Pskov

“ In the spring of 1565 it was raging at Louki, at Toropiéts, and at Smolensk; in the autumn it was at Polotsk. The following year it was to ravage Novgorod, Staraïa-Roussa, Pskov again, Mojaïsk, and even Moscow itself. Before the plague, or behind it, or with it, as in 1570, came famine. And the means devised to stamp out the disease were as fierce as the pest itself. In 1551 the Pskov merchants suspected of being infected were driven out of Novgorod, and those who resisted were burnt alive. ”

“ I.—Old and New Russia.
'An eagle, many-winged, with lion's claws, has fallen upon me. He has robbed me of three Cedars of Lebanon: my beauty, my wealth, my children. Our country is deserted, our city is in ruins, our markets are destroyed. My brothers have been carried to a place where neither our fathers, nor our grandfathers, nor our forefathers have dwelt. ...'
Thus, by the mouth of one of her chroniclers, did Pskov, a free and republican town, absorbed, in the year 1510, into the new Muscovite Empire, lament her lost independence, her broken privileges, and her exiled sons. ”

“ The successful issue of the Moscow riots was the occasion of disquieting disturbances all over the tsardom culminating in dangerous rebellions at Pskov and Great Novgorod, with which the government was so unable to cope that they surrendered, practically granting the malcontents their own terms. ”

“ An ambassador coming from Pskov with the news that the grand prince called the men of Pskov upon Novgorod, and offering proposals of mediation, again gave preponderance to the Lithuanian party. The vetché assembled, and people in it began to cry out: “We are free men of great Novgorod and the grand prince of Moscow does us many wrongs and much injustice; we are for the king of Poland;” with the help of the “wicked peasants of the vetché” they gained the victory, and an embassy was sent to Casimir, the result of which was a convention for the submission of Novgorod to him. ”

“ There are no fewer than 850 lakes in Pskov, with a total area of 391 sq. m. The largest is Lake Pskov, which is 50 m. long and 13 broad, covers 300 sq. m. and has a depth of 3 to 18 ft.; it is connected by a channel, 40 m. long and 3 to 10 wide, with Lake Peipus. The marshes on the banks of the Polista are nearly 1250 sq., m. in extent. Forests occupy nearly one-third (32%) of the entire area, and in some districts (Kholm, Toropets, Porkhov) as much as two-thirds of the surface. Large pine forests are met with in the north ”

“ The foolhardiness of this operation has been criticised, but its boldness would seem justified by the remoteness of the Muscovite forces, which were concentrated at Novgorod, Pskov, and Smolensk, far from the theatre of war, while the body of troops which adventured itself alone was commanded by the new leader of the Polish contingent, in whose person Batory had unexpectedly discovered the best of all his lieutenants. ”

“ For the cases of Pskov and Novgorod are purely political. Yet elements of resistance are not lacking. From the very earliest times commerce had been honoured in the country, and held to be a noble occupation. ”

“ But while Novgorod constantly showed a tendency to become an oligarchy of the wealthier merchants, Pskov figured as a republic in which the influence of the poorer classes prevailed. Its trading associations, supported by those of the working classes, checked the influence of the wealthier merchants. ”

“ Yet, convinced that Batory's next blow would be struck at Pskov, he contrived to throw a strong garrison, the flower of his troops, into that town. It was well provisioned and supplied with powerful artillery. The Tsar could rely on its keeping back the Poles for a considerable time, and under the walls of the town, even if no relieving army was there to confront him, Batory would meet Moscow's most formidable ally in every one of her wars of defence: winter was close at hand. Possevino had not been in time to stop the King's departure, but the King's campaign had been begun too late. ”

“ In 12399 the prince of Moscow claimed the privilege of confirming the elected prince of Pskov in his rights; and though, fifty years later, Pskov and Novgorod concluded defensive treaties against Moscow, the poorer classes continued to seek at Moscow a protection against the richer citizens. ”

“ Pskov, which had been in a state of defence, and kept constantly fortified, for hundreds of years, on account of the proximity of the Germans, possessed stone ramparts, to which a strong surrounding palisade had recently been added. Within the walls two Princes of the Chouïski family, Vassili Feodorovitch and Ivan Petrovitch—the last-named a grandson of the Regent, with whom we made acquaintance during Ivan's minority—both of them brave and experienced men, commanded 30,000 troops, according to Russian authorities, or 40,000, according to the Poles. ”

“ Several times over they were obliged to make the inhabitants of Pskov take the same oath. This proves the population was not of itself very strongly inclined to hold out. It must be added that the most important Polish document dealing with this episode in our possession, the Abbé Piotrowski's journal, is the production of a malcontent, embittered by the length of the war and the weariness of a winter campaign. Even at Polotsk he had thought Batory was asking too much, and that the war ought to have ended then, without further parley. ”

“ We left Petrograd at eleven o’clock at night, and arrived at Pskov the next morning at eight, where we had to remain until five in the evening before we could get a train for Rejistza, which we reached at six the following day. Here the division commandant stamped our papers and sent us on to Velikie Luki to the headquarters of the army command. ”

“ Russia has ever been a country of surprises.
But this single advantage did not compensate, in the sixteenth century, for the other causes of inferiority which paralyzed her economic life. In the year 1553, 25,000 corpses were buried in the cemeteries at Pskov, without reckoning the unknown number left to rot in the open country. ”

“ Up to near the second half of the sixteenth century, Novgorod, with its 5,300 dwelling-houses, was the most important of all the towns in the Empire, save Moscow; and at Pskov the inventories of the period enumerate 1,300 shops or trading-houses within the town alone, apart from the suburbs. But these documents everywhere point to a phenomenon which looms large in the sixteenth-century history of this particular sphere—the swift extinction of the civilian citizen, properly so called, eliminated by the military element which takes his place. ”

“ In the long intrigue which came to an end by the publication of the Manifesto of Pskov, Rasputin undoubtedly played a considerable part, but all unconsciously. Those who used him, together with his influence, were very careful not to initiate him into their different schemes. But they paid him, they fed him, they gave him champagne to drink and pretty women to make love to in order to induce him to represent them to the Empress as being the only men capable20 of saving Russia, about which she did not care, and her crown, to which she was so attached. ”

“ I wish Peter was with his men. Surely he will return from Pskov.”
His blue eyes cast a bright glance over the precise ranks of his perfectly disciplined soldiers; men who had prayers twice a day and lived like athletes in training.
“I had an item of news from Stockholm when last I heard,” said the Count, as they turned their horses’{84} heads. “Viktoria Falkenberg is dead. It seems that she had long concealed a fatal complaint.” ”

“ VIII.—The Siege of Pskov.
He had been obliged to spend the whole spring parleying with his Diet. 'The King has given all he can out of his own pocket,' cried Zamoyski to the deputies. 'What more do you expect of him? Would you have him flay himself alive? He would do it readily enough, if any alchemist had discovered the secret of making gold out of human skin!' When he had contrived to squeeze out subsidies for another year, and that only on condition that the war was brought to an end, the collection of the taxes voted was very much delayed. ”

“ At present there are too many persons interested in dissimulating the part which they have played in the drama, either out of fear, or because they do not think the time opportune. It seems sometimes as if there exists a tacit understanding among the actors of the tragedy to hide the details of the conspiracy which came to an end by the signature of the Manifest of Pskov. ”

“ Subsequent revolts (1479–1488) were punished by the removal en masse of the richest and most ancient families of Novgorod to Moscow, Vyatka and other central Russian cities. After this, Novgorod, as an independent state, ceased to exist. The rival republic of Pskov owed the continuance of its own political existence to the readiness with which it assisted Ivan against its ancient enemy. The other principalities were virtually absorbed, by conquest, purchase or marriage contract—Yaroslavl in 1463, Rostov in 1474, Tver in 1485. ”

“ The accused person is always put to slow torture: his ribs are broken in, nails driven into his flesh. This is the sixteenth century!
Up till the seventeenth, this same Code, lingering far behind the rest of Europe, will accept the judicial combat, also part of the habits of the country. At Novgorod the law even permitted such combats between two women who accused each other, while at Pskov a more gallant statute allowed the fair sex to find male substitutes, the same privilege being extended to old men, infirm persons, and monks. ”

“ He reckoned the total of these at 170,000 men. A considerable number of these must also have been attached to the garrison of Pskov, but the information we possess as to that period is quite devoid of the accuracy of our modern statistics. As to the Polish army, more exact data can be had from the Treasury accounts, which I have already consulted. They give us 21,102 men, about half of them infantry—or only 18,940, according to another calculation—as having been under Batory's orders, together with some 10,000 Lithuanians. ”

“ Armed against the Russians with the dread inspired by the Tatar name, and against the Tatars with the money of the Russians; intoxicating the khan and his courtiers with gold and adulation in his frequent journeys to the horde; he was enabled, as lord paramount, to bring about the first union of all the appanaged princes against his competitor, the prince of Tver, whom he drove from Pskov and from Russia, being aided by the primate with the thunder of the church, then heard in the empire for the first time. The nobility imitated the clergy. ”

“ The independence of the city was ultimately secured by her wealth and her commerce. The first prince who ruled her as a separate state, Vsevolod-Gabriel, was expelled by his subjects, and therefore was welcomed with the greater eagerness by the Pskovians. When the Souzdalian party ruled at Novgorod, it was generally the contrary party that triumphed in Pskof. About 1214 the little republic contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with the Germans; she undertook to help them against the Lithuanians, and they were to support her against Novgorod. ”

“ Shvabrin had described Masha, the Captain’s daughter, as a perfect idiot. Maria Ivanovna [7] sat down in a corner and began to sew. Meanwhile, the cabbage-soup was brought in. Vassilissa Egorovna, not seeing her husband, sent Palashka after him a second time.
“Tell your master that the guests are waiting, and that the soup is getting cold. Thank Heaven, the drill will not run away! he will have plenty of time to shout himself hoarse.” ”

“ In bowing down before genius all nations are brethren; and when it vanishes untimely from the earth, all will follow its departure with one brotherly lamentation. Púshkin, with respect to his genius, belonged not to Russia alone, but to all Europe; and it was therefore that many foreigners approached his door with feelings of personal sorrow, and mourned for our Púshkin as if he had been their own. But let me return to my recital. Though he sent Dahl to console his wife with hope, Púshkin himself did not entertain the slightest. Once he enquired, "What o'clock is it?" ”

“ I thought of Marya in the hands of the robbers. My heart failed me; I burst into tears and murmured the name of my loved one. At this moment I heard a slight noise, and Polashka, very pale, came out from behind the press.
"Oh, Petr' Andréjïtch," said she, wringing her hands; "what a day, what horrors!"
"Marya Ivánofna," cried I, impatiently, "where is Marya Ivánofna?"
"The young lady is alive," replied Polashka; "she is hidden at Akoulina Pamphilovna's."
"In the pope's house!" I exclaimed, affrighted. "Good God! Pugatchéf is there!" ”

“ Don't forget us, and write often to us. Except you, poor Marya Ivánofna has no longer stay or comforter."
Out in the Square I stopped a minute before the gallows, which I respectfully saluted, and I then took the road to Orenburg, accompanied by Savéliitch, who did not forsake me.
As I thus went along, deep in thought, I heard all at once a horse galloping behind me. I turned round, and saw a Cossack coming up from the fort, leading a Bashkir horse, and making signs to me from afar to wait for him. I stopped, and soon recognized our "ouriadnik." ”

“ We proposed remaining to see the exercise, but he invited, us to go to Vassilissa Yegorovna, promising to follow shortly.
"Here," added he; "there is nothing for you to look at."
Vassilissa Yegorovna received us without any ceremony, but with warmth, and treated me as if she had known me for years. The invalid and Paláshka were laying the table.
"Why, what makes my Ivan Kouzmitch stay out so long to-day?" said the commandant's wife. "Paláshka, call your master to dinner. But where is Masha?" ”