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 and  regions so that everything of consequence to us, which happens in any part of Rus, is transmitted as speedily as lightning, travelling from community to community until it reaches us.”

“Of what good is such news to you, if you cannot aid yourselves!” the boyar retorted surlily.

“You are right, Boyarin,” replied Zakhar gravely. “The municipalities of Podilia and Pokutia cannot aid themselves for they have been stripped and reduced to serfdom by the king’s boyars who will not permit them to arm themselves or even to learn the proper art of self-defence.”

“Now you can see what putting supreme power into one man’s hands means! In order to gather together the power of the whole nation into one pair of hands, the entire nation of peoples must be weakened and subdued. To invest supreme power into one man over a nation of people, it is necessary to first take away the freedom of every township and region, to destroy their local self-government and to disarm the entire population, leaving the Mongols free access to our country.”

“Let’s take for example our Rus, at this crucial moment. Your ruler, your all powerful king Danilo, has disappeared, gone no one knows where. Instead of turning to his people, granting them their liberty and organizing them into a living and unconquerable garrison against the Mongol invaders he, while the Mongols are plundering his country, has run to the king of the Uhri, begging for his assistance! But the Magyars are not anxious to help us although they are also threatened by the onset of the same enemy.”

“Now that your king Danilo has vanished, who knows but you may soon see him in the camp of the Magyar Khan as his faithful servant so that with the price of his enslavement and humiliation he may purchase his own domination over the still weaker populace.”