Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/114

Rh 96 K U S S I A [HISTOEY. were published iu their joint names ; the patriarch held a separate court, and always sat at the right hand of the sove- reign. The patriarchate was suppressed in 1721 by Peter the Great, who had formed the idea of making himself head of the church from what he saw in England and other Protestant countries. The reign of Michael was not very eventful ; he employed it wisely in ameliorating the condi- tion of the country, which had recently suffered so much, and in improving the condition of his army. Foreigners began to visit the country in great numbers, and Russia was gradually opening itself to Western civilization. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden induced the czar to sign a treaty offensive and defensive, and a Swedish ambassador appeared at the Russian court. The sufferings which had been inflicted upon them by the Poles made the Russians eager to join an alliance which was directed against the Roman Catholic religion. In 1629 a French ambassador appeared at Moscow. Dutch and German artisans were taken into the Russian service to assist in the iron- foundries, with special view to the manufacture of cannon. The country swarmed with English merchants who had obtained valuable privileges. Scottish adventurers were to be met with in the Russian army in great numbers. We find them as early as the reign of Ivan the Terrible, to judge from Horsey 's Diary. The false Demetrius, like Louis XL, had a Scottish guard. In Russian documents we find the names of Carmichaels, Hamiltons (frequently in the corrupted Russified form of Khomutoff), Bruces, Gordons, and Dalziels. From Scottish settlers in Russia sprang the celebrated poet Lermontoff, the first two syllables of whose name fully show his Caledonian origin. Alexis. The following are the leading events of the reign of Alexis, who succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Michael in 1645. (1) First comes his codification of the Russian laws (called Uloz/ienie), which was based on the preceding codes of Ivans III. and IV. By the order of the czar, a commission of ecclesiastical and lay members was appointed to examine the existing laws, and make any necessary additions, or to adapt to present needs any which had become obsolete. The work was chiefly carried on by Princes Odoievski and Volkonski, with the assistance of two secretaries. They were engaged 'over it two months and a half, and the original code is still preserved in the Oruzhennaia Palata at Moscow. Ustrialoff boasts that, by recognizing the equality of all men in the eyes of the law, it anticipated a principle which was not generally acknowledged in western Europe till the 18th century. This doctrine, however, may be considered as only a natural consequence of autocracy. We are told that Alexis allowed access to all petitioners, and at his favourite village of Kolomenskoe, opposite his bed-room window, was placed a tin box ; as soon as the czar rose and appeared at the window the suppliants came forward with their complaints, and, making an obeisance, placed them in the box, which was afterwards taken to him. (2) The second great event of his reign was the incorporation of the Ukraine and country of the Cossacks with Russia. For a description of the causes of this war, see POLAND. (3) By the treaty of Andruszowo the Russians gained Smolensk, Tchernigoff, and finally Kieff, the Dnieper being the new boundary,' and thus the towns which had been taken by the Lithuanians and annexed to Poland by the treaty of Lublin (1569) became Russian again. The only other events of the reign of Alexis of any importance are the great riot at Moscow, on account of the depreciation of the coinage in 1648, and the rebellion of Stenka Razin, a Cossack. The riot is fully described in the interesting letter of an eyewitness which is pre- served in the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford. Razin devastated the country round the Volga, and continued his depredations for three years. Alexis, however, captured him, and pardoned him on condition of his taking the oath of allegiance. He soon, however, broke out into rebellion again, and proclaimed himself the enemy of the nobles, and the restorer of the liberty of the people. By various arti- fices he succeeded in alluring two hundred thousand men to his standard. Astrakhan was surrendered to him, and he ruled from Nijni-Novgorod to Kazan. He was, however, like Pugatcheff in the reign of Catherine II., a vulgar robber and nothing more. His atrocities disgusted the more respectable of his adherents; his forces were gradually dispersed, and in 1671 he was taken to Moscow and executed. The czar Alexis died in 1676 in his forty- eighth year. One of the most eminent men of his reign was Ordin-Nastchokin, who negotiated the peace of Andruszowo. Alexis was a man of broad views, and made many efforts to raise Russia to the level of a European power, by sending competent men as ambassadors to foreign parts, and developing the trade of the country. In these respects he resembled Boris Godunoff. Altogether his reign was one of distinct progress for Russia. He was succeeded by his eldest son Feodor, by his first Feodor wife Maria Miloslavskaia. Feodor (1676-1682) was a**** prince of weak health, and his reign was uneventful. A notable occurrence was the destruction of the rozriadnie knigi, or books of pedigrees. According to the miestni- chestvo no man could take any office which was inferior to any which his ancestors had held, or could be subordinate to any man who reckoned fewer ancestors than himself. Feodor, however, finding to what interminable quarrels these pedigrees gave rise, both at court and in the camp, hit upon a bold plan, said to have been suggested by his minister Vasilii Golitzin. He caused all the families to deliver their pedigrees into court that they might be examined, under pretext of ridding them of any errors which might have crept in. The nobles were convoked ; and the czar, assisted by the clergy, caused their books to be burned before their eyes. On the death of Feodor, there seemed every probability that the empire would fall into a complete state of anarchy. The czar Alexis had been twice married : his first wife Maria Miloslavskaia bore him two sons, Feodor and Ivan, and several daughters; his second, Natalia Narishkina, was the mother of Peter and a daughter Natalia. The court was rent by the rival factions of the Miloslavskis and the Narishkins. Ivan was even more inh'rm than Feodor and the Narishkins strove to bring it about that he should be set aside and Peter should be elected. Sophia, however, Sophia. the daughter of Alexis by his first wife, was a woman of singular energy of character, the more remarkable on account of the little attention paid to the education of women in Russia and the cloistered and spiritless lives they were compelled to lead. According to some accounts she was a woman altogether wanting in personal at- tractions. Perry, however, the engineer employed by Peter the Great, speaks of her as good-looking. But the position of the women of the imperial family was even worse than that of the generality ; they were not allowed to marry subjects, and in consequence the majority of them led a life of enforced celibacy. Sophia was the favourite daughter of her father, and was assiduous in her attentions to him during his last illness. One of her brothers being an imbecile and the other a child, she hoped to wield the sceptre. She fomented a revolt of the streltzl, and, instigated by her harangues, they murdered some of the family and partisans of the Narishkins. Not content with slaying one of the czarina's brothers at the beginning of the rebellion, they afterwards dragged another from his hiding-place and cut him to pieces. The result of all these disturbances was that Ivan and