Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/113

Rh 1601-1619.] RUSSIA 95 Feodor II. Dmitri acknow ledged. consecrated under the name of Boyolep ("acceptable to God "). He expired in the fifty-third year of his age, after a reign of six years. Whether he committed suicide or was poisoned cannot now be ascertained ; his death could hardly have been natural. Boris was a man of great energy of character, with views singularly in advance of his age. In some respects he anticipated the plans of Peter the Great ; thus he caused several young Russians to be sent abroad to be educated, some of whom came to England. By a ukaze, however, binding the peasant to the soil, he began the system which reduced him by degrees to a con- dition of abject serfdom. Boris had left a sufficient number of partisans at Moscow to proclaim his son Feodor, a youth of sixteen, and all classes took the oath of allegiance to him. Shuiski and Mstislavski returned to Moscow to assist the young czar in the government. Basmanoff was sent to take the command of the army, but, probably feeling the cause of Feodor to be desperate, on the 7th of May he proclaimed Dmitri. He was now ordered to march on the capital. Feodor, however, and his adherents still held the Kremlin with a large garrison. Accordingly it was resolved to make an attempt on Krasnoe Selo, a large town near Moscow, where many wealthy merchants resided. This was easily taken, whereupon many of its citizens marched to Moscow, and convoking the people called upon them to acknowledge Dmitri as their sovereign. Feodor and his mother were murdered, and buried in a cemetery out- side the city walls, whither also the remains of Boris were carried, for they were not allowed sepulture among the tombs of the czars. Petreius, the Swedish envoy, who has left us an interesting account of these times, tells us that the rumour was circulated that these unhappy people had poisoned themselves, but he himself saw their bodies, and the marks on their necks of the cords with which they had been strangled. According to some authorities, Xenia, the daughter of Boris, described as beautiful by the old Russian chronicler Kubasoff, was forced to retire into a convent, but Petreius declares that she was compelled to become the mistress of the conqueror. The usurper now hearing that every obstacle was removed, marched upon the capital, which he entered on June 20, 1605. We have not space to detail the splendours of his retinue, nor the ceremonies and feastings which attended his arrival. He acted at first with prudence and concilia- tion towards his new subjects, and even promised to pay the debts of his father Ivan. He received his mother with transports of joy; she professed to identify him, although she afterwards denied that he was her son. She was probably, however, glad enough to get out of the convent into which she had been thrust by Boris. But Dmitri soon gave offence on account of his neglect of Russian etiquette and superstitious observances. It was plain that he held the Greek Orthodox religion very cheap, and his subjects could see that he had a propensity for the Latin heresy. In the following year Marina Mniszek, his bride, made her appearance in Moscow, and the marriage took place on the 18th of May. It was followed by continued banquets. But a rebellion broke out on the 29th, at the head of which was Vasilii Shuiski, whom Dmitri had spared when about to be executed. The czar, hearing a noise in the night, and finding himself surrounded by enemies, opened a window 30 feet from the ground, leapt down, and broke his leg. He was soon afterwards found and killed. Basmanoff was slain while attempting to defend his master. The corpse of the impostor was afterwards burned. Marina was not killed, although there was a great massacre of the Poles in every quarter of Moscow; she and the ladies of her suite were kept as prisoners. Thus ended this remarkable episode of Russian history. The whole period has been aptty termed by the national historians "the Period of Troubles " (Smutnoye Vremya). The boiars, on being convoked after the murder Basil of Dmitri, elected Vasilii Ivanovich Shuiski for their Shuiski. sovereign, but he found himself in every way disadvan- tageously situated, without an army and without money. He was, moreover, troubled by an announcement which gained credence among the people that Dmitri was not really dead. To put an end to these rumours, Shuiski, entirely changing his policy, and contradicting his pre- vious assertions, sent to Uglich for the body of the un- fortunate prince, and caused him to be canonized. Two subsequent impostors, who gave themselves out to be Dmitri, were taken and executed. To complete the mis- fortunes of Russia, the country was invaded by the Poles in 1609, who laid siege to Smolensk. Shuiski was defeated at Klushino (a village situated to the north-east of Moscow), was taken prisoner, and was set free, to become a monk, a favourite way of treating troublesome persons in Russia. He was afterwards delivered over to Sigismund, who kept him in prison during the rest of his life. The crown was finally offered to Ladislaus, the Ladis- son of Sigismuud, who in reality for two years was laus - sovereign of Russia, and caused money to be coined in his name at Moscow. Everything seemed to portend the ruin of the country, when it was saved by the bravery of Minin, the butcher of -Nrjni-Novgorod, who roused the citizens to arms by his patriotic appeal, and was joined by Prince Pozharski. The latter took the command of the army ; the administrative department was handed over to the former. The brave prince succeeded in driving the Poles from Russia. In 1612 the boiars resolved to elect a new czar, but they did not actually meet till 1613, and many debates ensued. The sufferings of the country had been great; a considerable part of the city of Moscow (with the exception of the Kremlin and the churches built of stone) was laid in ashes. The treasury was plundered, and its contents sent to Poland. Among other things Olearius, the traveller of the 17th century, quaintly adds, " the Russians lost the horn of a unicorn of great value, set with precious stones," which was also carried off to Poland ; and he tells us that even up to his time the Muscovites bitterly regretted that they had been robbed of it. Princes Mstislavski and Pozharski refused the crown, and finally the name of Michael Romanoff, a youth Michael of sixteen, was put forward as a candidate, chiefly on R omanof account of the virtues of his father Philarete. The Romanoffs were connected on the female side with the house of Rurik, Anastasia Romanova having been the first wife of Ivan the Terrible. Before being allowed to ascend the throne, the youthful sovereign, according to some authors, took a constitutional oath. The condi- tion of the country all this time was most critical; large portions of its territory were in the hands of the Swedes and Poles, and the villages were plun- dered by wandering bands of Cossacks. Ladislaus the son of Sigismund had not yet renounced the title of czar; in 1617 he appeared with an invading army under the walls of Moscow, but was repulsed, and on December 1, 1618, consented to abandon his claims, and conclude an armistice for fourteen years. In 1617 a treaty had been made at Stolbovo, a town. near Lake Ladoga, by which the Russians had been compelled to give up a large portion of their territory to the Swedes. Philarete, the father of Michael, who had been for some time imprisoned at Warsaw, was now allowed to return; he entered Moscow in 1619, and was elected patriarch, an office which had been vacant since the death of Hermogenes. Michael associated his father with himself in his power ; all ukazes