Bab Bab 43 · Upon The Grand Political Stage Of Europe

In the year 1492, as you know, Columbus discovered America. Early in

the year, a Tyrolese by the name of Schnups, travelling as the head of

a scientific expedition for the Archbishop of Tyrol, and provided with

the best letters of introduction and excellent credit tried to reach

the mythical town of Moscow. He did not succeed. When he reached the

frontiers of this vast Moscovite state which was vaguely supposed to

exist in the extreme Eastern part of Europe, he was firmly turned back.

No foreigners were wanted. And Schnups went to visit the heathen Turk

in Constantinople, in order that he might have something to report to

his clerical master when he came back from his explorations.

Sixty-one years later, Richard Chancellor, trying to discover the

North-eastern passage to the Indies, and blown by an ill wind into

the White Sea, reached the mouth of the Dwina and found the Moscovite

village of Kholmogory, a few hours from the spot where in 1584 the town

of Archangel was founded. This time the foreign visitors were requested

to come to Moscow and show themselves to the Grand Duke. They went and

returned to England with the first commercial treaty ever concluded

between Russia and the western world. Other nations soon followed and

something became known of this mysterious land.

Geographically, Russia is a vast plain. The Ural mountains are low

and form no barrier against invaders. The rivers are broad but often

shallow. It was an ideal territory for nomads.

While the Roman Empire was founded, grew in power and disappeared

again, Slavic tribes, who had long since left their homes in Central

Asia, wandered aimlessly through the forests and plains of the region

between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers. The Greeks had sometimes met

these Slavs and a few travellers of the third and fourth centuries

mention them. Otherwise they were as little known as were the Nevada

Indians in the year 1800.

Unfortunately for the peace of these primitive peoples, a very

convenient trade-route ran through their country. This was the main

road from northern Europe to Constantinople. It followed the coast of

the Baltic until the Neva was reached. Then it crossed Lake Ladoga and

went southward along the Volkhov river. Then through Lake Ilmen and up

the small Lovat river. Then there was a short portage until the Dnieper

was reached. Then down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.

The Norsemen knew of this road at a very early date. In the ninth

century they began to settle in northern Russia, just as other Norsemen

were laying the foundation for independent states in Germany and

France. But in the year 862, three Norsemen, brothers, crossed the

Baltic and founded three small dynasties. Of the three brothers, only

one, Rurik, lived for a number of years. He took possession of the

territory of his brothers, and twenty years after the arrival of this

first Norseman, a Slavic state had been established with Kiev as its

capital.

[Illustration: THE ORIGIN OF RUSSIA]

From Kiev to the Black Sea is a short distance. Soon the existence of

an organised Slavic State became known in Constantinople. This meant

a new field for the zealous missionaries of the Christian faith.

Byzantine monks followed the Dnieper on their way northward and soon

reached the heart of Russia. They found the people worshipping

strange gods who were supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in

mountain caves. They taught them the story of Jesus. There was no

competition from the side of Roman missionaries. These good men were

too busy educating the heathen Teutons to bother about the distant

Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion and its alphabet and its

first ideas of art and architecture from the Byzantine monks and as

the Byzantine empire (a relic of the eastern Roman empire) had become

very oriental and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians

suffered in consequence.

Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian plains did

not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide every inheritance

equally among all the sons. No sooner had a small state been founded

but it was broken up among eight or nine heirs who in turn left

their territory to an ever increasing number of descendants. It was

inevitable that these small competing states should quarrel among

themselves. Anarchy was the order of the day. And when the red glow of

the eastern horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a

savage Asiatic tribe, the little states were too weak and too divided

to render any sort of defence against this terrible enemy.

It was in the year 1224 that the first great Tartar invasion took place

and that the hordes of Jenghiz Khan, the conqueror of China, Bokhara,

Tashkent and Turkestan made their first appearance in the west. The

Slavic armies were beaten near the Kalka river and Russia was at

the mercy of the Mongolians. Just as suddenly as they had come they

disappeared. Thirteen years later, in 1237, however, they returned.

In less than five years they conquered every part of the vast Russian

plains. Until the year 1380 when Dmitry Donskoi, Grand Duke of Moscow,

beat them on the plains of Kulikovo, the Tartars were the masters of

the Russian people.

All in all, it took the Russians two centuries to deliver themselves

from this yoke. For a yoke it was and a most offensive and objectionable

one. It turned the Slavic peasants into miserable slaves. No Russian

could hope to survive unless he was willing to creep before a dirty

little yellow man who sat in a tent somewhere in the heart of the

steppes of southern Russia and spat at him. It deprived the mass of

the people of all feeling of honour and independence. It made hunger

and misery and maltreatment and personal abuse the normal state of

human existence. Until at last the average Russian, were he peasant or

nobleman, went about his business like a neglected dog who has been

beaten so often that his spirit has been broken and he dare not wag his

tail without permission.

There was no escape. The horsemen of the Tartar Khan were fast and

merciless. The endless prairie did not give a man a chance to cross

into the safe territory of his neighbour. He must keep quiet and bear

what his yellow master decided to inflict upon him or run the risk of

death. Of course, Europe might have interfered. But Europe was engaged

upon business of its own, fighting the quarrels between the Pope and

the emperor or suppressing this or that or the other heresy. And so

Europe left the Slav to his fate, and forced him to work out his own

salvation.

The final saviour of Russia was one of the many small states, founded

by the early Norse rulers. It was situated in the heart of the Russian

plain. Its capital, Moscow, was upon a steep hill on the banks of the

Moskwa river. This little principality, by dint of pleasing the Tartar

(when it was necessary to please), and opposing him (when it was safe

to do so), had, during the middle of the fourteenth century made itself

the leader of a new national life. It must be remembered that the

Tartars were wholly deficient in constructive political ability. They

could only destroy. Their chief aim in conquering new territories was

to obtain revenue. To get this revenue in the form of taxes, it was

necessary to allow certain remnants of the old political organization

to continue. Hence there were many little towns, surviving by the grace

of the Great Khan, that they might act as tax-gatherers and rob their

neighbours for the benefit of the Tartar treasury.

The state of Moscow, growing fat at the expense of the surrounding

territory, finally became strong enough to risk open rebellion against

its masters, the Tartars. It was successful and its fame as the leader

in the cause of Russian independence made Moscow the natural centre for

all those who still believed in a better future for the Slavic race. In

the year 1453, Constantinople was taken by the Turks. Ten years later,

under the rule of Ivan III, Moscow informed the western world that the

Slavic state laid claim to the worldly and spiritual inheritance of

the lost Byzantine Empire, and such traditions of the Roman empire as

had survived in Constantinople. A generation afterwards, under Ivan

the Terrible, the grand dukes of Moscow were strong enough to adopt

the title of Cæsar, or Tsar, and to demand recognition by the western

powers of Europe.

In the year 1598, with Feodor the First, the old Muscovite dynasty,

descendants of the original Norseman Rurik, came to an end. For the

next seven years, a Tartar half-breed, by the name of Boris Godunow,

reigned as Tsar. It was during this period that the future destiny of

the large masses of the Russian people was decided. This Empire was

rich in land but very poor in money. There was no trade and there were

no factories. Its few cities were dirty villages. It was composed of

a strong central government and a vast number of illiterate peasants.

This government, a mixture of Slavic, Norse, Byzantine and Tartar

influences, recognised nothing beyond the interest of the state. To

defend this state, it needed an army. To gather the taxes, which were

necessary to pay the soldiers, it needed civil servants. To pay these

many officials it needed land. In the vast wilderness on the east and

west there was a sufficient supply of this commodity. But land without

a few labourers to till the fields and tend the cattle, has no value.

Therefore the old nomadic peasants were robbed of one privilege after

the other, until finally, during the first year of the seventeenth

century, they were formally made a part of the soil upon which they

lived. The Russian peasants ceased to be free men. They became serfs or

slaves and they remained serfs until the year 1861, when their fate had

become so terrible that they were beginning to die out.

[Illustration: MOSCOW]

In the seventeenth century, this new state with its growing territory

which was spreading quickly into Siberia, had become a force with which

the rest of Europe was obliged to reckon. In 1613, after the death of

Boris Godunow, the Russian nobles had elected one of their own number

to be Tsar. He was Michael, the son of Feodor, of the Moscow family of

Romanow who lived in a little house just outside the Kremlin.

In the year 1672 his great-grandson, Peter, the son of another Feodor,

was born. When the child was ten years old, his step-sister Sophia

took possession of the Russian throne. The little boy was allowed

to spend his days in the suburbs of the national capital, where the

foreigners lived. Surrounded by Scotch barkeepers, Dutch traders,

Swiss apothecaries, Italian barbers, French dancing teachers and

German school-masters, the young prince obtained a first but rather

extraordinary impression of that far-away and mysterious Europe where

things were done differently.

When he was seventeen years old, he suddenly pushed Sister Sophia

from the throne. Peter himself became the ruler of Russia. He was not

contented with being the Tsar of a semi-barbarous and half-Asiatic

people. He must be the sovereign head of a civilised nation. To change

Russia overnight from a Byzantine-Tartar state into a European empire

was no small undertaking. It needed strong hands and a capable head.

Peter possessed both. In the year 1698, the great operation of grafting

Modern Europe upon Ancient Russia was performed. The patient did not

die. But he never got over the shock, as the events of the last five

years have shown very plainly.

RUSSIA _vs._ SWEDEN