, which touches on no sea, had only intermittent
relations with
the centres of European civilization. It was, however, the time when the
nations of the West began
to be organized. Charles VII. and Louis XI. in France, Ferdinand and Isabella
in Spain, the
Tudors in England, Frederic III. and Maximilian in Austria, labored to build
up powerful States
from the ruins of feudal anarchy. European civilization made unheard-of
strides ; the Renaissance
began, printing spread, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama discovered
new worlds. Was
not Russia also going to achieve her unity, to take part in the great European
movement? The man
who was to restore her to herself, to free her from the Mongol yoke, to
put her into relations with
the West, - this man was expected. It had all been predicted. When a son
named Ivan was born in
1440 to Vassili the Blind, an old monk had a revelation about it in Novgorod
the Great. He came and said to his archbishop: " Truly it is to-day
that the Grand Prince triumphs; God has given him an heir; I behold this
child making himself illustrious by glorious deeds. He will subdue princes
and peoples. But woe to Novgorod! Novgorod will fall at his feet, and never
rise up again."
Ivan III., whose reign of forty-three years was to permit him to realize the expectations of Russia, was a cold, imperious, calculating prince, the very type of the Souzdalian and Muscovite princes. Disliking war, he allowed doubts to be thrown upon his courage. He was victorious in Lithuania, in Livonia and Siberia, almost without leaving the Kremlin. His father had taken long journeys, which led him into many sad adventures, but Stephen of Moldavia said of Ivan : " Ivan is a strange man; he stays quietly at home and triumphs over his enemies, while I, though always on horseback, cannot defend my country." It was the verdict of Edward III. on Charles V. Ivan exhausted his enemies by negotiations and delay, and never employed force till it was absolutely necessary. His devotion was mixed with hypocrisy. He wept for his relatives whom he put to death, as Louis XI. bewailed the Duc de Guienne. Born a despot, " he had," says Karamsin, "penetrated the secret of autocracy, and became a formidable deity in the eyes of the Russians." His glance caused women to faint. When he slept after his meals, it was wonderful to see the frightened respect of the boyards for the sleep of the master. He inflicted cruel punishments and tortures on all rebels, even on those of the highest rank ; he mutilated the counsellors of his son, whipped Prince Oukhtomski and the archimandrite of a powerful monastery, and burned alive two Poles in an iron cage on the Moskowa, for having conspired against him. He bad already won the surname of " Terrible", which his grandson was to bear even more justly.
Ivan's first effort was directed against Novgorod the Great. The republic of the Ilmen was dying in the anarchy of the aristocracy, the dissensions of the people, the Church, and especially of the boyards. It is of this epoch that M. Biélaef has said, that " parties in Novgorod had become so complicated, that often it is difficult to perceive from what motive this or that faction excited troubles and revolts." They thought themselves able to despise the authority of a new prince, and had the imprudence to neglect the complaints and suggestions made in a tolerably moderate tone by Ivan III. He then signified to the Pskovians that they would have to second him in an expedition against the rebels. This the Pskovians did not wish to do, foreseeing that the fall of Novgorod would drag them down also. They offered their mediation to their " elder sister" - it was rejected, and they were obliged to proceed. Ivan III. often received, however, the Archbishop of Novgorod, Theophilus, in his palace at Moscow, and continued to negotiate. He had a large party in Novgorod, but the opposing faction was the bolder. Marfa, the widow of the possadnik Boretski, mother of two grown-up sons, put herself at the head of the anti-Muscovite party. Ready and eloquent speech, immense wealth, an audacity equal to everything, had given her a great influence with the people and the boyards. This intrepid woman was the last incarnation of Novgorodian liberty. To save the republic, Marfa wished to throw it into the arms of the King of Poland, Casimir 1V. She contended also that the Archbishop of Novgorod should be nominated by the Metropolitan of Kief, not by the Metropolitan of Moscow. In her devotion to -Novgorod, she thus betrayed the cause of Russia and orthodoxy. The sittings of the vetché amid the opposition of the two parties, degenerated into violent tumults. Some cried, " The king; " others, " Long live orthodox Moscow! long live the Grand Prince Ivan and our father the Metropolitan Philip! " The friends of Marfa finally won the day. Novgorod handed herself over to the King of Poland by a formal act in which she stipulated for the same rights as she had enjoyed under her ancient princes. Ivan III. tried once more to recall the citizens to obedience, and he sent them an ambassador, but the party of Marfa was always the more numerous or the more noisy. At last Ivan decided to begin the war. His voïevodes made the conquest of the territory of the Dwina; the Muscovites, supported by the Tatar cavalry, cruelly ravaged the territory of the "perfidious" Novgorodians; after the battle of Korostyne, they cut off the noses and lips of the prisoners. The republicans had fallen from their ancient valor; Marfa had hastily enrolled ill-disciplined artisans. At the battle of the Chelona, 5000 Muscovites defeated 30,000 Novgorodians. At Roussa the Grand Prince caused many boyards to be beheaded, one of whom was a son of Marfa, and sent others as prisoners into MUSCOVY. Ivan 111. always advanced, fighting and negotiating. Novgorod submitted, paid a war indemnity, and, if she still remained a republic, she was a republic dependent on the good pleasure of the Prince (1470).
From that time Ivan labored entirely to reduce the town, and his party in Novgorod increased. If the people complained of the injustice of his lieutenants, he blamed the insufficiency of the ancient laws of the city. He tried to excite the animosity of the lower classes against the boyards. It was by the invitation of the former that he came in 1475 to hold a solemn court in Novgorod. Great and small immediately crowded to his tribunal, to beg for justice one against the other. Ivan saw how much his own cause was Strengthened by these divisions. An act of authority that he tried, succeeded completely. Marfa's second son, the possadnik, and many boyards were loaded with chains, and sent to Moscow. No one dared to protest. On his return to his capital, a multitude of complainants hastened after him; he forced them all to appear before him. Since Rurik, say the annalists, such a violation of Novgorod's liberty had never been known. Profiting by a documentary error made by the envoys of the town, he declared himself sovereign (goçoudar) of Novgorod, instead of lord (gospodine). Now if this interpretation were accepted, the subjection of the republic, which was only a matter of fact, would become a matter of law. The party of Marfa made a last effort to reject this sovereignty; the friends of the Grand Prince were massacred. Ivan declared that the Novgorodians, after having accorded him the title of goçoudar, had the effrontery to deny it. Then the Metropolitan, the bishops, the boyards, all Moscow, advised him to make war. Accordingly it was preached as a Holy War against the allies of the Pope and Lithuania. All the forces of Russia were put in motion, and many boyards of Novgorod appeared at the camp of the Grand Prince. The city was blockaded, and starved out. In vain the partisans of Marfa shouted the old war-cry: "Let us die for liberty and Saint Sophia! " They were forced to capitulate. Ivan guaranteed to them their persons and possessions, their ancient jurisdiction, and exemption from the Muscovite service; but the vetché and the possadnik were abolished forever. The belfry was reduced to silence. The Republic of Novgorod had ceased to exist (1478).
Marfa and the principal oligarchs were transported to Moscow, and their goods confiscated. Many times afterwards, there were party agitations, which were quelled by Ivan 111. and his successor, by numerous transportations. In 1481 some boyards were tortured and put to death. Eight thousand Novgorodians were transplanted to the towns of Souzdal. Ivan 111. struck another terrible blow at the prosperity of the city when, in 1495, after a quarrel with the people of Revel, he caused the merchants of forty-nine Hanseatic towns to be arrested at Novgorod, pillaged the " German market", and removed wares to the value of £40,000 to Moscow. The covetous Grand Prince doubtless did not see he was killing the ben with the golden eggs. A long while elapsed before the merchants of the West again made their appearance in Novgorod. Pskof, more docile, bad preserved her vetché and her ancient institutions.
Whilst he was destroying the liberty of Novgorod, Ivan deprived her of her colonies, and undertook on his own account the conquest of Northern Russia. By this time Muscovy extended as far as Finland, the White Sea and the Icy Ocean, and had already obtained a footing in Asia. Ivan had conquered Permia iin 1472, by which means he became master of the " silver beyond the Kama", which the Novgorodians had hitherto got in the course of trade. In 1489, Viatka, which had fallen for a short time into the power of the Tatars of Kazan, was reconquered, and lost her republican organization. In 1499 the voïevodes of Oustiougue, of the Dwina and of Viatka, advanced as far as the Petchora, and built a fortress on the banks of the river. In the depth of winter, in sledges drawn by dogs, they passed the defiles of the Ourals, in the teeth of the wind and snow, slew 50 of the Samoyedes, and captured 200 reindeer; invaded the territory of the Vogouls and Ougrians, the Finnish brethren of the Magyars; took 40 enclosures of palisades, made 50 princes prisoners, and returned to Moscow, after having reduced this unknown country, supposed by the geographers of antiquity to be the home of so many wonders and monsters. Russia, like the maritime nations of the West, had discovered a new world.
The cultivated provinces of Central Russia were more important than the deserts of the North. Here there were no im. mense territories to be conquered, but only the territories of the smaller appanaged princes to be grafted on to the already united mass. Ivan Ill. might have dethroned the young Prince of Riazan, whom his father had brought to Moscow, but he preferred to give him the hand of his sister, Anne Vassilievna, and send him back to his territories (1464). The absorption of the principalities of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski was reserved for his successor. He showed the same moderation about Tver, but in 1482 Prince Michael, who had only maintained his, position on sufferance, had the imprudence to ally himself with Lithuania. Ivan hailed this pretext with joy, and marched in person against Tver, accompanied by the celebrated Aristotele Fioraventi of Bologna, grand master of his artillery. Michael took to flight; and Ivan began to organize his new subjects. A principality which could furnish 40,000 soldiers was united to Moscow without a blow. In like manner he obtained possession of Vereia and of Biélozersk, and deprived the princes of Rostof and Iaroslavl of their ancient rights of sovereignty.
His father, by givnng appanages to his brothers had prepared for him
a new and ungrateful task,
but Ivan undertook it without Scruple. When his brother Iouri died, he wept
much for him, but at once laid hands on his towns of Dmitrof, Mojaïsk,
and Serpoukhof, thereby causing his other brothers, who hoped to share the
spoil, great discontent (1468). Andrew was accused of an understanding-
with Lithuania, and thrown into prison, where he died (1493). The Grand
Prince convoked the Metropolitan and bishops to his palace, appeared before
them with downcast eyes, his face sorrowful and bathed in tears, humbly
accused himself of having been too cruel to his unhappy brother, and submitted
to their pastoral admonitions; but he confiscated Andrew's appanage notwithstanding,
and that of his brother Boris, who died a short time after, thus reuniting
all the domains of his father. He acquired the surname of " Binder
of the Russian Land," a name which his eight predecessors equally merited.
It was owing to their earlier labors that Ivan was able to become the greatest
and most powerful of these 11 Binders." He avoided their errors, and
if later he gave appanages to his own children, it was only on condition
that they should remain subjects of their eldest brother, and that they
should neither have the right to coin money nor to exercise a separate diplomacy.
WARS WITH THE GREAT HORDE AND KAZAN - END OF THE TATAR YOKE.
The empire of the Horde was at last dissolved. The principal States which had risen from its débris were the Tzarate of Kazan, that of Saraï or Astrakhan, the Horde of the Nogaïs, and the Khanate of the Crimea. Kazan and the Crimea particularly presented strange ethnographical amalgamations. The Tzarate of Kazan had been founded in the reign of Vassili the Blind on the ruins of the ancient Bulgaria on the Volga, formerly so flourishing and civilized, by a banished prince of the Horde. It was the same Makhmet who had tried to establish himself at Belef, and had defeated Chemiaka. The Mongols had mixed with the ancient Bulgars, and reconstituted an important centre of commerce and civilization. The rule of the Tzarate extended over the Finnish tribes of the Mordvians, the Tchouvaches, and the Tcheremisses, as well as the Bachkirs and Metcheraks. The Khanate of the Crimea had been founded almost at the same date, by a descendant of Genghis Khan, named Azi. A peasant named Ghirei having saved him from death, Azi added his benefactor's name to his own, and henceforward the title belonged to all the khans of the Crimea. The Mongols, on arriving at the peninsula, found it occupied by the remains of the ancient Tauric, Hellenic, and Gothic races; by Armenians, Jews, and Jewish Kharaïtes, who pretended to have settled B.C. 500 on the rocks and in the Troglodyte cities of Tchoufout-Kalé and Mangoup-Kalé and finally by the Genoese of Kaffa. The Jews and Italians excepted, a large part of the ancient population was absorbed by the Asiatic invaders. Thus while the Tatars of the steppes of the Northern Crimea are pure Mongols, those of the mountains of the south seem to be chiefly Taurians, Goths, and Islamized Greeks. As to the great Horde of Saraï, that was almost entirely composed of nomads, such as the Nogaïs and other Turco-Tatar races.
Anarchy and rivalry reigned in the heart of each of these States. The princes of Kazan, Saraï, and the Crimea came to seek an asylum from the Grand Prince, who made use of them to perpetuate these divisions. In 1473 Ivan constituted the town of Novgorod of Riazan into a fief for one Mustafa; others served in the armies, and aided Ivan against Novgorod and Lithuania. Towards the khans and the tzars, especially those of the Great Horde or Saraï, the sovereign of Moscow held himself on the defensive, repelling the attacks of adventurers, but taking care not to provoke them ; avoiding the payment of the tribute, but disposed to send them presents. At the same time he schemed for alliances against the Khan of Saraï, and despatched to the Turkoman Oussoum-Hassan, master of Persia and enemy of the Mongols, his Italian ambassador, Marco Ruffo (1477). A more solid friendship united him with Mengli-Ghirei, Khan of the Crimea, and lasted all their lives. Mengli was as serviceable to him against Lithuania as against the Horde.
In 1478, having carefully taken all his measures, he openly rebelled. When the Khan Akhmet sent his ambassadors with his image to receive the tribute, Ivan III. trampled the image of the Khan under his feet, and put all the envoys to death, excepting one, who conveyed the news to the Horde. This act, so very little in accordance with the well-known prudence of Ivan, is not to be found in all the chronicles. When Akhmet took the field, Ivan occupied a strong position on the Oka, with a more numerous and better-organized army than that of Dmitri Donskoï. His 150,000 men and powerful artillery did not, however, prevent him from reflecting much on the hazard of battles. He even returned to reflect at Moscow, and it needed all the clamors of the people to induce him to leave it. "What 1 " exclaimed the Muscovites, " he has overtaxed us, and refused to pay tribute to the Horde, and now that he has irritated the Khan, he declines to fight 1 " Ivan wished to consult his mother, his boyards, and his bisbops. " March bravely against the enemy," was the unanimous reply. " Is it the part of mortals to fear death?" said old Archbishop Vassian. "We cannot escape destiny." Ivan desired, at least, to send his young son Ivan back to Moscow, but the prince heroically disobeyed. The Grand Prince finally decided to return to the army, blessed by his mother and the Metropolitan, who promised him the victory as to a David or to a Constantine, reminding him that "a good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep." Ivan, who did not feel himself made of the stuff of a Constantine, kept his army immovable on the Oka and the Ougra; the two forces contenting themselves with sending arrows and insults across the river. Ivan closed his ears to the warlike counsel of his boyards, and rather listened to the prudent advice of his two favorites - " fat and powerful lords," says the chronicle. However, he refused the proposition of the Khan, who offered to pardon him if he would either come himself or send one of his men to kiss his stirrup. At last monks and white-haired bishops lost all patience. Vassian addressed a bellicose letter to the Grand Prince, invoking the memories of Igor, Sviatoslaf, of Vladimir Monomachus, and Dmitri Donskoï. Ivan assured him that this letter " filled his heart with joy, courage, and strength; but another fortnight passed in inaction. On the fifteenth day the rivers were covered with ice; the Grand Prince gave the order to retreat. An inexplicable panic seized the two armies -Russians and Tatars both fled, when no man pursued. The Khan never stopped till he reached the Horde (i48o). Such was the List invasion of the horsemeii of the Kiptchak. It was in this unheroic way that Russia broke at last the Mongol yoke under which she had groaned for three centuries. Like Louis XL, Ivan III. had his battle of Montlh6ry; but if he fought less, he gained far more. The Horde, attacked by the Khans of the Crimea, survived its decay but a short time. Akhmet was put to death by one of his own men.
Hostility increased between Kazan and Moscow. In 1467 and 11469 Ivan III. had organized tnvo expeditions against Bulgaria. In 1487 t seven years after having shaken off the suprem. acy of the Great Horde, the Muscovite voïevodes marched against the same Kazan, where the father of their Grand Prince had been held a captive. After a siege of seven weeks the city was taken, and the sovereign Alegam made prisoner. A tzar of Kazan was then seen a prisoner in Moscow 1 Ivan III. added the title of Prince of Bulgaria to those he already bore ; but feeling that the Mussulman city was not yet ripe for annexation, he gave the crown to a nephew of his friend the Khan of the Crimea. The people were forced to take the oath of fidelity to him. The conquest of the land of Arsk, in Bulgaria itself, and the establishment of a Russian garrison in the fortress allowed him to watch from close by all that passed in Kazan. The Khan of the Crimea did not care to protest against the captivity of the Tzar Alegam, his nephew's enemy, but the princes of the Chiban and the Nogaïs, who were related to him, and who beheld Islamism humiliated in his person, despatched an embassy to the Grand Prince. The latter refused to release his prisoner, but replied so graciously that the envoys could hardly be angry. He sent to those zealous kinsmen clothes of Flanders, fishes' teeth, and gerfalcons, and did not forget the wives of the mourzas, whom he called his sisters. At the same time, wishing to make these Asiatics feel that times had changed, he took care never personally to compromise himself with the Nogaï envoys, and only to communicate with them by means of treasurers, secretaries, and other officers of the second rank.
WARS WITH LITHUANIA - WESTERN RUSSIA UP TO THE SOJA RECONQUERED.
Lithuania and Poland united remained, after all, Ivan's great enemy. This composite State plays the same part in Russian history as the Burgundy of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold in that of France. Made up in a great degree of Russian as well as of Polish and Lithuanian elements, it was many times on the point of annihilating Russia, in the same way as Burgundy, composed of French, Batavian, and German provinces, had been on the point of annihilating the French nation. Lithuania was incorporated with Poland in the same manner as the States of Burgundy, unfortunately for France, were incor. porated with Austria.
At the beginning of Ivan's reign the King Casimir IV. was sovereign of the two united States, and neglected no means of disquieting the Grand Prince. The latter, on his part, incited his ally Mengli to invade the Lithuanian possessions; and the Crimean Tatars pillaged Kief and the Monastery of the Catacombs (1482). When, ten years after, Casimir died (1492), leaving Poland to his eldest son Albert, and Lithuania to Alexander, the second son, Ivan Ill. resolved to turn the division to account. He had obtained the friendship of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet II., of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, of the active Stephen of Moldavia, the determined enemy of the Lithuanians; but, above all, he counted on Mengli. Mengli had held Lithuania in check while Ivan had got rid of the Mongols; now he was to play the same part with the Horde, while the Grand Prince settled old scores with Alexander, but without interfering with the Tatar incursions in the Ukraine The discovery at Moscow of a Polish plot against the life of the Grand Prince spread rumors of war. In the same way that he had been able to utilize the Mongol refugees against the Horde, he found the Lithuanian princes and other great personages entering into relations with him. It was then that Belski, afterwards so famous, obtained a footing in Russia, that the Prince of Mazovia sent an embassy to Ivan III., and the princes of Viazma, Vorotinsk, Belef, and Mezetsk did him homage.
The war was popular in Moscow, for its object was to break the yoke imposed by the Polish Catholics on the orthodox Russian people. In White Russia the Muscovites were to awake old national and religious sympathies. " Lithuania," said the ambassadors of Ivan III. to the plenipotentiaries of Alexander, " Lithuania has profited by the misfortunes of Russia to take ,our territory, but to-day things have changed." Peace was made after a short war (1494). The frontier of Muscovy was carried to the Desna, and comprehended the appanages of the princes who had taken service with Ivan, with Mstislavl, Obolensk, Kozelsk, Vorotinsk, Peremysl, etc.
The peace seemed to be cemented by the marriage of Alexander with Helena, daughter of Ivan III. ; but, on the contrary, this union proved the germ of a new war. The sovereign of Moscow had stipulated that his daughter was under no circumstances to change her religion, that she was to have a Greek chapel in the palace, and an orthodox almoner. Ivan himself gave his daughter the most pressing injunctions never to appear in the Catholic church, and gave her minute directions as to her toilet, her table, her mode of travelling, and her way of conducting herself towards her new subjects. At her departure he bestowed on her a collection of various pious books. His policy agreed with his conviction ; it was necessary that in Lithuania orthodoxy should raise her lowered bead, and reign with his daughter. Soon afterwards, he complained that Helena was forced to offend her conscience, that she was made to wear the Polish costume, that her domestics and orthodox almoners were dismissed, and their places filled with Catholics - that the Greek religion was persecuted, that the assassination of the Metropolitan of Kief had remained unpunished, and that he was to be succeeded by a man devoted to the Pope. Lithuania, at the beginning of the war, was further enfeebled by new defections. The princes of Bielsk, of Mossalsk, of Khotatof, the boyards of Mtsensk and of Serpeïsk, and finally the princes of Tchernigof and Starodoub, of Rylsk and Novgorod-Severski, declared for the Grand Prince of Moscow. All the country between the Desna and the Soja passed into the hands of the Russians, together with Briansk, Poutivle, and Dorogbouge. They had only to show themselves to conquer. Alexander could not abandon the conquests of Olgerd, Vitovt, and Gedimin without striking a blow, but his army was cut to pieces at the battle of Vedrocha. Constantine Ostrojski, his voïevode, fell into the hands of the Muscovites, who tried to gain him over to their cause. The Lithuanians, however, kept the strongholds Of Vitepsk, Polotsk, Orcha and Smolensk.
This prolonged struggle between Alexander and Ivan III. had set all Eastern Europe in a blaze. Alexander had made an alliance with the Livonian Order and the Great Horde. The Khan of the Crimea pitilessly devastated Gallicia and Volhynia. The Russian troops again defeated the Lithuanians near Mstislavl, but were forced to raise the siege of Smo. lensk. In the north, the Grand Prince of Moscow had stopped the Germans of Livonia from building the fortress of Ivangorod opposite Narva, and had seized the Hanseatic wares at Novgorod. The Grand Master, Hermann of Plettenberg, responded with joy to the appeal of the Lithuanians ; and at the battle of Siritsa, near lzborsk, his formidable German artillery crushed an army Of 40,000 Russians (1501). The latter took their revenge the following year on the iron men near Pskof. Schig- Akhmet, Khan of the Great Horde, wished to make a diversion, but the Khan of the Crimea attacked him with fury, and in 1502 so completely extinguished his rule, that the ruins of Saraï, the capital of Bati, where the Russian princes had grovelled before the khans, were henceforward a home of serpents.
Alexander had just been elected King of Poland, and wished to finish this ruinous war. The celebrated Pope, Alexander VI., and the King of Hungary tried to mediate between the belligerent powers. As, however, neither of the two parties would abate any of their pretensions, a truce of six years only could be agreed on, during which time the Soja was to be the boundary, and the territories and towns of the princes who had gone over to Russia were to be abandoned to her (1503). What shows the good faith of Ivan III. is that, after the truce was signed, be obtained the promise from the Khan of the Crimea to continue his attacks against Lithuania.
MARRIAGE WITH SOPHIA PALAEOLOGUS (1472) - THE GREEKS AND ITALIANS AT THE COURT OF MOSCOW.
The acquisition of the Novgorodian possessions and the appanages, the capture of Kazan, the fall of the Horde, and the conquest of Lithuania up to the Soja, had doubled the extent of the Grand Principality, even without reckoning the immense territory it had gained on the north. An event not less important in its consequences was the marriage Of Ivan III. with a Byzantine princess. Thomas Palaeologus, a brother of the last Emperor, had taken refuge at the court of Rome. There he died, leaving a daughter named Sophia. The Pope wished to find her a husband, and the Cardinal Bessarion, who belonged to the Eastern Rite, advised Paul II. to offer her hand to the Grand Prince of Russia. A Greek named Iouri, and the two Friazini, relations of Friazine, minter of Ivan III., were sent on an embassy to Moscow. Ivan and his boyards accepted the proposal with enthusiasm; it was God, no doubt, who had given him so illustrious a wife ; " a branch of the imperial tree which formerly overshadowed all orthodox Christianity." Sophia - dowered by the Pope, whose heart was always occupied with two things, the crusade against the Turks, and the re-union of the two Churches - went from Rome to Lübeck, from Lübeck by sea to Revel, and was received in triumph at Pskof, Novgorod, and the other towns subject to Moscow. This daughter of emperors was destined to have an enormous influence on Ivan. It was she, no doubt, who taught him to " penetrate the secret of autocracy," She bore the Mongol yoke with less patience than the Russians, who were accustomed to servitude. She incited Ivan to shake it off. " How long am I to be the slave of the Tatars? " she would often ask. With Sophia a multitude of Greek emigrants came to Moscow, not only from Rome, but from Constantinople and Greece; among them were Demetrios Ralo, Theodore Lascaris, Demetrios Trakhaniotes. They gave to Russia statesmen, diplomatists, engineers, artists and theologians. They brought her Greek books, the priceless inherit. ance of ancient civilization. These manuscripts were first beginnings of the present " Library of the Patriarchs."
Ivan III. was the heir of the Emperors of Byzantium and the Roman Caesars. He took for the new arms of Russia the two-headed eagle which in its archaic form is still to be found in the " Palais à facettes " of the Kremlin. Moscow succeeded to Byzantium as Byzantium had succeeded to Rome. Having become the only metropolis of orthodoxy, it was incumbent on her to protect the Greek Christians of the entire East, and to prepare the revenge against Islamism for the work Of 1453With the Greeks came Italians : Aristotele Fioraventi of Bologna, who was Ivan III.'s architect, military engineer, and master of artillery ; Marco Ruffo, his ambassador in Persia ; Pietro Antonio, who built his imperial palace; the metal-founder, Paul Bossio, besides architects and arquebusiers.
Ivan entered into relations with Venice when Trevisani envoy of the republic, on his way to the Horde, tried to traverse incognito the States of the Grand Prince, and was arrested and condemned to death. The Senate interfered, and the imprudent diplomatist was set at liberty. Ivan sent in his turn a Russian ambassador, Simeon Tolbouzine, charged to bind the two countries in friendly ties, and to bring back some skilful architect from Italy. He was followed in 1499 by Demetrius Ralo and Golokhvastof. Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, returned from Persia with a French ecclesiastic named Louis, who called himself envoy of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Patriarch of Antioch. He stopped at Moscow, and was kindly received by Ivan. He himself was much struck by the Grand Prince. " When, in speaking, I respectfully stepped back," relates Contarini, "the Grand Prince always drew near, and gave particular at. tention to my remarks." Ivan III. - whether to secure himself allies against Poland, or to obtain from Germany artists and handicraftsmen - exchanged more than one embassy with Frederic III. and Maximilian of Austria, Matthias of Hungary, and the Pope. When attacked by Sweden, he negotiated an alliance with Denmark. Plehtchéef was the first Russian ambassador at Constantinople under Bajazet II. From the East came envoys of Georgia and even of Djagatai (Turkestan and Tatar Siberia).
The prince who, born vassal of a nomad race, founded the greatness of Russia, may be compared with one of the greatest of French kings, Louis XI. What the latter accomplished in the case of appanaged feudalism, Ivan succeeded in doing in that of appanaged principalities. He was pitiless towards the smaller Russian dynasties, as the King of France was to Armagnac or Saint Pol. He detached a slice from Lithuania, as his Western contemporary managed to dismember Burgundy. He put an end to the Mongol invasions, as Louis did to the English wars. He repulsed, without striking a blow, the last incursion of the khans, as Louis XI. sweetly dismissed the last embarkation of the English under Edward IV. Both had the same taste for foreigners, especially industrious Italians, and for useful arts. Both explored the metallic riches of their States. They each created a diplomacy; the one by means of Comynes, the other by means of Greeks, and Russians as supple as Greeks. They strengthened the national army, and gave it a permanent character; they both owed the success against the minor princes to their artillery. Ivan III. had his brothers Bureau in Aristotele Fioraventi.
Louis XI., who wished to put an end to the anarchy of the law and to the thefts of chicanery, meditated a real code, or grand costumier, which would put the old laws in harmony with the new order of things. This is precisely what Ivan did in his Oulogenia (1497). In comparing it with the Rousskaia Pravda of Iaroslaf, we are able to gauge the amount of change caused in the national laws by the influence of Byzantium, the example of the Tatars, and the progress of autocracy. Corporal penalties have notably increased: for homicide, death ; for theft, whipping in a public place. Torture was making its way in the procedure. The judicial duel was still admitted, only now it could hardly become mortal; each of the combatants had a cuirass, and was armed only with a short club. Women, minors, and ecclesiastics were represented by a champion. In the same way as the end and aim of the policy of Ivan was the suppression of appanages, that of his code was to efface the privileges, the legal and judicial peculiarities of the different provinces.
For three generations the throne had been inherited in the direct line. When, however, Ivan, eldest son of Ivan 111., died, the latter hesitated long between his grandson Dmitri Ivanovitch, and his second son Vassili. His wife supported Vassili; his daughter-in-law Helena, Ivan's widow, her own son. The court was divided, and both parties were absorbed in their intrigues. Ivan III. at first proclaimed Dmitri, threw Vassili in prison, and disgraced his wife. Then he changed his mind, imprisoned his daughter-in-law and his grandson in their turn, and proclaimed Vassili his heir. The hereditary right of the West was not established in Russia without many struggles.