Rurik

“ Rurik, in the first year of his reign, 1195, felt this keen policy of Big Nest. When Rurik ascended the Kief throne, and had been greeted by envoys from Big Nest, he thanked the Vladimir prince with many expressions of friendship. Delighted over his confirmation, he invited his brother David to Kief. “Behold,” said he in a letter, “thou and I are now seniors in Russia. Come hither to Kief to take counsel. We will think over everything, and settle all questions.” ”

“ Three brothers, Rurik or the Peaceful, Sineous or the Victorious, and Truvor or the Faithful, proceeded to Russia with their families and fighting men. Rurik settled on the south shore of Lake Ladoga, Sineous on the White Lake, and Truvor at (p. 030) Izborsk. The two younger brothers died, and Rurik moved to Novgorod where he built a castle. At about the same time two other Norsemen, Askold and Dir, landed in Russia, and went to Kief, then also a flourishing city, where they were equally well received. ”

“ In 1205, the following year, when Rurik was prince in Kief again, Roman strengthened his earlier friendship with Chernigoff, and with Yaroslav, son of Big Nest, ruling at that time in Pereyaslavl on the Alta. Then he went to Rurik with regiments from Volynia and Galitch, and announced a campaign against the Polovtsi. No matter how Rurik might favor the Polovtsi, he could not refuse to fight against the enemies of his country. The sacred cry raised all Southern Russia. A general arming took place, and under Roman a successful campaign was made. ”

“ There is a legend to the effect that his coming was at the invitation of the Slavs, who sought his aid and sovereignty, but there can be no doubt it was as a conqueror that Rurik came and established his race in Russia. Some of his followers, led by Askold and Dyr, sought fortune and conquest further south. These became masters of Kief, pressed on to Constantinople in 200 ships, embraced Christianity and returned to Kief, intending there to found a separate kingdom and dynasty. After the death of Rurik, his son Igor, a minor, succeeded; his uncle, Oleg, as regent, went to Kief ”

“ One of the Swedish chiefs, Rurik by name, was chosen by certain tribes of the country now called Russia, to be their prince. Rurik's capital was Novgorod, where he formed the nucleus of a kingdom which grew, through many vicissitudes, into the modern empire of Russia. His successors transferred their capital to Kief, and ultimately it was shifted again to Moscow, where the Muscovite princes acquired the title, the power, and the great dominion of the Czars of all the Russias. The Slavonic Race. The Russian sovereigns were thus of Swedish origin ”

“ There were republics in Russia even in Ivan's day, free cities which, though governed by princes, maintained the republican institutions of the past. Chief among these was Novgorod, that Novgorod the Great which invited Rurik into Russia and under him became the germ of the vast Russian empire. A free city then, a free city it continued. Rurik and his descendants ruled by sufferance. Yaroslaf confirmed the free institutions which Rurik had respected. For centuries this great commercial city continued prosperous and free, becoming in time a member of the powerful Hanseatic League. ”

“ In this work the descendants of Rurik played an important part, but they were always kept in strict subordination to the popular will. Political freedom kept pace with commercial prosperity. What means Rurik employed for establishing and preserving order we know not, but the chronicles show that his successors in Novgorod possessed merely such authority as was freely granted them by the people. The supreme power resided, not in the prince, but in the assembly of the citizens called together in the market-place by the sound of the great bell. ”

“ In 1598 the weak Feodor died. He left no sons, and with him, its fifty-second sovereign, the dynasty of Rurik the Varangian came to an end. It had existed for more than seven centuries. Branches of the house of Rurik remained, yet no member of it dared aspire to that throne which the tyrant Ivan had made odious.
A new ruler had to be chosen by the voice of those in power, and Boris stood supreme among the aspirants. The chronicles tell us, with striking brevity, "The election begins; the people look up to the nobles, the nobles to the grandees, the grandees to the patriarch ”

“ Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities. ”

“ From stereograph copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Latest Picture of the Tsar of all the Russias and His Interesting Family, including Baby Tsarevitch
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. ”

“ The interval of a quarter of a century between the extinction of the line of Rurik and the accession of the Romanoff dynasty, still paramount in Russia, was occupied by constant struggles between usurpers and pretenders, none of whom dreamed of a milder fate than death for the foe who fell into their hands. ”

“ From those seats they cannot have defended, or raised taxes from, much of Russia, but when Sineus and Truvor died Rurik went to settle in Novgorod. That city, about a hundred and twenty miles south of Petrograd, was the chief town in the northern part of the route from north to south. Rurik seems to have built a stone fort overlooking the timber settlement and been content with a kind of tribute for his military services. Novgorod remained until centuries afterwards a jealously democratic community. ”

“ It seems strange that such a woman should have been the (p. 036) first of Rurik's house to embrace Christianity. There is no doubt that she visited Constantinople where she astonished the emperor by the force of her character. She was baptized and received the name of Helen. It is quite possible that she came to Constantinople for that purpose, because we read that she refused to be baptized at Kief "for fear of the pagans." This confirms the Greek records in which it is stated that a bishop was established in Russia, probably at Kief, in the time of Oleg. ”

“ Rurik and his allies, bound by old treaties, took fresh oaths, Rurik agreeing to give them certain towns near the capital, Bailgorod on the Ros, Torchesk, and Tropoli.
Meanwhile in Galitch there were disturbances, quarrels and uprisings. There was no end to dissensions among boyars, who rushed in from all sides, returning some from Hungary, and others from Poland. Roman’s former enemies tried to arm all men against the heirs of their late opponent. The youthful widow of Roman was left with two sons, Daniel, four years of age, and Vassilko, an infant. ”

“ We come upon firmer ground when we reach the traditions contained in the chronicle of Nestor concerning the introduction of Christianity into Russia by the Princess Olga and her son Vladimir. Rurik, a Norseman who had first settled at Novgorod, one of the oldest towns in Russia, followed the course of common migration among his people, and travelled in a south-easterly direction till he reached Kiev, where he established himself and founded the State which subsequently expanded into the Russian Empire. ”

“ He whose sword cuts sharper, gains his cause. At the time of the fight, the relatives of the two adversaries appear armed, and surround the space set apart. The combatants then come to blows, and the victor may impose any terms he pleases."
The people of the country, the peasants, were not quite so free as when Rurik landed. They began to be known as moujik, a contemptuous diminutive of the word mouj or man, literally manikin. The merchants or gosti did not form a distinct class, but in larger cities, such as Novgorod and Kief, they had a voice in the administration. ”

“ But if we are to lose Kief forever, we answer that we are not Poles or Hungarians, but grandsons of one grandfather. During thy life we will not strive for Kief, but after thy death, let it go to whom God will give it.”
Such a decided reply troubled Big Nest considerably, and brought Rurik to confusion. He begged the Vladimir prince insistently to make war on Chernigoff. Big Nest promised “to mount his horse,” and commanded his warriors to assemble. Even Novgorod took the field at his order. ”

“ The Slavs and Finns in Novgorod meanwhile find the blessings of freedom harder to bear than the authority of their late conquerors. After two years of anarchy and internal dissension they send messengers to Constantinople, inviting the Norsemen, whom they had thrust out, to return and resume the government. “We have a goodly country,” say they, “and large. All we need is the strong arm to keep it orderly. Come, then, be our princes, and rule our state.” In response to this petition Rurik and his two brothers, Sindf and Truvor, with a large following of Varangian families, returned to Novgorod. ”

“ The word passed over the steppe like a grass fire, driven by a high wind. Riders bore it to the far districts of the steppe, and warriors emerged from their villages—veterans of other wars took to horse before sunset and youths came from the horse herds to join them. Bands of black-capped riders began to move south over the steppe, and the balalaikas sounded in the taverns where the men of the lower country were drinking, and talking over their wrongs.
Ten thousand Cossacks, aroused by the death of Rurik, crowded into the Siech and called for a council to be held. ”

“ And wilt thou be saved by me, my son, ere thy story be told in tears as this one, that is as thine to me? And thou wilt seize a jewel, Ruark, O thou soul of wrath, my son, my dazzling Chief, and seize it to wear it, and think it bliss, this lovely jewel; but 'tis an anguish endless and for ever, my son! Woe's me! an anguish is she without end.'
Rukrooth continued moaning, and the thought that was in the mother of Ruark struck Bhanavar like a light in the land of despair that darkly illumineth the dreaded gulfs and abysses of the land, and she knew herself black in evil ”

“ No one could help loving Ruky, with his quick, affectionate ways; and it seemed that Ruky, in turn, could not help loving every person and thing around him. He loved his silent old uncle, the bright lake, the cool forest, and even his little china cup with red berries painted upon it. But more than all, Ruky loved his golden-haired sister, and the great dog, who would plunge into the lake at the mere pointing of his chubby little finger. In fact, that finger and the commanding baby voice were “law” to Nep at any time. ”

“ The moth may fly at the candle many and many a time with impunity, but it is at last caught in the flame, and, despite its convulsive struggles, is only freed by death. The appearance even of so contemptible a rival as Rupert served to open Ulric’s eyes to the violence of his own passion, and the entire absence of it on the part of Lucretia. ”

“ An occasional group of figures, clad in light and summer-like garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors, passed him through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness and warmth of the night, together with all these unusual sights and sounds, it appeared to Jonathan Rugg that he was rather the inhabitant of some extraordinary land of enchantment and unreality than a dweller upon that sober and solid world in which he had heretofore passed his entire existence. ”

“ O thou soul of wrath! Ruark, my fire-eye! my eagle of the desert! where is one on earth beloved as thou art by Bhanavar?' The dark light in his eyes kindled as light in the eyes of a lion, and she continued, 'Ruark, what a yoke is hers who weareth this crown! He that is my lord, how am I mated to him save in loathing? O my Chief, my lion! hadst thou no dream of Bhanavar, that she would come hither to unbind thee and lift thee beside her, and live with thee in love and veilless loveliness,—thine? ”

“ They held her. That armful of a girl, soft and warm as one of the grey pigeons, was crushed for a moment against the boy's chest. She was closer to him than she had been in any of those waltzes. Yet it seemed no strangeness to be so near—feeling his heart beat below hers, feeling the roughness of his tweed jacket through the thin linen of her frock. She felt as she'd felt about flying, in that dream of hers. ”

“ My life is a long weeping for him! Death is my wooer!'
Ruark still pleaded with her, and she said in fair gentleness, 'Speak not of it now in the freshness of my grief! Other times and seasons are there. My soul is but newly widowed!'
Fierce was the eye of the Chief, and he sprang up, crying, 'By the life of my head, I know thy wiles and the reading of these delays: but I'll never leave thee, nor lose sight of thee, Bhanavar! And think not to fly from me, thou subtle, brilliant Serpent! for thy track is my track, and thy condition my condition, and thy fate my fate. By Allah! ”

“ Gluck made no answer.
"Hollo! Gluck, my boy," said the pot again.
Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the crucible, drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold was all melted, and its surface as smooth and polished as a river; but instead of reflecting little Gluck's head, as he looked in he saw meeting his glance from beneath the gold, the red nose and sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he had seen them in his life.
"Come, Gluck, my boy," said the voice out of the pot again, "I'm all right; pour me out." ”