The Empire of Russia Part 19

CHAPTER XVII.

A CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

From 1608 to 1680.

Conquests by Poland.--Sweden in Alliance with Russia.--Grandeur of Poland.--Ladislaus Elected King of Russia.--Commotions and Insurrections.--Rejection of Ladislaus and Election of Michael Feodor Romanow.--Sorrow of His Mother.--Pacific Character of Romanow.--Choice of a Bride.--Eudochia Streschnew.--The Archbishop Feodor.--Death of Michael and Accession of Alexis.--Love in the Palace.--Successful Intrigue.--Mobs in Moscow.--Change in the Character of the Tzar.--Turkish Invasions.--Alliance Between Russia and Poland.

This public testimonial of conjugal love led men, who had before doubted the pretender, to repose confidence in his claims. The King of Poland took advantage of the confusion now reigning in Russia to extend his dominions by wresting still more border territory from his great rival. In this exigence, Zuski purchased the loan of an army of five thousand men from Sweden by surrendering Livonia to the Swedes.

With these succors united to his own troops, he marched to meet the pretended Dmitri. There was now universal confusion in Russia. The two hostile armies, avoiding a decisive engagement, were maneuvering and engaging in incessant petty skirmishes, which resulted only in bloodshed and misery. Thus five years of national woe lingered away.

The people became weary of both the claimants for the crown, and the n.o.bles boldly met, regardless of the rival combatants, and resolved to choose a new sovereign.

Poland had then attained the summit of its greatness. As an energetic military power, it was superior to Russia. To conciliate Poland, whose aggressions were greatly feared, the Russian n.o.bles chose, for their sovereign, Ladislaus, son of Sigismond, the King of Poland. They hoped thus to withdraw the Polish armies from the banners of the pretended Dmitri, and also to secure peace for their war-blasted kingdom.

Ladislaus accepted the crown. Zuski was seized, deposed, shaved, dressed in a friar's robe and shut up in a convent to count his beads.

He soon died of that malignant poison, grief. Dmitri made a show of opposition, but he was soon a.s.sa.s.sinated by his own men, who were convinced of the hopelessness of his cause. His party, however, lasted for many years, bringing forward a young man who was called his son.

At one time there was quite an enthusiasm in his favor, crowds flocked to his camp, and he even sent emba.s.sadors to Gustavus IX., King of Sweden, proposing an alliance. At last he was betrayed by some of his own party, and was sent to Moscow, where he was hanged.

Sigismond was much perplexed in deciding whether to consent to his son's accepting the crown of Russia. That kingdom was now in such a state of confusion and weakness that he was quite sanguine that he would be able to conquer it by force of arms and bring the whole empire under the dominion of his own scepter. His armies were already besieging Smolensk, and the city was hourly expected to fall into their hands. This would open to them almost an un.o.bstructed march to Moscow. The Poles, generally warlike and ambitious of conquest, represented to Sigismond that it would be far more glorious for him to be the conqueror of Russia than to be merely the father of its tzar.

Sigismond, with trivial excuses, detained his son in Poland, while, under various pretexts, he continued to pour his troops into Russia.

Ten thousand armed Poles were sent to Moscow to be in readiness to receive the newly-elected monarch upon his arrival. Their general, Stanislaus, artfully contrived even to place a thousand of these Polish troops in garrison in the citadel of Moscow. These foreign soldiers at last became so insolent that there was a general rising of the populace, and they were threatened with utter extermination.

The storm of pa.s.sion thus raised, no earthly power could quell. The awful slaughter was commenced, and the Poles, conscious of their danger, resorted to the horrible but only measure which could save them from destruction. They immediately set fire to the city in many different places. The city then consisted of one hundred and eighty thousand houses, most of them being of wood. As the flames rose, sweeping from house to house and from street to street, the inhabitants, distracted by the endeavor to save their wives, their children and their property, threw down their arms and dispersed. When thus helpless, the Poles fell upon them, and one of the most awful ma.s.sacres ensued of which history gives any record. A hundred thousand of the wretched people of Moscow perished beneath the Polish cimeters.

For fifteen days the depopulated and smouldering capital was surrendered to pillage. The royal treasury, the churches, the convents were all plundered. The Poles, then, laden with booty, but leaving a garrison in the citadel, evacuated the ruined city and commenced their march to Poland.

These horrors roused the Russians. An army under a heroic general, Zachary Lippenow, besieged the Polish garrison, starved them into a surrender, and put them all to death. The n.o.bles then met, declared the election of Ladislaus void, on account of his not coming to Moscow to accept it, and again proceeded to the choice of a sovereign. After long deliberation, one man ventured to propose a candidate very different from any who had before been thought of. It was Michael Feodor Romanow. He was a studious, philosophic young man, seventeen years of age. His father was archbishop of Rostow, a man of exalted reputation, both for genius and piety. Michael, with his mother, was in a convent at Castroma. It was modestly urged that in this young man there were centered all the qualifications essential for the promotion of the tranquillity of the State. There were but three males of his family living, and thus the State would avoid the evil of having numerous relatives of the prince to be cared for. He was entirely free from embroilments in the late troubles. As his father was a clergyman of known piety and virtue, he would counsel his son to peace, and would conscientiously seek the best good of the empire.

The proposition, sustained by such views, was accepted with general acclaim. There were several n.o.bles from Castroma who testified that though they were not personally acquainted with young Romanow, they believed him to be a youth of unusual intelligence, discretion and moral worth. As the n.o.bles were anxious not to act hastily in a matter of such great importance, they dispatched two of their number to Castroma with a letter to the mother of Michael, urging her to repair immediately with her son to Moscow.

The affectionate, judicious mother, upon the reception of this letter, burst into tears of anguish, lamenting the calamity which was impending.

"My son," she said, "my only son is to be taken from me to be placed upon the throne, only to be miserably slaughtered like so many of the tzars who have preceded him."

She wrote to the electors entreating them that her son might be excused, saying that he was altogether too young to reign, that his father was a prisoner in Poland, and that her son had no relations capable of a.s.sisting him with their advice. This letter, on the whole, did but confirm the a.s.sembly of n.o.bles in their conviction that they could not make a better choice than that of the young Romanow. They accordingly, with great unanimity, elected Michael Feodor Romanow, sovereign of all the Russias; then, repairing in a body to the cathedral, they proclaimed him to the people as their sovereign. The announcement was received with rapturous applause. It was thus that the house of Romanow was placed upon the throne of Russia. It retains the throne to the present day.

Michael, incited by singular sagacity and by true Christian philanthropy, commenced his reign by the most efficient measures to secure the peace of the empire. As soon as he had notified his election to the King of Poland, his father, archbishop of Rostow, was set at liberty and sent home. He was immediately created by his son patriarch of all Russia, an office in the Greek church almost equivalent to that of the pope in the Romish hierarchy. While these scenes were transpiring, Charles IX. died, and Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the throne of Sweden. Gustavus and Michael both desired peace, the preliminaries were soon settled, and peace was established upon a basis far more advantageous to the Swedes than to the Russians.

By this treaty, Russia ceded to Sweden territory, which deprived Russia of all access to the Baltic Sea. Thus the only point now upon which Russia touched the ocean, was on the North Sea. No enemies remained to Russia but the Poles. Here there was trouble enough.

Ladislaus still demanded the throne, and invaded the empire with an immense army. He advanced, ravaging the country, even to the gates of Moscow. But, finding that he had no partisans in the kingdom, and that powerful armies were combining against him, he consented to a truce for fourteen years.

Russia was now at peace with all the world. The young tzar, aided by the counsels of his excellent father, devoted himself with untiring energy to the promotion of the prosperity of his subjects. It was deemed a matter of much political importance that the tzar should be immediately married. According to the custom of the empire, all the most beautiful girls were collected for the monarch to make his choice. They were received in the palace, and were lodged separately though they all dined together. The tzar saw them, either incognito or without disguise, as suited his pleasure. The day for the nuptials was appointed, and the bridal robes prepared when no one knew upon whom the monarch's choice had been fixed. On the morning of the nuptial day the robes were presented to the empress elect, who then, for the first time, learned that she had proved the successful candidate. The rejected maidens were returned to their homes laden with rich presents.

The young lady selected, was Eudocia Streschnew, who chanced to be the daughter of a very worthy gentleman, in quite straitened circ.u.mstances, residing nearly two hundred miles from Moscow. The messenger who was sent to inform him that his daughter was Empress of Russia, found him in the field at work with his domestics. The good old man was conducted to Moscow; but he soon grew weary of the splendors of the court, and entreated permission to return again to his humble rural home. Eudocia, reared in virtuous retirement, proved as lovely in character as she was beautiful in person, and she soon won the love of the nation. The first year of her marriage, she gave birth to a daughter. The three next children proved also daughters, to the great disappointment of their parents. But in the year 1630, a son was born, and not only the court, but all Russia, was filled with rejoicing. In the year 1634, the tzar met with one of the greatest of afflictions in the loss of his father by death. His reverence for the venerable patriarch Feodor, had been such that he was ever his princ.i.p.al counselor, and all his public acts were proclaimed in the name of the tzar and his majesty's father, the most holy patriarch.

"As he had joined," writes an ancient historian, "the miter to the sword, having been a general in the army before he was an ecclesiastic, the affable and modest behaviour, so becoming the ministers of the altar, had tempered and corrected the fire of the warrior, and rendered his manners amiable to all that came near him."

The reign of Michael proved almost a constant success. His wisdom and probity caused him to be respected by the neighboring States, while the empire, in the enjoyment of peace, was rapidly developing all its resources, and increasing in wealth, population and power. His court was constantly filled with emba.s.sadors from all the monarchies of Europe and even of Asia. The tzar, rightly considering peace as almost the choicest of all earthly blessings, resisted all temptations to draw the sword. There were a few trivial interruptions of peace during his reign; but the dark clouds of war, by his energies, were soon dispelled. This pacific prince, one of the most worthy who ever sat upon any throne, died revered by his subjects on the 12th of July, 1645, in the forty-ninth year of his age and the thirty-third of his reign. He left but two children--a son, Alexis, who succeeded him, and a daughter, Irene, who a few years after died unmarried.

Alexis was but sixteen years of age when he succeeded to the throne.

To prevent the possibility of any cabals being formed, in consequence of his youth, he was crowned the day after his father's death. In one week from that time Eudocia also died, her death being hastened by grief for the loss of her husband. An ambitious n.o.ble, Moroson, supremely selfish, but cool, calculating and persevering, attained the post of prime minister or counselor of the young tzar. The great object of his aim was to make himself the first subject in the empire.

In the accomplishment of this object there were two leading measures to which he resorted. The first was to keep the young tzar as much as possible from taking any part in the transactions of state, by involving him in an incessant round of pleasures. The next step was to secure for the tzar a wife who would be under his own influence. The love of pleasure incident to youth rendered the first measure not difficult of accomplishment. Peculiar circ.u.mstances seemed remarkably to favor the second measure. There was a n.o.bleman of high rank but of small fortune, strongly attached to Moroson, who had two daughters of marvelous beauty. Moroson doubted not that he could lead his ardent young monarch to marry one of these lovely sisters, and he resolved himself to marry the other. He would thus become the brother-in-law of the emperor. Through his wife he would be able to influence her sister, the empress. The family would also all feel that they were indebted to him for their elevation. The plan was triumphantly successful.

The two young ladies were invited to court, and were decorated to make the most impressive display of their loveliness. With the young tzar, a boy of sixteen, it was love at first sight, and that very day he told Moroson that he wished to marry Maria, the eldest of the beauties. Rich presents were immediately lavished upon the whole family, so that they could make their appearance at court with suitable splendor. The tzar and Maria were immediately betrothed, and in just eight days the ardent lover led his bride from the altar. At the end of another week Moroson married the other sister. Moroson and Miloslouski, the father of the two brides, now ruled Russia, while the tzar surrendered himself to amus.e.m.e.nts.

The people soon became exasperated by the haughtiness and insolence of the duumvirate, and murmurs growing deeper and louder, ere long led to an insurrection. On the 6th of July, 1648, the tzar, engaged in some civic celebration, was escorted in a procession to one of the monasteries of Moscow. The populace a.s.sembled in immense numbers to see him pa.s.s. On his return the crowd broke through the attendant guards, seized the bridle of his horse, and entreated him to listen to their complaints concerning the outrages perpetrated by his ministers.

The tzar, much alarmed by their violence, listened impatiently to their complaints and promised to render them satisfaction. The people were appeased, and were quietly retiring when the partisans of the ministers rode among them, a.s.sailing them with abusive language, crowding them with their horses, and even striking at them with their whips. The populace, incensed, began to pelt them with stones, and though the guard of the tzar came to their rescue, they escaped with difficulty to the palace. The mob was now thoroughly aroused. They rushed to the palace of Moroson, burst down the doors, and sacked every apartment. They even tore from the person of his wife her jewels, throwing them into the street, but in other respects treating her with civility. They then pa.s.sed to the palace of Miloslauski, treating it in the same manner. The mob had now possession of Moscow.

Palace after palace of the partisans of the ministers was sacked, and several of the most distinguished members of the court were ma.s.sacred.

The tzar, entirely deficient in energy, remained trembling in the Kremlin during the whole of the night of the 6th of July, only entreating his friends to strengthen the guards and to secure the palace from the outrages of the populace. Afraid to trust the Russian troops, who might be found in sympathy with the people, Alexis sent for a regiment of German troops who were in his employ, and stationed them around the palace. He then sent out an officer to disperse the crowd, a.s.suring them that the disorders of which they complained should be redressed. They demanded that the offending ministers should be delivered to them, to be punished for the injuries they had inflicted upon the empire. Alexis a.s.sured them, through his messenger, upon his oath, that Moroson and Miloslauski had escaped, but promised that the third minister whom they demanded, a n.o.ble by the name of Plesseon, who was judge of the supreme court of judicature of Moscow, should be brought out directly, and that those who had escaped should be delivered up as soon as they could be arrested. The guilty, wretched man, thus doomed to be the victim to appease the rage of the mob, in a quarter of an hour was led out bareheaded by the servants of the tzar to the market-place. The mob fell upon him with clubs, beat him to the earth, dragged him over the pavements, and finally cut off his head. Thus satiated, about eleven o'clock in the morning they dispersed and returned to their homes.

In the afternoon, however, the reign of violence was resumed. The city was set on fire in several places, and the mob collected for plunder, making no effort to extinguish the flames. The fire spread with such alarming rapidity that the whole city was endangered. At length, however, after terrible destruction of property and the loss of many lives, the fury of the conflagration was arrested. The affrighted tzar now filled the important posts of the ministry with men who had a reputation for justice, and the clergy immediately espousing the cause of order, exhorted the populace to that respect and obedience to the higher powers which their religion enjoined. Alexis personally appeared before the people and addressed them in a speech, in which he made no apology for the outrages which had been committed by the government, but, a.s.suming that the people were right in their demands, promised to repeal the onerous duties, to abolish the obnoxious monopolies, and even to increase the privileges which they had formerly enjoyed. The people received this announcement with great applause. The tzar, taking advantage of this return to friendliness, remarked,

"I have promised to deliver up to you Moroson and his confederates in the government. Their acts I admit to have been very unjust, but their personal relations to me renders it peculiarly trying for me to condemn them. I hope the people will not deny the first request I have ever made to them, which is, that these men, whom I have displaced, may be pardoned. I will answer for them for the future, and a.s.sure you that their conduct shall be such as to give you cause to rejoice at your lenity."

The people were so moved by this address, which the tzar p.r.o.nounced with tears, that, as with one accord, they shouted, "G.o.d grant his majesty a long and happy life. The will of G.o.d and of the tzar be done." Peace was thus restored between the government and the people, and great good accrued to Russia from this successful insurrection.

During the early reign of Alexis, there were no foreign wars of any note. The Poles were all the time busy in endeavors to beat back the Turks, who, in wave after wave of invasion, were crossing the Danube.

Upon the death of Ladislaus, King of Poland, Alexis, who had then a fine army at his command, offered to march to repel the Turks, if the Poles would choose him King of Poland. But at the same time France made a still more alluring offer, in case they would choose John Casimir, a prince in the interests of France, as their sovereign. The choice fell upon John Casimir. The provinces of Smolensk, Kiof and Tchernigov were then in possession of the Poles, having been, in former wars, wrested from Russia. The Poles had conquered them by taking advantage of internal troubles in Russia, which enabled them with success to invade the empire.

Alexis now thought it right, in his turn, to take advantage of the weakness of Poland, hara.s.sed by the Turks, to recover these lost provinces. He accordingly marched to the city of Smolensk, and encamped before it with an army of three hundred thousand men.

Smolensk was one of the strongest places which military art had then been able to rear. The Poles had received sufficient warning of the attack to enable them to garrison the fortifications to their utmost capacity and to supply the town abundantly with all the materials of war. The siege was continued for a full year, with all the usual accompaniments of carnage and misery which attend a beleaguered fortress. At last the city, battered into ruins, surrendered, and the victorious Russians immediately swept over Lithuanian Poland, meeting no force to obstruct its march. Another army, equally resistless, swept the banks of the Dnieper, and recovered Tchernigov and Kiof.

Misfortunes seemed now to be falling like an avalanche upon Poland.

While the Turks were a.s.sailing them on the south, and the Russians were wresting from them opulent and populous provinces on the north, Charles Gustavus of Sweden, was crossing her eastern frontiers with invading hosts. The impetuous Swedish king, in three months, overran nearly the whole of Poland, threatening the utter extinction of the kingdom. This alarmed the surrounding kingdoms, lest Sweden should become too powerful for their safety. Alexis immediately entered into a truce with Poland, which guaranteed to him the peaceable possession of the provinces he had regained, and then united his armies with those of his humiliated rival, to arrest the strides of the Swedish conqueror.

Sieges, cannonades and battles innumerable ensued, over hundreds of leagues of territory, bordering the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic. For several years the maddened strife continued, producing its usual fruits of gory fields, smouldering cities, desolated homes, with orphanage, widowhood, starvation, pestilence, and every conceivable form of human misery. At length, all parties being exhausted, peace was concluded on the 2d of June, 1661.

The great insurrection in Moscow had taught the tzar Alexis a good lesson, and he profited by it wisely. He was led to devote himself earnestly to the welfare of his people. His recovery of the lost provinces of Russia was considered just, and added immeasurably to his renown. Conscious of the imperfection of his education, he engaged earnestly in study, causing many important scientific treatises to be translated into the Russian language, and perusing them with diligence and delight. He had the laws of the several provinces collected and published together. Many new manufactures were introduced, particularly those of silk and linen. Though rigidly economical in his expenses, he maintained a magnificent court and a numerous army. He took great interest in the promotion of agriculture, bringing many desert wastes into cultivation, and peopling them with the prisoners taken in the Polish and Swedish wars. It was the custom in those barbaric times to drive, as captives of war, the men, women and children of whole provinces, to be slaves in the territory of the conqueror. Often they occupied the position of a va.s.sal peasantry, tilling the soil for the benefit of their lords. With singular foresight, Alexis planned for the construction of a fleet both on the Caspian and the Black Sea. With this object in view, he sent for s.h.i.+p carpenters from Holland and other places.

All Europe was now trembling in view of the encroachments of the Turks. Several very angry messages had pa.s.sed between the sultan and the tzar, and the Turks had proved themselves ever eager to combine with the Tartars in b.l.o.o.d.y raids into the southern regions of the empire. Alexis resolved to combine Christian Europe, if possible, in a war of extermination against the Turks. To this end he sent emba.s.sadors to every court in Christendom. As his emba.s.sador was presented to Pope Clement X., the pope extended his foot for the customary kiss. The proud Russian drew back, exclaiming,

"So ign.o.ble an act of homage is beneath the dignity of the prince whom I have the honor to serve."

He then informed the pope that the Emperor of Russia had resolved to make war against the Turks, that he wished to see all Christian princes unite against those enemies of humanity and religion, that for that purpose he had sent emba.s.sadors to all the potentates of Europe, and that he exhorted his holiness to place himself at the head of a league so powerful, so necessary for the protection of the church, and from which every Christian State might derive the greatest advantages.

Foolish punctilios of etiquette interfered with any efficient arrangements with the court of Rome, and though the emba.s.sadors of other powers were received with the most marked respect, these powers were all too much engrossed with their own internal affairs to enlist in this enterprise for the public good. The Turks were, however, alarmed by these formidable movements, and, fearing such an alliance, were somewhat checked in their career of conquest.

On the 10th of November, 1674, the King of Poland died, and again there was an attempt on the part of Russia to unite Poland and the empire under the same crown. All the monarchies in Europe were involved in intrigues for the Polish crown. The electors, however, chose John Sobieski, a renowned Polish general, for their sovereign.

The tzar was very apprehensive that the Poles would make peace with the Turks, and thus leave the sultan at liberty to concentrate all his tremendous resources upon Russia. Alexis raised three large armies, amounting in all to one hundred and fifty thousand men, which he sent into the Ukraine, as the frontier country, watered by the lower Dnieper, was then called.

The Turkish army, which was spread over the country between the Danube and the Dniester, now crossed this latter stream, and, in solid battalions, four hundred thousand strong, penetrated the Ukraine. They immediately commenced the fiend-like work of reducing the whole province to a desert. The process of destruction is swift. Flames, in a few hours, will consume a city which centuries alone have reared. A squadron of cavalry will, in a few moments, trample fields of grain which have been slowly growing and ripening for months. In less than a fortnight nearly the whole of the Ukraine was a depopulated waste, the troops of the tzar being shut up in narrow fortresses. The King of Poland, apprehensive that this vast Turkish army would soon turn with all their energies of destruction upon his own territories, resolved to march, with all the forces of his kingdom, to the aid of the Russians. One hundred thousand Polish troops immediately besieged the great city of Humau, which the Turks had taken, midway between the Dnieper and the Dniester.

John Sobieski, the newly-elected King of Poland, was a veteran soldier of great military renown. He placed himself at the head of other divisions of the army, and endeavored to distract the enemy and to divide their forces. At the same time, Alexis himself hastened to the theater of war that he might animate his troops by his presence. The Turks, finding themselves unable to advance any further, sullenly returned to their own country by the way of the Danube. Upon the retirement of the Turks, the Russians and the Poles began to quarrel respecting the possession of the Ukraine. Affairs were in this condition when the tzar Alexis, in all the vigor of manhood, was taken sick and died. He was then in the forty-sixth year of his age. His first wife, Maria Miloslouski, had died several years before him, leaving two sons and four daughters. His second wife, Natalia Nariskin, to whom he was married in the year 1671, still lived with her two children, a son, Peter, who was subsequently ent.i.tled the Great, as being the most ill.u.s.trious monarch Russia has known, and a daughter Natalia.

Alexis, notwithstanding the unpropitious promise of his youth, proved one of the wisest and best princes Russia had known for years. He was a lover of peace, and yet prosecuted war with energy when it was forced upon him. His oldest surviving son, Feodor, who was but eighteen years of age at the time of his father's death, succeeded to the crown. Feodor, following the counsel which his father gave him on his dying bed, soon took military possession of nearly all of the Ukraine. The Turks entered the country again, but were repulsed with severe loss. Apprehensive that they would speedily return, the tzar made great efforts to secure a friendly alliance with Poland, in which he succeeded by paying a large sum of money in requital for the provinces of Smolensk and Kiof which his arms had recovered.

In the spring of 1678, the Turks again entered the Ukraine with a still more formidable army than the year before. The campaign was opened by laying siege to the city Czeherin, which was encompa.s.sed by nearly four hundred thousand men, and, after a destructive cannonade, was carried by storm. The garrison, consisting of thirty thousand men, were put to the sword. The Russian troops were so panic-stricken by this defeat, that they speedily retreated. The Turks pursued them a long distance, constantly hara.s.sing their rear. But the Turks, in their turn, were compelled to retire, being driven back by famine, a foe against whom their weapons could make no impression.

The Ottoman Porte soon found that little was gained by waging war with an empire so vast and spa.r.s.ely settled as Russia, and that their conquest of the desolated and depopulated lands of the Ukraine, was by no means worth the expenses of the war. The Porte was therefore inclined to make peace with Russia, that the Turkish armies might fall upon Poland again, which presented a much more inviting field of conquest. The Poles were informed of this through their emba.s.sador at Constantinople, and earnestly appealed to the tzar of Russia, and to all the princes in Christendom to come to their aid. The selfishness which every court manifested is humiliating to human nature. Each court seemed only to think of its own aggrandizement. Feodor consented to aid them only on condition that the Poles should renounce all pretension to any places then in possession of Russia. To this the Polish king a.s.sented, and the armies of Russia and Poland were again combined to repel the Turks.