The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький
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Irena, and it was the aim of the malcontents to break this important link on the ground of the latter’s alleged sterility, and to wed Thedor instead to a Mstislavskie princess. The Metropolitan favoured the scheme—Ivan the Terrible had evidently stretched the consciences of his clergy on the marriage question beyond retraction—but the vigilance of the Regent dragged it prematurely to light. None of the conspirators were molested for their share in the intrigue, but the Mstislavskie princess was compelled to become an abiding inmate of a convent. The real or alleged discovery of a plot against the throne, presumably, since some of the Nagoi family were implicated, in favour of the young Dimitri, gave an excuse for the long-deferred vengeance of Godounov. Ivan Shouyskie, the defender of Pskov, was dispatched to Bielozero, Andrei Shouyskie to Kargopol; both, it was said, were afterwards strangled in prison. Thedor Nagoi and six of his companions were publicly executed, an example meant, no doubt, to strike terror into the disaffected at Ouglitch. Batches of the Mstislavskie were forced into religious houses, and many other boyarins were exiled to various parts of the gosoudarstvo—some to Sibiria, the first detachment of a long procession of political offenders which has never since ceased to wend its way from Russia into the “land of the long nights.” The Metropolitan was deposed and his place filled by Iov, Archbishop of Rostov.
Godounov was for the time master of the situation. His enemies were either dead, or deported, or devoted, in various monasteries scattered up and down the country, to a course of religious seclusion, if not of blessed meditation. Only at Ouglitch, growing up among the Nagoi colony, was the child who must surely one day exact a heavy retribution from the man whom he was taught to—omit from his prayers. Unless he should happen meanwhile to cut his throat in a fit of epilepsy.
A renewal of the war with Sweden drew together, at an opportune moment, the discordant forces which threatened at times to dislocate the machinery of government. The time-honoured Moskovite foreign policy, like the wolves’ hunting to which it has been already compared, derived its strength from its patient persistence, rather than from any brilliancy of rapid conception or swift action. At peace for the time being with Poland, and not anticipating trouble from the Khan of the Krim Horde, Godounov took up the threads which had dropped from the nerveless hands of the failing Ivan, and returned to the struggle for an opening into the Baltic. The truce with Sweden having expired without either country being able to come to terms, Thedor prepared, in January 1590, to lead the huge army which had been collected from all quarters of his dominions, part of the way at least towards the Estlandish and Finnish frontiers. The presence of the sovereign was to some extent necessary to maintain order and harmony in an army which included among its leaders a Mstislavskie (in chief command), a Godounov, and a Romanov, besides other jarring elements. The Tzar, however, did not venture his person farther than Novgorod, from which point the Russian host diverged upon its double destination, one body marching across the frozen Neva, the other directing its course towards the disputed fortresses of the Ingermanland province. Yam was carried by assault and a force of 20,000 Swedes defeated outside Narva, which place was then invested. To save this important stronghold, the representatives of the King of Sweden concluded a hasty truce, to run for one year, ceding meanwhile Ivangorod and Kopor’e to the Tzar’s voevodas (25th February). This sudden forward movement on the part of Moskovy aroused the alarm and suspicion of the Poles, whose young king especially felt bound to make a diversion on behalf of Sweden; hence ominous mutterings filtered through to Moskva from Krakow, and the Dniepr Kozaks (who had been organised into regiments by Stefan Batory) began to commit depredations along the Lit’uanian border. A Polish embassy which arrived at the capital in the autumn, after adopting a somewhat aggressive tone, finally renewed the truce between the two countries for a term of twelve years. The Swedes were likely, however, to renew the struggle in the north in the coming spring, having refused to yield to the Russian demand for the cession of Narva and Korelia, and there were rumours afloat of a simultaneous outburst of hostilities on the part of the treacherous Krimskie Tartars. While Moskva was thus threatened with a double attack, a mysterious and appalling tragedy had happened at Ouglitch. 1591At noon on the 15th of May the inhabitants, alarmed by the furious beating of the bell at the Nagoi Palace, rushed into the court to find the Tzarevitch Dimitri with a gaping wound across his throat, and his mother and some servants shrieking over his yet warm corpse. The palace and town had been for some time haunted and overlooked by agents of the Regent, who naturally wished to keep himself informed as to the course of events in this hotbed of sedition and intrigue; naturally also the popular imagination fastened the presumed murder on these Godounovskie emissaries, who were seized and put to death, together with their servants and one or two suspected citizens and a woman “who went often to the palace;” in all some dozen persons. The aggrieved and excited populace easily persuaded themselves that Boris Godounov had planned and caused to be executed this catastrophe, and many historians have unreservedly endorsed their judgment, though, apart from the fact that Dimitri’s death could not have been otherwise than a joyful relief to the Regent, it is difficult to see what evidence there is to connect him with the crime. The murder of a Tzarevitch, the last heir in the direct Moskovite line of the holy House of Rurikovitch, was not an event which could be passed over without inquiry, even if the alleged instigator were a boyarin in high Court favour; an investigation was necessary in any case, but it is at least worthy of notice that the man selected to preside over the collection of evidence and to sift the whole matter at the place where it occurred was Vasili Shouyskie, brother to the princes of that family who had suffered imprisonment and death at the hands of Godounov. The report drawn up by this kniaz, who could scarcely be otherwise than the enemy of the man whom the popular voice condemned, entirely exonerated both the Regent and his supposed agents, and declared the Tzarevitch to have killed himself in a fit of epilepsy, to which he was subject. The subsequent massacre was laid to the charge of the Nagois. The theory put forward by Kostomarov that Shouyskie, “a cunning and pliant man,” conducted the investigation and distorted the evidence in a manner which would win him the favour of Godounov in order to avoid unpleasant consequences to himself, seems under the circumstances scarcely plausible. The death of Dimitri left Boris more or less in the position of a claimant to the throne of the Russias, and he would be more than ever an object of jealousy and suspicion to the princely families who had the blood of Rurik or Gedimin in their veins. Hence Shouyskie, however guarded in the language of the report he was called upon to make, would hardly go out of his way to bias the judgment of Court and country in favour of his enemy and rival. Between the verdict of the men who had carefully examined the evidence relating to the affair and the wild accusations of an angry and disaffected people there was a wide divergence. Historians have for the most part endorsed the latter. Whatever the truth of the matter, a murderous retribution was meted out to the people of Ouglitch for the slaughter of the Regent’s agents; many of the Nagois were exiled or imprisoned, and Dimitri’s mother was forced to enter a convent, while numbers of the inhabitants were executed or sent beyond the Ourals. Ouglitch was reduced almost to a desert. The same summer which witnessed the death of Dimitri Ivanovitch saw Khan Kazi-Girei stealing out of the sun-parched steppes towards Moskva at the head of a large and rapidly-moving army. The best troops of Moskovy were far away in the north, watching the movements of the Swedish generals; others had to be brought in all haste from the encampments along the Oka to defend the capital from this sudden, if not altogether unexpected attack. The slobodas surrounding the city were hurriedly fortified and the outlying monasteries transformed into fortresses. The Tzar, contrary to precedent, remained at the Kreml, and was witness of the magnificent battle which ensued under the walls of Moskva, and which recalled, while it lasted, the classic struggles on the plains of Troy. The defence was superintended by kniaz Thedor Mstislavskie and Godounov, the latter of whom understood the difficult science of working in harmony with men who were his personal enemies. 4th July 1591Although the issue of the day’s strife was not of a decisive nature, the Khan had no stomach for further fighting, and fled precipitately back to his own country, arriving at Baktchisarai with scarcely a third of his army. The ignominious failure of this invasion checked any disposition which Sigismund may have had for annulling the truce with the Tzar of Moskovy, whose voevodas were now free to give their undivided attention to the scrambling hostilities which had broken out in Finland and in the neighbourhood of the White Sea. The war dragged on in these wild and bitter regions without any very decisive action enlivening the general torpidity of its course; the failing health of King John of Sweden made him anxious to obtain at least a suspension of arms, and negotiations were set on foot for