Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/284

 260 Moses." … It is the production of a self-taught man and a strong one, who has received no systematic education, and does not possess a glimmer of artistic feeling; but it is by no means devoid of intelligence and thinking power.

In the obscure history of the Opritchnina another episode occurs—one less easily reconciled, apparently, with that certainty as to Ivan’s mental health which may be deduced from the facts I have just been describing. This is the most enigmatic point in the drama, and we must pause to consider it. In 1574 or 1575—the date itself is not quite clear—while Ivan was still in life, Russia had a new Tsar.

The Sovereign had confided the headship of the Ziémchtchina to Mstislavski and Biélski. In 1571, the first-named nobleman acknowledged himself guilty of a criminal understanding with the Tartars. He was pardoned, thanks to the intercession of the Metropolitan, Cyril; three prominent boïars went surety for him, and these again found 285 guarantors for the then enormous sum of 20,000 roubles. But within a few years Mstislavski was obliged to confess to another misdeed of the same nature, in which two of his sons were also involved. Once more he escaped death, but a number of executions, which took place in 1574, and as to which a chronicler reports that the victims' heads were ordered to be 'thrown down in front of Mstislavski's windows,' seem to have been caused by this fresh act of treachery. Meanwhile, a Tsarevitch of Kazan, established as Tsar of Kassimov, under the name of Simeon Bekboulatovitch, was proclaimed 'Tsar of all the Russias,' while the real Tsar, putting off all his titles, and renouncing all the honours due to his rank, had himself called plain 'Ivan of Moscow,' and took his way, in the most modest style, 'on litters,' like the humblest boïar in his Empire, to pay his court to the new Sovereign.

What was the meaning of this comedy?

It was part of the practice of the Muscovite system of policy to assign the ancient Tartar Sovereigns new establishments and territories, within which they kept the title of Tsar, and over which they exercised a shadowy sovereignty. By this means Russia succeeded in attaching turbulent Princes to her own side, she avoided difficult dealings with the easily offended hierarchy of the 'men who serve,' and the consideration thus shown to the Moslem world was a useful argument in her intercourse with the Crimean Khans. Another Tsarevitch of Kazan—Kaïboul—was reigning on the same terms at Iouriév (Derpt), and the former Tsar of Astrakan, Derbych-Ali, was at Zveni-