Muscovy

“ Novgorod and the other Russian republics enslaved—Lithuania diminished, and its king a tool in Ivan's hands—the Livonian knights vanquished. Astonished Europe, at the commencement of Ivan's reign, hardly aware of the existence of Muscovy, hemmed in between the Tartar and the Lithuanian, was dazzled by the sudden appearance of an immense empire on its eastern confines, and Sultan Bajazet himself, before whom Europe trembled, heard for the first time the haughty language of the Muscovite. ”

“ Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Moscow became a new center of Russian power. From Moscow comes the name Muscovy. "Muscovy was to Russia what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear that name." In the fourteenth century, while Lithuania and Poland were absorbing by conquest the territories of earlier or Western Russia, the Duchy of Moscow was building up a new Russia in the East, out of which grew the Russia of to-day. Ivan I., regarded as the founder of the Russian monarchy, made Moscow his capital in 1328. Most of the other princes were subject to him. ”

“ These are the things, most excellent Queen, which your subjects newly returned from Russia have brought home concerning the state of that country: wherefore if your Majesty shall be favourable, and grant a continuance of the travel, there is no doubt but that the honour and renown of your name will be spread amongst those nations, whereunto three only noble personages from the very creation have had access, to whom no man hath been comparable.
The Copy of the Duke of Muscovy and Emperor or Russia his Letters, sent to King Edward VI., by the hands of Richard Chanceler. ”

“ Which thing was of all the Russians in the rest of their journey so willingly done, that they began to quarrel, yea, and to fight also in striving and contending which of them should put their post-horses to the sled: so that after much ado, and great pains taken in this long and weary journey (for they had travelled very near fifteen hundred miles) , Master Chanceler came at last to Moscow, the chief city of the kingdom, and the seat of the king, of which city, and of the Emperor himself, and of the principal cities of Muscovy, we will speak immediately more at large in this discourse. ”

“ Touching the Riphean Mountains, whereupon the snow lieth continually, and where hence in times past it was thought that Tanais the river did spring, and that the rest of the wonders of Nature which the Grecians feigned and invented of old were there to be seen, our men which lately came from thence neither saw them, nor yet have brought home any perfect relation of them, although they remained there for the space of three months, and had gotten in that time some intelligence of the language of Muscovy. The whole country is plain and champaign, and few hills in it ”

“ The next document is a letter to Arsenius at Petersburgh.
"We cannot but acknowledge the great obligations we lie under to your Lordship, for so long continuance in Muscovy, in order to promote an happy union betwixt our Church and your own. For by that means we have been enabled to treat with the most holy Patriarchs of the East, in a much better manner, than we could have hoped for by any other means. ”

“ The Emperor is a great merchant himself of wax and sables, which with good foresight may be procured to their hands; as for other commodities there are little or none in Muscovy besides those above rehearsed; if there be other it is brought thither by the Turks, who will be dainty to buy our cloths considering the charges of carriages overland.
Our merchants may do well to provide for the Russians such wares as the Dutch nation doth serve them of, as Flanders and Holland cloths, which I believe they shall serve better with less charge than they of Rye or Dorpt, or Revel ”

“ This misfortune delayed for centuries the nationalization of the Slavonian peoples.
RUSSIA FREED FROM THE MONGOLS.—It was not until the reign of Ivan the Great (1462-1505) that Russia,—now frequently called Muscovy from the fact that it had been reorganized with Moscow as a centre,—after a terrible struggle, succeeded in freeing itself from the hateful Tartar domination, and began to assume the character of a well-consolidated monarchy. ”

“ Concerning the tolls and customs of Russia, it was reported to me in Muscovy that the Turks and Armenians pay the tenth penny custom of all the wares they bring into the Emperor’s land, and above that they pay for all such goods as they weigh at the Emperor’s beam two pence of the rouble, which the buyer or seller must make report of to the master of the beam. They also pay a certain horse toll, which is in divers places of his realm four pence of a horse. ”

“ They were destined, however, to make more rapid progress than other classes of artisans, because the old Tsars of Muscovy, like other semi-barbarous potentates, admired and envied the industries of more civilised countries mainly from the military point of view. What they wanted most was a plentiful supply of good arms wherewith to defend themselves and attack their neighbours, and it was to this object that their most strenuous efforts were directed. ”

“ The ambassador of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, Danilo Mamiroff, refused to sit below the envoy of the Most Serene Republic of St. Mark. To all explanations, persuasions and entreaties the old man was obstinate, and only repeated:—
'I will not sit down. I will not sit down. 'Tis an affront!' Nor recked he of curious looks and ironical smiles turned on him from every side.
182 'What's the matter? More trouble with the Muscovites? Good Lord, what barbarians they show themselves! They always expect the best places, and won't listen to reason. They are for ever in the way. Mere savages! ”

“ All Muscovy can not be judged by those few who live in the saddle—the Cossack population, men and women, numbers only about two million—nor by the pitiable pageant of despotism the observer beholds in their land: pogroms, poverty, disease, distress, militarism, orthodoxy and Pan-Slavism. Russia has a soul in spite of these ”

“ Till the accession of Ivan III. Russia and Lithuania. in 1462 Muscovy had been a negligible factor in Polish politics. During the earlier part of the 15th century the Lithuanian princes had successfully contested Muscovite influence even in Pskov and Great Novgorod. Many Russian historians even maintain that, but for the fact that Witowt had simultaneously to cope with the Teutonic Order and the Tatars, that energetic prince would certainly have extinguished struggling Muscovy altogether. But since the death of Witowt (1430) the military efficiency of Lithuania had sensibly declined ”

“ On his return to England in 1554, he delivered a friendly letter from the Tsar to King Edward VI., and announced to the people of England "the discovery of Muscovy." The English adventurers where mightily astonished by the state and splendour of the Russian court, and gave a curious account of their intercourse with the tyrant Iván, who treated them with great familiarity and kindness, though he was perhaps the most atrocious monster, not excepting the worst of the Roman emperors, that ever disgraced a throne. ”

“ My young lord had a faithful Siberian servant, who was perfectly acquainted with the country, and led us by private roads, so that we avoided coming into the principal towns and cities upon the great road, such as Tumen, Soloy Kamaskoy, and several others; because the Muscovite garrisons which are kept there are very curious and strict in their observation upon travellers, and searching lest any of the banished persons of note should make their escape that way into Muscovy ”

“ The czars of Muscovy, while they sometimes suffered from the violence of the newcomers, beheld, with pleasure the formation on their frontiers of an army which fought for them, cost them nothing, and founded cities of soldiers in desolate steppes. ”

“ A career of victory and prosperity had not yet raised Peter above the reach of that disaffection, nor had superstitious obedience to the Czar yet become the characteristic of the Muscovite mind. The victorious occupation of Moscow by Charles XII, would have quelled the Russian nation as effectually, as had been the case when Batou Khan, and other ancient invaders, captured the capital of primitive Muscovy. How little such a triumph could effect towards subduing modern Russia, the fate of Napoleon demonstrated at once and for ever. ”

“ In 1408 the Mirza Edigei ravaged Muscovite territory, but was unable to take Moscow. In 1412, however, Basil found it necessary to pay the long-deferred visit of submission to the Horde. The most important ecclesiastical event of the reign was the elevation of the Bulgarian, Gregory Tsamblak, to the metropolitan see of Kiev (1425) by Vitovt, grand-duke of Lithuania; the immediate political consequence of which was the weakening of the hold of Muscovy on the south-western Russian states. During Basil’s reign a terrible visitation of the “Black Death” decimated the population. ”

“ No one shall be induced to adopt the Roman or any other religion, and the Jews shall not be allowed to enter the Muscovite Empire either on business or in connection with any other affairs.
In these circumstances the Jews were deprived of all opportunity to develop commercial life in the reactionary Empire. Forty years later this same Empire pushed its way into the territories of Poland and Lithuania, which were populated by Jews, and the policy of Muscovy was destined to reveal its creative genius in the domain of the Jewish question. ”

“ SS. ROMANUS AND DAVID, MM. PATRONS OF MUSCOVY.270
The history of the conversion of the Russians (now called Muscovites) to the faith of Christ, has been perplexed by the mistakes of many who have treated this point of history. The learned Jesuit F. Antony Possevin was betrayed into many falsities concerning this people.271 And upon his authority some have pretended that the Muscovites received the faith from the Greek schismatics, and at the same time adhered to their schism; than which, nothing can be more notoriously false, as Henschenius and Papebrochius272 show. ”

“ For his lond lieth between Ynde and the folk of Muscovy, wherefore both Englishmen and men of Muscovy would fain have him friendly, yea, and independent. Wherefore they of both parties give him clocks, and watches, and stars, and crosses, and culverins, and now and again they let cut the throats of his men some deal, and pill his country. Thereby they both set up their rest that the Emir will be independent, yea, and friendly. But his men love him not, neither love they the English, nor the Muscovy folk, for they are worshippers of Mahound, and endure not Christian men. ”

“ One day, at Polonga, I wanted to buy a cheese in the market from a Samogitian woman; we could not agree about the price, and my respectable countrywoman, strong in lungs as any woman of la Halle, delivered herself of a sentiment about ‘dogs of Muscovites,’ which was certainly not of a highly Christian description. Had I even been ignorant of the meaning of her words, their sense was sufficiently explained by gestures, patent even to a moujik, and I was obliged forsooth to pretend to uphold [Pg 198] the honour of Muscovy against the outrages of a Polish woman...! ”

“ Verestchagin has the place of honour, and is represented by some excellent pictures of battle scenes, some displaying the French at Moscow. The picture of Abram and Isaac done by Reutern with his left hand has faces that could hardly be better.
[153] The Honourable Russia Company is still patron of four of the English churches in Russia. "A faint legal trace of the ancient privileges of the Muscovy Company survives in the extra-territorial character belonging for marriage purposes to the churches and chapels formerly attached to their factories in Russia."—Sir Courtenay Ilbert. ”

“ For the truth was that even loyal Muscovites had come to regard a meeting with the Czar as little short of a calamity, since it was required by him that whenever he passed through a street all traffic must be suspended, pedestrians must cease their promenading, the occupants of vehicles must dismount, and everybody, from the serf to the boyar, must kneel bareheaded, be the wind never so cutting or the snow never so deep, till the “Little Father”—the expression is not meant to be ironic—had passed by. ”

“ When the Muscovites learn that she is a Catholic—and the truth cannot remain much longer hidden—it is doubtful whether their loyalty will be able to stand the shock. They may rise in arms and endeavor to seat the Duke of Bora on the throne, who has three recommendations in their eyes; he is of the Greek Church, a Muscovite on the mother's side, and connected, as I have said, with the blood-imperial of Russia. ”

“ It was the Kremlin which they here beheld, the sacred centre of the Russian empire, the ancient dwelling-place and citadel of the czars.
A wild cry of wonder and triumph burst from the soldiers who had first reached the summit of the hill. "Moscow! Moscow!" they shouted, their imaginations strongly excited by the magnificent spectacle. This cry lent wings to those behind them. In crowding hosts the eager soldiers rushed up the long slope, all ranks mingling in their burning desire to gaze upon that great city which was the goal of their far-extended march. ”

“ The city is in too strong a contrast to the forced founding of St. Petersburg. There the hand of man is all in evidence; nothing is refreshing. A great prison fortress of granite blocks surrounded by huts and barracks. Moscow is a product of nature, founded with enthusiasm by its dwellers in response to the open invitation of nature, and adored even with devotion. Even the stranger feels this, even though there is nothing to which he is unaccustomed except the devotion and tenderness of a people to whom he is bound by not a single tie of common association. ”