Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/357

Rh us search for a prince who will govern us." They decided on a foreigner, the Norman Rurik. To him and to his brothers they sent messengers to say, "Our country is large and abundant, but order and justice are lacking. Come and take possession of it and rule over us." It would be difficult to recall a similar instance in any other country. Rurik vouchsafed a favorable reply, and founded the first Russian dynasty.

A hundred years later the sovereign, Wladimir, then a pagan, became a Christian. At Kief he ordered his subjects to assemble on the banks of the River Dnieper and be baptized. They joyfully obeyed. "If baptism were not good," said they, "our prince and our boyars would not have submitted to it."

The common formula of a royal order was, until the time of Russia's subjugation by the Tatars, "This is my will, and hence the law. Hear and obey."

From 1205 to 1472 the country groaned under the merciless sway of the Mongol Tatars. Resistance was of no avail against the overwhelming numbers of the invading horde. The period is fitly called in Russian history "The Age of Tears" or "The Age of Woe." No other country of Europe has ever been subjected to such horrible and long-continued suffering. The only alleviation to the awful distress was found in the efforts of the royal Russian family—itself tributary and a vassal, always weak, but determined and shrewd—to modify the ferocity of the conquerors and to keep the sense of nationality from dying. Upon their princes, fellow-sufferers with them in a common and intolerable subjection, the people looked as their only hope. When at last Prince Demetrius of the Don won a decisive victory over the horde and made it evident that its final expulsion was only the work of patience and time, the delirious gratitude of the people knew no bounds. They were ready to swear themselves the subjects of Demetrius

From "All the Russias," by Henry Norman. Copyright, 1902, by Charles Scribner's Sons Home of Romanoffs, Moscow

and his heirs forever. The city from which the deliverance had proceeded was henceforth "Holy Mother Moscow." Autocracy, by its immense services, had enshrined itself in the Russian heart. Gradually the broken horde was pressed back to the waste lands which stretch along the Azoff and the Caspian, nor is it strange if subjection through 273 hideous years to inhuman Asiatic masters left traces, hard to eradicate, upon Russian character.

From 1462 to 1584 three princes occupied the throne—Ivan III the Great, Wassili, and Ivan IV the Terrible, or, more accurately rendering the Russian adjective, Ivan the Awful. Ruthless, sometimes monstrous, but always mighty, always persistent in one purpose, these three built up Russia from its humiliation and weakness into glory and strength. Before Ivan IV, the marvelous madman, died he had made him-