[1604-1605A.D.]
No revolution, be it the wisest and most necessary, is accomplished without setting in motion the dregs of society, without coming into collision with many interests and creating a multitude of outcasts. The transformation then being accomplished in Russia for the creation of the modern unitary state had awakened formidable elements of disorder. The peasant, whom the laws of Boris had just attached to the glebe, was everywhere covertly hostile. The petty nobility, to whose profit this innovation had been made, could only with great difficulty live by their estates: the czar’s service had become ruinous; many were inclined to make up for the inadequacy of their revenues by brigandage. The boyars and the higher nobility were profoundly demoralised and were ready for any treason. The military republics of the Cossacks of the Don and Dnieper, the bands of serfs or fugitive peasants which infested the country districts, were only waiting an opportunity to devastate Moscow. The ignorance of the masses was profound, their minds greedy of marvels and of change: no nation has allowed itself to be so often captured by the same fable—the sudden reappearance of a prince believed to be dead. The archives of the secret chancery show us that there were in Russia, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hundreds of impostors, of false Dmitris, false Alexises, false Peters II, false Peters III. It might be thought that the Russian people, the most Asiatic of European peoples, had not renounced the oriental dogma of reincarnations andavatars.
So long as power was in the hands of the skilful and energetic Godunov, he succeeded in maintaining order, in restraining the fomenters of disturbance, and in discouraging Demetrius. The patriarch Job, and Vasili Shuiski, who had directed the inquiry at Uglitch, made proclamations to the people and affirmed that Dmitri was indeed dead and that the pretender was no other than Otrepiev. Messengers were despatched bearing the same affirmations to the king and the diet of Poland. Finally troops were set on foot and a cordon was established along the western frontier. But already the towns of Severia were agitated by the approach of the czarevitch; the boyars ventured to say publicly that it was “difficult to bear arms against a legitimate sovereign”; at Moscow the health of the czar Dmitri was drunk at festive gatherings. In October, 1604, Demetrius crossed the frontier with a host of Poles, and banished Russians, German mercenaries, and Zaparogians. Severia immediately broke out into insurrection, but Novgorod Seversk resisted. After Severia, the towns of Ukraine joined in defection. Prince Mstislavski tried to arrest Demetrius by giving battle; but his soldiers were seized with the idea that the man against whom they were fighting was the real Dmitri. “They had no arms to strike with,” says Margeret. Twelve thousand Little-Russian Cossacks hastened to join the pretender’s standard. Vasili Shuiski, the successor of Mstislavski, did his best to restore theirmorale; this time Demetrius was vanquished at Dobrinitchi. Boris fancied that the war was ended: it was only beginning. Four thousand Don Cossacks came to join the brigand. The inaction of the Muscovite voyevods announced that the spirit of treason was gaining the higher nobility.
In 1605 Boris died, after recommending his innocent son to Basmanov, the boyars, the patriarch, and the people of Moscow. All took the oath to Feodor Borissovitch. But Basmanov had no sooner taken command of the army of Severia than he was in a position to convince himself that neither the soldiers nor their leaders intended to fight for a Godunov. Rather than be the victim of an act of treason he preferred to be its perpetrator; the man in whom the dying Boris had placed all his confidence joined Galitzin and Soltikov, the secret partisans of Demetrius. He solemnly announced to thetroops that the latter was indeed the son of Ivan the Terrible and the legitimate master of Russia; he was the first to throw himself at the feet of the pretender, who was immediately proclaimed by the troops. Demetrius marched on Moscow. At his approach his partisans rose: the son and the wife of Godunov were massacred. Such was the sanguinary end of the dynasty which Boris had thought to found in the blood of a czarevitch.
Let us bear in mind that in 1586 had appeared the narrative of Jean Sauvage, sailor and merchant of Dieppe, who had come to reconnoitre the harbours of the White Sea and prepare the way for French traffic. The same year the czar Feodor Ivanovitch sent to Henry III a Frenchman of Moscow, Pierre Ragon, to notify him of his accession; at Moscow appeared the first ambassador sent there by France, François de Carle. In 1587 a company of Parisian merchants obtained a commercial charter from the same czar. Henry IV was in correspondence with the czars Feodor Ivanovitch and Boris.
[1606A.D.]
What was now taking place in Russia is one of the most extraordinary events of which the annals of the world make mention. An unknown man was making his triumphal entry into Moscow and the Kremlin (June 20th-30th). All the people wept for joy, thinking they beheld the scion of so many princes. One man alone dared to affirm that he had seen Dmitri murdered and that the new czar was an impostor; this was Vasili Shuiski, one of those who had superintended the inquiry of Uglitch and who, at the battle of Dobrinitchi, had defeated the pretender. Denounced by Basmanov, he was condemned to death by an assembly of the three orders. His head was already on the block, when the czar sent an express bearing his pardon.
The son of the terrible czar was not recognisable in this act of mercy. Later on Demetrius was to repent of it. Job, the creature of Godunov, was replaced in the patriarchate by a creature of the new prince, the Greek Ignatius. The czar had an interview with his pretended mother, Marie Nagoi, the widow of Ivan IV: whether because she wished to complete the work of an avenger, or because she was glad to recover all her honours, Marie recognised Demetrius as her son and publicly embraced him. He heaped favours on the Nagoi as his maternal relatives: the Romanovs also were recalled from exile and Philaret was made metropolitan of Rostov.
The czar presided regularly at the douma; the boyars admired the correctness of his judgment and the variety of his knowledge. Demetrius was a man of learning, brave and skilful in all bodily exercises. He was fond of foreigners and spoke of sending the Russian nobles to study in the west. This taste for foreigners was not unaccompanied by a certain contempt for the national ignorance and rudeness. He offended the boyars by his mockeries; he alienated the people and the clergy by his contempt for Russian religious rites and usages. He ate veal, did not sleep after dinner, did not frequent the baths, borrowed money from the convents, turned the monks into ridicule, opposed the hunting with bears, paid familiar visits to foreign jewellers and artisans, took no heed of the strict etiquette of the palace, himself pointed cannon, organised sham fights between the national and foreign troops, took pleasure in seeing the Russians beaten by the Germans, surrounded himself with a European guard at the head of which were found men like Margeret, Knutzen, Van Dennen. A conflict having broken out between the clergy and the pope’s legate on the occasion of his entry into Moscow, twobishops were exiled. No one thanked him for resisting the pope and the king of Poland, refusing to the one to occupy himself in the cause of the reunion of the two churches, declaring to the other that he would not yield an inch of Russian territory. The arrival of his wife, the Catholic Marina, with a suite of Polish noblemen, who affected insolence towards the Russians, completed the irritation of the Muscovites. Less than a year after the entry of Demetrius [or as we may henceforth call him, Dmitri] into the Kremlin, men’s minds were ripe for a revolution.f
It is difficult to understand why, though as unscrupulous as most adventurers, Demetrius persisted in his determination to espouse a Catholic Pole, although he was well aware that such a union would be highly distasteful to his people. When compelled to solicit the assistance of the palatines of Lithuania by all means in his power, it was not surprising that he eagerly sought to ally himself with Mniszek: but now that he was seated upon the throne of the czars, such an alliance could not be otherwise than prejudicial to his interests. Yet he was the first to remember his promise, and as soon as he had been crowned at Moscow he sent to invite Marina to share his throne. When he signed the promise of marriage in Poland, he was, doubtless, under the influence of Marina’s charms, but at Moscow we cannot ascribe his impatience to conclude the projected union to the eagerness of love. For whilst Vlassiev, bearing magnificent presents for the bride and all her family, was on his way to Cracow to hasten their departure for Russia, the czar had an acknowledged mistress, who resided with him in the Kremlin, and this mistress was no other than the daughter of Boris.
“Xenia,” writes a contemporary author, “was a girl of the greatest intelligence; her complexion was pink and white, and her black eyes sparkled with vivacity. When grief caused her to shed tears, they shone with a still greater radiance. Her eyebrows joined; her body was formed with perfect symmetry, and was so white that it seemed to have been moulded with cream. She was an accomplished person, speaking more elegantly than a book. Her voice was melodious, and it was a real pleasure to hear her sing songs.”
This beauty was fatal to Xenia. After witnessing the death of her mother and brother, she took refuge first of all in a convent, or, according to some annalists, she found an asylum in the house of Prince Mstislavski. Soon afterwards she entered the palace of the enemy of her family, and for some months she was the favourite mistress of the czar. It was probably to her influence that several of the Godunovs were indebted for their lives, and even for some degree of favour. Whether she yielded to seduction or to violence, as some modern authors have asserted, it is impossible to discover at the present day. It is no less impossible to decide whether Dmitri allowed himself to be subdued by the charms of his captive, or whether, like a pitiless conqueror, he sacrificed her to his arrogant vanity, and desired, with a refinement of vengeance, to inflict the greatest dishonour on the enemy’s family. At all events, it appears certain that for some time Xenia exercised such marked influence over him that Mniszek grew alarmed, and seriously remonstrated with the czar. It was only when Marina was actually on her way to Moscow that Dmitri dismissed his captive. He sent her into a monastery, according to the usage of the time. She took the vows in the convent of St. Sergius, at Moscow, under the name of Olga, and died there in 1622.
RUSSIAN WEDDING FEAST OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY(From the painting by C. Makovski)Original and copyright owned by Messrs. Schumann’s Sons, N. Y.
RUSSIAN WEDDING FEAST OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
(From the painting by C. Makovski)
Original and copyright owned by Messrs. Schumann’s Sons, N. Y.
These singular amours, this fidelity to his engagements in the midst ofinconstancy and even of debauchery, this boldness in attempting a desperate enterprise, this imperturbable coolness in maintaining an audacious imposture, this gracefulness in acting the part of a legitimate monarch, so many brilliant qualities united with puerile vanity and the most imprudent levity—such are the contrasts presented by the character of Dmitri, which are perhaps explicable by his extreme youth and his adventurer’s education. Nothing, however, is more rare than a character all the parts of which are in perfect harmony. Contradiction is the characteristic of most men, and there are very few whose lives correspond to the projects which they have formed or to the hopes to which they have given rise. Who can say that the pleasure of exhibiting himself in all the splendour of his high fortune before the eyes of those who had witnessed his poverty had not the greatest share in the resolutions of Dmitri? Mniszek and Marina were probably the first persons whose esteem appeared precious to him. To obtain the approbation of a few Polish palatines, he risked his crown; but does not every man believe that the world’s opinion is that of the little circle in which he is accustomed to move?b
The security of the pretender was, however, but seeming. Vasili Shuiski, whom Dmitri had pardoned, presently organised a plot for his destruction. The czar’s extreme confidence was his ruin. One night the boyars assailed the Kremlin where no guard was kept. Demetrius was flung from a window and slaughtered in the courtyard of the palace. Basmanov, who had tried to defend him, was killed at his side. The corpse of Demetrius was taken up, a fool’s mask was placed on the face, and the body exposed in the place of executions between a bagpipe and a flute. The father-in-law and the widow of Dmitri, the envoys of the Polish king and the Poles who had come to attend the imperial nuptials were spared but retained as prisoners by the boyars. The corpse of the “sorcerer” was burned; a cannon, turned in the direction of Poland, was charged with the ashes and scattered them to the winds (May, 1606).f
Immediately after the death of Demetrius, the boyars concerted measures for convoking deputies from all the towns and proceeding to the election of a new sovereign; but they were not allowed to accomplish their design. The throne had been but four days vacant when Shuiski directed his partisans to proclaim himself. They led him forth into the public place, named him czar by acclamation, and immediately escorted him to the cathedral. There, in order to ingratiate himself with his new subjects and make them forget the illegality of his election, he took a solemn oath not to punish anyone without the advice and consent of the boyars; not to visit the offences of the fathers on the children; and that he would never revenge himself in any way on those who had offended him in the time of Boris. Since Novgorod lost its privileges, this was the first time that a sovereign of Russia had pledged himself to any convention with his subjects; but Shuiski’s oath was no guarantee for its fulfilment.
Having good reason to dread the resentment of the Polish nation, Shuiski sent Prince Volkonski on an embassy to them, to represent the late czar as an impostor, who had deluded both Poland and Russia; but the ambassador was not even listened to. Sigismund and his subjects were resolved to be revenged on the Russians, and to profit by the disturbances which they foresaw would soon break out among them. Shuiski was not liked by the Russian nobles, many of whom might have competed with him for the throne had the choiceof the nation been free; and his conduct after his elevation augmented the number of his enemies. In spite of his oath he could not forget any of his old grudges; and he ventured to indulge them just enough to exasperate their objects without depriving them of the power of retaliation. Moscow was the only city in the empire on the allegiance of which he could rely; but even there the people had imbibed from their late excesses an alarming propensity to disorder and mutiny. To meet all the dangers thickening round him Shuiski had neither an army nor money; for Dmitri’s profusions and the pillage of the Kremlin had exhausted the imperial treasury. His chief strength lay in his renown for orthodoxy, which insured him the favour of the clergy. The more to strengthen his interests in that direction, he made it his first business to depose and send to a monastery the heretic patriarch Ignatius, who had been appointed by Dmitri, and to nominate in his stead Hermogenes, bishop of Kasan, an aged prelate whose simplicity rendered him a useful tool in the hands of the crafty czar.
Rumours began to be rife in the provinces, and even in Moscow, that Dmitri was not dead. Many of those who had seen his mangled body exposed denied its identity, and believed that one of the czar’s officers had been massacred instead of him. Four swift horses were missing from the imperial stables; and it was surmised that by means of them Dmitri had escaped in the midst of the tumult. Three strangers in Russian costume, but speaking Polish, crossed the Oka in a boat, and one of them gave the ferryman six ducats, saying, “You have ferried the czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget this service.” The same party held similar language in a German inn a little farther on. It was afterwards known that one of them was Prince Shakhovskoi, who, immediately upon the death of Dmitri, had, with singular promptitude, conceived the idea of finding a new impostor to personate the dead one.
To put an end to the alarming rumours, Shuiski sent to Uglitch for the body of the real czarevitch, that with the help of the patriarch he might make a saint of him. When the grave was opened the body of the young prince was found in a perfect state of preservation, with the fresh hue of life upon it, and still holding in his hands some nuts as miraculously preserved as itself. It is curious that Shuiski should have forgotten that nothing was said of these nuts in the report of the inquest at Uglitch signed by himself. That document only stated that at the moment of his death the czarevitch was amusing himself with sticking his knife in the ground. Notwithstanding this oversight, the act of canonisation was good policy; for if the czarevitch became an object of veneration for the people, if it was notorious that his body worked miracles on earth, and consequently that his soul was in heaven, then anyone assuming his name could be nothing but an impostor. The czar took pains to make known far and wide what prodigies were effected by the relics of the blessed martyr. But the credit of the new saint was of short duration: Shuiski himself damaged it by a gross blunder in permitting the pompous removal to the monastery of Troitsa of the remains of Boris Godunov, whom but a few days before he had named as the murderer of the sainted Dmitri. No doubt he hoped in this way to conciliate the partisans of a still powerful family; but his enemies immediately accused him of blasphemous wickedness, alleging that he had substituted the body of a newly murdered boy for the decomposed corpse of the real Dmitri.
The public retractations of the dowager czaritza obtained no more credit than the miracles imputed to her son. In a letter signed by her, and immediately published by Vasili, she declared that the impostor Grishka Otrepievhad threatened her with death to herself and all her family if she did not recognise him as her son. But who could believe in her sincerity after so many contradictory avowals and disavowals? Her declaration that she had been compelled by fear to yield to the threats of a man whose aversion to cruelty was notorious, suggested to everybody the idea that she acted at that moment under the coercion of threats and fear.
Civil war began. Prince Shakhovskoi had raised the inhabitants of Putivle, and in a few days assembled a great number of Cossacks and peasants, who routed the forces sent against them. The insurrection spread rapidly; but still the prince, twice miraculously saved, did not make his expected appearance. Instead of him there came from Poland a general with a commission bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. This was an adventurer named Ivan Bolotnikov, originally a serf to Prince Teliatevski. He had been a prisoner among the Turks, and having escaped to Venice had probably acquired some military experience in the service of the republic. His commission was recognised at Putivle; he took the command of the insurgents, defeated Shuiski’s forces in two engagements, and pursued them to within seven versts of the capital. But the inexplicable absence of the prince for whom they fought damped the ardour of Bolotnikov’s men; for they could not believe that if Dmitri was alive he would delay to put himself at their head. The ataman of the Cossacks, too, was mortified at being supplanted in the command by an adventurer, and suffered himself to be corrupted by Shuiski. Deserted by a part of his army, Bolotnikov was defeated by Skopin Shuiski, the czar’s nephew, and forced to shelter himself in the fortress of Kaluga.
[1607A.D.]
It is probable that all this while Shakhovskoi and the Poles were looking about for a fit person to play the part of Dmitri; but it required time to find him, and to put him through training. In this conjuncture the false Peter Feodorovitch, who had made a brief appearance in the former reign, repaired to Putivle, and offered himself to Shakhovskoi and the people as regent in the absence of his uncle. The rebel cause stood in need of the prestige of a royal name, and the czarevitch Peter was eagerly welcomed. Presently, the czar having marched against him in person, the impostor and Shakhovskoi shut themselves up in the strongly fortified town of Tula, where they were joined by Bolotnikov. Vasili laid siege to the town with an army of a hundred thousand men; but the besieged, who had no mercy to expect if taken, fought more earnestly for their own lives than did Shuiski’s soldiers for the rights of a master to whom they were but little attached. Seeing the light progress he made, the czar began to doubt the success of an enterprise to fail in which would be ruin.
While he was in this anxious state, an obscure ecclesiastic, named Kravkov, presented himself before the czar and his council, and undertook, if his directions were followed, to drown all the people of Tula. They laughed at him at first as an idle braggart, but he reiterated his assertion with such confidence that the czar at last desired him to explain his plan. Tula is situated in a valley, and the little river Upa flows through the town. Kravkov proposed to dam the stream below the town, and engaged to answer for it with his head if in a few hours after the execution of that work the whole town was not laid under water. All the millers in the army, men accustomed to such operations, were immediately put under his orders, and the rest of the soldiers were employed in carrying sacks of earth to the spot chosen for the dam. The water soon rose in the town, inundated the streets, and destroyed a great number of houses; but the garrison still fought for several months with unabated courage, though decimated by famine, and afterwards by a terribleepidemic. All the efforts both of the besiegers and the besieged were concentrated about the dam, the former labouring to raise and maintain it, the latter to break it down. The inhabitants of Tula were persuaded that magic must have had some share in raising so prodigious a work with such rapidity, and magic was not neglected among the means by which they sought to destroy it. A monk, who boasted his proficiency in that art, offered to effect the desired object for a reward of a hundred roubles. His terms being accepted by Bolotnikov, he stripped, plunged into the river, and disappeared. An hour afterwards, when everyone had given him up for dead, he rose to the surface, with his body covered with scratches. “I have just had to do,” he said, “with the twelve thousand devils at work on Shuiski’s dam. I have settled six thousand of them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give in.”
For a long time the inhabitants of Tula continued to fight against men and devils, encouraged by letters they received in Dmitri’s name, with promises of succour which never came. Shakhovskoi, the chief instigator of the rebellion, was the first to propose a capitulation, and was thrust into a dungeon by the Cossacks. At last, when the besieged had eaten their horses, dogs, and all other carrion, and had not so much as an oxhide left to gnaw, Bolotnikov and Peter offered to capitulate on condition of amnesty for their heroic garrison. They asked nothing for themselves, but declared that unless their soldiers obtained honourable conditions they were resolved to die with arms in their hands, and even to eat each other, rather than surrender at discretion. Vasili accepted these terms, and the gates were opened to him (October, 1607). Bolotnikov advanced before the czar with undaunted mien, and presenting his sword, with the edge laid against his neck, offered himself as a victim, saying, “I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightfully or wrongfully, calls himself Dmitri. Deserted by him, I am in thy power. Cut off my head if thou wilt; or if thou wilt spare my life, I will serve thee as I served him.” Shuiski, who did not pique himself on generosity, sent Bolotnikov to Kargopol, where he soon after had him drowned. The false Peter Feodorovitch was hanged; but Shakhovskoi, the most guilty of the three, was more fortunate. The victor found him in chains when he entered Tula, and Shakhovskoi made a merit of his sufferings at the hands of the obstinate rebels whom he had urged to submit to their sovereign. He obtained his liberty; but the first use he made of it was to rekindle the flames of insurrection.
Before Shuiski had terminated the siege of Tula, and whilst the issue of his conflict with one pretender was still dubious, another, assuming the name of Dmitri, appeared in the frontier town of Starodub, where he was hailed with enthusiasm. Bolotnikov sent an officer to him from Tula, to acquaint him with the desperate condition of the town. This envoy was a Polish adventurer, named Zarucki, who had become one of the atamans of the Don Cossacks, had fought bravely for the first Demetrius, and been distinguished by his favour. Although the first glance must have satisfied Zarucki that the new pretender was an imposter, he affected without the least hesitation to recognise him as his former master. Another false witness of this identity was the Pane Miechaviecki, a Pole, who was well known for the eminent position he had held at the court of the first Demetrius, and who was now the secret instructor of his successor in what we may call the histrionic details belonging to his assumed character.
The pupil profited but badly by the lessons he received; for in everything but profusion he was the reverse of his prototype, and the least attentive observer could see that he was a coarse, ignorant, vulgar knave, qualifiedonly by his impudence for the part he had undertaken. The Cossacks were not such fastidious critics as to be shocked by his uncourtly manners; but the Poles, whilst treating him as a sovereign for their own ends, were by no means the dupes of his gross imposture. Baer states that he was originally a schoolmaster of Sokol, in White Russia; but, according to the Polish writers, who had better opportunities of learning the truth, he was a Lithuanian Jew, named Michael Moltchanov.
[1608A.D.]
The adherents of Dmitri, as we may continue to call him, increased so rapidly in numbers that he was able to defeat a detachment of Vasili’s army sent against him from Tula, and to make himself master of the town of Kozelsk on the road to the capital. When the fall of Tula had left the czar at liberty to act against him with all his forces, Dmitri retreated to Novgorod Seversk. There he was joined by unexpected reinforcements led by Rozynckil Sapieha, Tiszkievicz, Lissovski, and others, the flower of the Polish and Lithuanian chivalry. Prince Adam Viszinoviecki, the patron of the first false Dmitri, came in person to the aid of his successor at the head of two thousand horse. The Don Cossacks brought in chains to him another schemer, who had tried to put himself at their head. All that is known of the man is that he called himself Feodor Feodorovitch, and pretended to be the son of the czar Feodor. His more prosperous rival in imposture condemned him to death.
Dmitri’s army, commanded by the veteran prince Roman Rozinski, defeated that of the czar with great havoc near Volkhov, on the 24th of April 1608. All the vanquished who escaped the lances of the Poles and Cossacks fled in disorder to Moscow, and had the victors pressed their advantage, the capital would have fallen into their hands. Possibly the Polish leaders were in secret unwilling to let theirprotégétriumph too soon or too completely, or to give up Moscow to pillage, which is always more profitable to the soldier than to the general; but, whatever was the reason, they halted at the village of Tushino, twelve versts from Moscow, which the impostor made his headquarters, and there he held his court for seventeen months.
With a view to prevail on Sigismund to recall the Polish volunteers in Dmitri’s service, Vasili resolved to liberate the ambassadors, the palatine of Sendomir and his daughter, and the other Poles whom he had kept in captivity since the massacre of Moscow. With their liberty he bestowed on them indemnifications for their losses, and only exacted from them a pledge that they would not bear arms against Russia, or in any way favour the new pretender. Thus, after having made sport of the most solemn oaths, Vasili expected to find in men, so deeply provoked, scruples of conscience which he had never known himself. He sent Mniszek and his daughter away under charge of an escort; but they were intercepted by a detachment of Poles, and carried to Dmitri’s camp.
They had been prepared for this event by a letter previously received by the palatine from his pretended son-in-law, which contained this remarkable phrase: “Come both of you to me, instead of going to hide yourselves in Poland from the world’s scorn.” He could hardly have dropped a hint more adapted to move a woman of Marina’s character. Rather than go back to encounter ridicule at Sendomir, she was willing to share the bed of a bandit who might bestow a crown upon her. It is said, however, that in their first interview with Dmitri neither she nor her father testified all the emotion befitting so touching an occasion, nor could quite conceal their surprise at the sight of a man not at all like him whose name he bore. But after a few days the scene of meeting was played over again with more success, and the whole camp was witness of Marina’s demonstrations of tenderness for her husband.In apology for her previous coldness it was said that, having so long believed her Dmitri was dead, she durst not yield to the delight of seeing him alive again until she had received the most certain proofs that it was not a delusion. This clumsy excuse was admitted; Marina’s recognition of the impostor brought over to him numbers who had doubted till then; and, the news being soon spread abroad, almost all Russia declared for him, except Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
This was the culminating point of his fortunes: their decline was rapid. The mutual jealousy of the Polish commanders rose to such a pitch that it became necessary to divide the army; and Sapieha quitted the camp of Tushino, with thirty thousand men and sixty cannon, to lay siege to the famous monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, which was at the same time a powerful fortress and the most revered sanctuary of Russian orthodoxy. The support which Shuiski received from the monks was worth more to him than an army; for besides large subsidies he derived from them a moral force which still kept many of his subjects true to their allegiance. The loss of such auxiliaries would have consummated his ruin; therefore the capture of the monastery was of extreme importance to the impostor. But in spite of the most strenuous efforts, continued for six weeks, Sapieha was unable to obtain the least advantage over a garrison whose courage was exalted by religious enthusiasm; and meanwhile the Poles had to sustain a harassing and murderous guerilla warfare, waged against them by the plundered peasants, whom they had made desperate. These partisan bands were about to be supported by a more formidable army, led by Skopin Skuiski and by James de la Gardie, who brought five thousand Swedish auxiliaries to Vasili’s aid.
[1609-1610A.D.]
Early in 1609 these two generals began a brilliant campaign in the north; the Poles and the partisans of the impostor were beaten in several encounters, and in a few months the whole aspect of the war was changed. Finally, Sapieha himself was defeated in an obstinate engagement, forced ignominiously to raise the siege of the monastery, and shut himself up with the remnant of his force in Dmitrov. Skopin entered Moscow in triumph; but Vasili’s jealousy kept him there inactive for two months until he died suddenly, in his twenty-fourth year. Vasili, to whose cause the young hero’s death was fatal, was accused by public rumour of having effected it by poison.
For some months before this time there had been a new champion in the field, whose appearance was equally to be dreaded by Shuiski and Dmitri. About the end of September, 1609, Sigismund, king of Poland, laid siege to Smolensk, with an army of twelve thousand men, and immediately summoned to his standard the Poles who served under Dmitri. The greater part of them complied, and the impostor fled to Kaluga. In the spring of 1610 Russia presented a most deplorable spectacle, being devastated by three great armies, all opposed to one another. In the west, Sigismund was pressing the siege of Smolensk; in the south, Dmitri was in possession of Kaluga, Tula, and some other towns. Some of the Poles who had quitted the impostor’s service had established themselves on the banks of the Ugra, in a fertile country, which had not yet experienced the sufferings of war; and there, under the command of their new leader, John Sapieha, they offered their services simultaneously to Sigismund and the false Dmitri, being ready to join whichever of them bid highest. Nor was this all: one of the Russian princes, Procope Liapunov, took advantage of the general confusion to raise a new banner. He proclaimed himself the defender of the faith, and, at the head of a considerable force, waged a war of extermination against the Poles and the Russians who recognised either Dmitri or Vasili. A chronicler appliesto him the phrase which had served to characterise Attila—“No grass grew where his horse’s hoof had been.” And, as if all these armies were not enough for the desolation of the land, the Tatars of the Crimea had crossed the Oka, under pretence of succouring Vasili, their ally, but in reality to plunder the villages, and make multitudes of captives, whom they carried off into slavery.
Such was the condition of Russia at the moment of Skopin’s death. Vasili still derived some hope from the division of his enemies, and turned his whole attention against the most formidable among them. He despatched to the relief of Smolensk an army of nearly sixty thousand men, consisting partly of foreign mercenaries, under James de la Gardie; but he gave the chief command to his brother, Dmitri Shuiski, who was neither liked nor respected by the soldiers. Chiefly in consequence of this fatal appointment the whole army was defeated at Klushino, by a force of only three thousand horse and two hundred infantry, led by the veteran Zolkiewski, and was forced to lay down its arms. But for the enormous blunders subsequently committed by Sigismund, the battle of Klushino might have determined forever the preponderance of Poland in the north.
A Woman of Tschutski
A Woman of Tschutski
The defeat of Klushino was immediately followed by an insurrection at Moscow. Vasili Shuiski was deposed, and forced to become a monk; and being soon after delivered up to Sigismund, he ended his days in a Polish prison. The same event was equally disastrous to the false Dmitri. Deserted by Sapieha and his Poles, he lost all hope of ascending the throne of Moscow; he lived as a robber in Kaluga, at the head of his ferocious gangs of Cossacks and Tatars, until he was murdered by the latter in December, 1610, in revenge for the death of one of their countrymen whom he had drowned. Marina was far advanced in pregnancy when she lost her second husband. She was delivered of a son, who received the name of Ivan, and to whom the little court of Kaluga swore fealty. Zarucki declared himself the protector of the mother and the child, and put himself at the head of the still numerous remnant of the faction that remained obstinately attached to the name of Dmitri. But the cause was hopeless; for Zarucki was neither a general nor a statesman—his talents were those only of a bold leader of Cossack marauders.
Russia was without a sovereign, and the capital was in the hands of the Polish marshal. Zolkiewski used his advantages with wise moderation, and easily prevailed on the weary and afflicted Muscovites to resign themselves to the foreign yoke, and agree to offer the throne to Wladislaw, the son of Sigismund. One word from the latter’s lips might have reversed the subsequent fortunes of Russia and Poland; but in his selfish vanity he preferredthe appearance of power to its reality, and claimed the crown of the czars, not for his son but for himself. Philaretes, bishop of Rostov, and other ambassadors, were sent to him at his camp before Smolensk, to make known the resolution of the Russians in favour of Wladislaw. Sigismund insisted that they should at once put him in possession of Smolensk, which he had been besieging for a year; and, this being refused, he seized the ambassadors, and afterwards carried them away to Poland, where they remained nine years in captivity.
Zolkiewski, foreseeing the consequences of his master’s folly, against which he had remonstrated in vain, retired from the government of Moscow, leaving Gonsiewski as his successor. The Polish troops seized the principal towns, proclaimed Sigismund, and observed none of that discretion by which the great marshal had won the confidence and esteem of the vanquished. National feeling awoke again among the Russians; eagerly responding to the call of their revered patriarch, Hermogenes, they took up arms in all parts of the empire, and war was renewed with more fury than ever.
[1612-1613A.D.]
Smolensk fell after an obstinate resistance of eighteen months; but at the moment of the last assault the explosion of a powder magazine set fire to the city, and Sigismund found himself master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, assailed by the Russians, secured themselves in the Kremlin, after burning down the greater part of the city, and massacring a hundred thousand of the inhabitants. They were besieged by an immense levy from the provinces, consisting of three armies; but these seemed more disposed to fight with each other than to force the Poles in their intrenchments. One of them consisted chiefly of vagabonds escaped from the camp at Tushino, and was commanded by Prince Trubetskoi. Zarucki led another in the name of Marina’s son; the third army, and the only one, perhaps, whose commander sincerely desired the independence of his country, was that of Prince Procope Liapunov; but that brave leader was assassinated, and the besiegers, disheartened by his death, immediately dispersed. About the same time the patriarch Hermogenes, the soul of the national insurrection, died in his prison in the Kremlin, to which he had been consigned by the Poles.
Anarchy was rampant in Russia; every town usurped the right to act in the name of the whole empire, and set up chiefs whom they deposed a few days afterwards. Kazan and Viatka proclaimed the son of Marina; Novgorod, rather than open its gates to the Poles, called in the Swedes, and tendered the crown to Charles Philip, second son of the reigning king of Sweden, and brother of Gustavus Adolphus. Another imposter assumed the name of Dmitri, and kept his state for awhile at Pskov; but being at last identified as one Isidore, a fugitive monk, he was hanged. When all seemed lost in irretrievable disorder, the country was saved by an obscure citizen of Nijni-Novgorod. He was a butcher, named Kozma Minin, distinguished by nothing but the possession of a sound head and a brave, honest unselfish heart. Roused by his words and his example, his fellow-citizens took up arms, and resolved to devote all their wealth to the last fraction to the maintenance of an army for the deliverance of their country. From Nijni-Novgorod the same spirit spread to other towns, and Prince Pojarski who had been lieutenant to the brave Liapunov, was soon able to take the field at the head of a considerable force, whilst Minin, whom the popular voice styled the elect of the whole Russian Empire, ably seconded him in an administrative capacity.
Pojarski drove the Poles before him from town to town; and having at length arrived under the walls of the Kremlin, in August, 1612, he sustainedfor three days a hot contest against Chodkiewicz, the successor of Gonsiewski, defeated him, and put him to flight. Part of the Polish troops, under the command of Colonel Nicholas Struss, returned to the citadel and defended it for some weeks longer. At the end of that time, being pressed by famine, they capitulated; and on the 22nd of October, 1612, the princes Pojarski and Dmitri Trubetzkoi entered together into that inclosure which is the heart of the country, and sacred in the eyes of all true Russians. The assistance of Sigismund came too late to arrest the flight of the Poles.
Upon the first successes obtained by Prince Pojarski the phantom of Dmitri, and all the subaltern pretenders, disappeared as if by magic. Zarucki, feeling that an irresistible power was about to overwhelm him, was anxious only to secure himself a refuge. Carrying Marina and her son with him, he made ineffectual efforts to raise the Don Cossacks. After suffering a defeat near Voroneje, he reached the Volga, and took possession of Astrakhan, with the intention of fortifying himself there; but the generals of Michael Romanov, the newly elected czar, did not allow him time. Driven from that city, and pursued by superior forces, he was preparing to reach the eastern shore of the Caspian, when he was surprised, in the beginning of July, 1614, on the banks of the Iaïk, and delivered up to the Muscovite generals, along with Marina and the son of the second Dmitri. They were immediately taken to Moscow, where Zarucki was impaled; Ivan, who was but three years old, was hanged; and Marina was shut up in prison, where she ended her days.
The deliverance of Moscow had alone been awaited in order to fill the vacant throne by a free election. This could not properly take place except in that revered sanctuary of the imperial power, the Kremlin, where the sovereigns were crowned at their accession, and where their ashes reposed after their death. Delivered now from all foreign influence, the boyars of the council, in November, 1612, despatched letters or mandates to every town in the empire, commanding the clergy, nobility, and citizens to send deputies immediately to Moscow, endowed with full power to meet in the national council (zemskii soveth), and proceed to the election of a new czar. At the same time, to invoke the blessing of God upon this important act, a fast of three days was commanded. These orders were received with great enthusiasm throughout the whole country: the fast was so rigorously observed, according to contemporary records, that no person took the least nourishment during that interval, and mothers even refused the breast to their infants.
The election day came: it was in Lent, in the year 1613. The debates were long and stormy. The princes Mstislavski and Pojarski, it appears, refused the crown; the election of Prince Dmitri Trubetskoi failed, and the other candidates were set aside for various reasons. After much hesitation the name of Michael Romanov was put forward; a young man sixteen years of age, personally unknown, but recommended by the virtues of his father, Philaretes, and in whose behalf the boyars had been canvassed by the patriarch Hermogenes, the holy martyr to the national cause. The Romanovs were connected through the female branch with this ancient dynasty. The ancestors of Michael had filled the highest offices in the state. He fulfilled, moreover, the required conditions. “There were but three surviving members in his family,” says Strahlenberg; “he had not been implicated in the preceding troubles; his father was an ecclesiastic, and in consequence naturallymore disposed to secure peace and union than to mix himself up in turbulent projects.”
The name of the new candidate, supported by the metropolitan of Moscow,[37]was hailed with acclamation, and after some discussion he was elected. The unanimous voice of the assembly raised Michael Feodorovitch to the throne. Before he ascended he was required to swear to the following conditions: that he would protect religion; that he would pardon and forget all that had been done to his father; that he would make no new laws, nor alter the old, unless circumstances imperatively required it; and that, in important causes, he would decide nothing by himself, but that the existing laws and the usual forms of trial should remain in force; that he would not at his own pleasure make either war or peace with his neighbours; and that, to avoid all suits with individuals, he would resign his estates to his family, or incorporate them with the crown domains. Strahlenberg adds that Alexis, on his accession, swore to observe the same conditions.
These forms, however futile they may have been, are remarkable: not because they render sacred a right which stands in no need of them, but because they recall it to mind; and also because they prove that, even on the soil most favourable to despotism, a charter which should give absolute power to a monarch would appear such a gross absurdity that we know not that an instance of the kind ever existed.
Nothing could be more critical than the state of the empire at the moment when its destinies were confided to a youth of seventeen. Disorder and anarchy everywhere prevailed. Ustrialov gives us the following picture: “The strongholds on the frontier which should have served to defend his dominions were in the hands of external or internal enemies. The Swedes possessed Kexholm, Oresheck, Koporie, and even Novgorod. The Poles ruled in Smolensk, Dorogobuje, Putivle, and Tchernigov; the country around Pskov was in the power of Lisovski; Raisin, Kashira, and Tula struggled feebly against the Tatars of the Crimea and the Nogai; Sarutzki (Zarucki) was established in Astrakhan; Kazan was in revolt. At home bands of Cossacks from the Don, and the Zaparogians, and whole divisions of Poles and Tatars ravaged the villages and the convents that were still entire, when there were hopes of finding booty. The country was wasted, soldiers were dying of hunger, the land-tax was no longer collected, and not a kopeck was in the treasury. The state jewels, crowns of great price, sceptres, precious stones, vases—all had been plundered and carried into Poland.
“The young prince was surrounded by courtiers belonging to twenty different factions. There were to be found the friends of Godunov, the defenders of Shuiski, the companions of Wladislaw, and even partisans of the brigand of Tushino—in a word, men professing the most various opinions and aims, but all equally ambitious, and incapable of yielding the smallest point as regarded precedence. The lower class, irritated by ten years of misery, had become habituated to anarchy, and it was not without difficulty and resistance on their part that they were reduced to obedience.” Such, then, was the situation of the country; but Michael found means to redeem it.