Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/107

Rh 903-1174.] RUSSIA 89 Yaroslaff. Vladimir, into a drinking-cup. Vladimir, the son of Sviatoslaff, was for some time a monster of cruelty and debauchery. He killed his brother Yaropolk, and seized his dominions ; and, Yaropolk having some time before murdered his brother Oleg, Vladimir now became sole ruler. To his hereditary dominions he added Galicia or Eed Russia, and subjugated some Lithuanian and Livonian tribes. Suddenly he seems to have been troubled with religious difficulties. Accord- ing to the chronicler, he sent ambassadors to bring him reports of the different religions Catholic, Jewish, Mus- sulman, and Greek. The last of these beliefs seemed the most satisfactory. Vladimir marched south, took the city of Chersonesus in the Crimea, which at that time belonged to the Byzantine emperors, and then sent to demand the hand of the daughter of that potentate. After some deliberation his request was granted on condition that he was baptized. Accordingly he went to Constantinople in 988, and was admitted into the church, and at the same time received the hand of Anne, the Byzantine princess, although he seems to have already had a great number of wives. On his return to Kieff, he caused the image of Perun, the Slavonic god of thunder, which had been erected on an eminence, to be cast into the river, after having been belaboured by the cudgels of his soldiers. After this Vladimir issued a proclamation ordering all the inhabitants to proceed on the following day to the banks of the river to receive baptism. This extraordinary com- mand met with universal obedience, and Russia was Christianized. As Vladimir introduced Christianity into Russia, so Yaroslaff his son was the first legislator. He was prince of Novgorod, and died in 1054. Vladimir on his death divided his dominions among his sons : to Yaroslaff, Novgorod; to Iziaslaff, Polotsk; to Boris, Rostoff ; to Gleb, Murom ; to Sviatoslaff, the Drevlians ; and a few other provinces to others of his sons. Kieff, his capital, was seized by his nephew Sviatopolk, who murdered Boris and Gleb, now canonized among the martyrs of the Russian Church. Yaroslaff at length drove Sviatopolk from Kieff, and was temporarily restored by the Poles, but only to be driven out again, and he ended his life as an exile. Yaroslaff was successful against the Petchenegs, but failed in an attack on Constantinople. His great claim to be remembered lies in his publishing the first recension of the Russkaia Pravda, the earliest Russian code, which was handed down in the chronicles of Novgorod. We now leave the earliest period of Russian history, with its romantic stories and embedded sagas, telling us of heroic men, for the second division of our subject. The death of Yaroslaff was followed by the dreariest portion of the Russian annals the period of the apanages (udieli), lasting from 1054 to 1238. The country was now broken up into petty principalities, and we shall understand its condition more clearly if we remember that the chief divisions of Russia from the llth century to the 13th were as follows 1 : (1) The principality of Smolensk, formerly of great importance, as including in its territories the sources of three of the great Russian rivers the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Diina. (2) The principality of Russia, in the early and restricted sense, the original element of the country. The first form of the name is Rous. The word appears to have been a collective appellation of the people ; it was under the influence of the Byzantine writers that in the 17th century the form Rossia sprang up, which in time spread over the whole land. We must not forget, however, that to the majority of Englishmen, till the beginning of the 18th cen- tury, its name was Muscovy. Its situation on the Dnieper was very advantageous ; and the soil was fertile, the black-earth region being at the present time the great wheat-growing district of Russia. Besides, the Byzantine territory was not far off. On the princi- pality of Kieff depended that of Pereiaslavl ; and Vishgorod, Biel- gorod, and Tortchesk were made apanages for princes of the same dynasty. Period of the apanages 1 See Rambaud, Ilistoire de la Russie, p. 76. (3) On the affluents of the right bank of the Dnieper, especially the Sozha, the Desna, and the Seim, stretched the principalities of Tchernigoff with Starodub and Lubech, and Novgorod Severski with Putivl, Kursk, and Briansk. (4) The double principality of Ryazan and Murom. (5) The principality of Suzdal. (6) The republics of Novgorod and Pskoff, and the daughter-city of the latter, Vyatka. Iziaslaff, the son of Yaroslaff, seems to have had a troubled reign of twenty-four years, constantly disturbed by civil wars. On his death in 1078, although he had two sons, he left the principality of Kieff to his brother Vsevolod, apparently on a principle common among the Slavs to bequeath the crown to the oldest male of the family; but, on the death of Vsevolod, Sviatopolk, the son of Iziaslaff, succeeded in 1093. At his death Vladimir Monomakh came to the throne, and ruled from 1 1 13 to 1 125. He was the son of Vsevolod, and was called after his maternal grandfather, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachus. The reign of this prince was a very prosperous one. He left a curious treatise called " Instruction " (Pouchenie), addressed to his sons, in which we get a picture of the simple life in Russia at that period (see below, p. 103). He also founded on the river Kliazma a town which bears his name. There were con- tinual quarrels among his descendants, but it is impossible to go into these minutely here. George Dolgoruki, one of the sons of Vladimir Monomakh, gained possession of Kieff in 1157, but the city soon began to pale before the growing power of Suzdal, and ceased to be the capital. He died the same year, just while a league was being formed to drive him out of it. The confederates entered the city, and their chief made himself prince. In 1169 Andrew Bogolioubski, son of George Dolgoruki, formed a coali- tion against Mstislaff, who was reigning in Kieff, and a large army was sent against the city. It was taken and pillaged; and the sacred pictures, sacerdotal ornaments, and even bells were carried off. It is on this occasion that the head of St Clement, the Slavonic apostle, which is known to have been preserved at Kieff, was lost. After the fall of this city Russia ceased for some time to have any political centre. During the fifty-four years previous to the arrival of the Mongols, our chief interest is drawn to Suzdal and Galicia, and the republics of Novgorod and Pskoff. George Dolgoruki had founded the principality of Suzdal ; his great anxiety, however, was to make himself master of Kieff. The chief aim of his son Andrew Bogoliubski was to extend his authority in another direction, and to cause it to be recognized at Novgorod the Great, where he had established his nephew as a kind of lieutenant. He attacked the city in 1170, but was completely repulsed from its walls, a panic having seized his army. The Novgorodians put to death many of their prisoners, and sold others as slaves, so that, to quote the words of their chronicler, "six Suzdalians could be bought for a grivna," an old piece of money. In 1173 Andrew was also defeated by Mstislaff the Brave at Smolensk, and in 1174 he was assassinated by his own nobles. The reign of Andrew was in all respects an im- portant one. From his refusing to divide his dominions among his brothers and nephews, it is plain that he saw the evil effect of the system of apanages and could conceive the idea of a united state. He was a man of iron will, and an astute diplomatist rather than a great soldier. He thus had something of the spirit of the Ivans, and anticipated their policy. He may be said with truth to have been the last of the conspicuous rulers of Russia before the Mongol invasions. As yet we have had but few worthy of the attention of the historian. They are Rurik, the founder of the empire, Oleg the warrior, and Olga the first Christian sovereign. To these succeed the warlike XXI. 12