The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький
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which resulted in the conclusion of a two years’ truce (each side to retain what it then held) in January 1593. The external peace which Russia for the moment enjoyed was clouded by the apprehension which was naturally felt at the accession of Sigismund Vasa to his father’s kingdom, an event which bound Poland and Sweden into a dual monarchy and made the acquisition of a Baltic outlet more than ever a difficult task for Moskovite statecraft. The apprehension was, however, soon allayed. The union of crowns was by no means followed by a union of hearts, and the close relationship into which the two kingdoms—one aggressively Lutheran, the other preponderatingly Catholic—were drawn only served to bring to the surface the animosities of race and creed which existed between them. Sigismund, who was Catholic by religion and more or less Polish in his sympathies, had a powerful Lutheran rival in his Uncle Karl, Duke of Sudermanland, and the Skandinavian kingdom was more likely to be involved in a civil war than to fight hand in hand with Poland against Russia. Under these circumstances the truce between Sweden and Moskovy was supplemented (18th May 1595) by an “eternal peace,” the former power ceding, besides Yam, Ivangorod, and Kopor’e, Korelia with the town of Keksholm.179 It was probably the clearing of the atmosphere in the north which emboldened Godounov, while lulling the Ottoman Court with proffers of friendship, to send a substantial contribution to Kaiser Rudolf in furtherance of the half-hearted crusade by which he was attempting to dislodge the Turks from Hungary. A magnificent consignment of the rich fur-products of the Sibirian forests,—sable, marten, beaver, black fox, and other skins, in scores of thousands, valued at 44,000 roubles,—was spread out in twenty rooms of the imperial palace at Prague for the edification and astonishment of the courtiers and merchants of the old Bohemian city (1595). The inevitable clashing of the Ottoman and Russian powers, only deferred on account of the manifold embarrassments of both, made it desirable that Moskva should be no longer dependent in ecclesiastical matters on the Turk-tolerated Patriarch at Constantinople, and it was perhaps partly on this account, partly with the view of gratifying the Russian clergy and his partisan, the Metropolitan, Iov, that Godounov in 1589 secured the promotion of the Primate to the office of Patriarch of Moskva, with four Metropolitans (Novgorod, Kazan, Rostov, and Kroutitsk) under him. A more lastingly important stroke of internal administration, effected by the Regent at this time, also fell in with his private ends in addition to safeguarding the interests of the State. This was the abolition of the “Ur’ev den,” or S. George’s day, on which the peasants had been wont to decide for the ensuing year whether they would remain with their present masters, or migrate, literally, to fresh fields and pastures new. This right of annual “betterment” had lately shown a tendency to work in one direction; the opening up of Sibiria and the greater security from Tartar raids which the agriculturalist of the south of Russia now enjoyed drew the peasants in steady streams from their accustomed grounds, and the small proprietors, the military backbone of the gosoudarstvo, who were unable to offer the privileges and immunities which the richer landowners held forth, found their estates gradually drained of the labour which alone made them valuable. Godounov grappled boldly with the situation; he issued an edict which forbade the serf to change his master, and thus by one stroke bound the peasant to the soil and the grateful small landowner to his party.
The dynastic hopes of the house of Moskva had been fluttered in 1592 by a report that the Tzaritza was in a condition which might well be termed interesting, since the birth of an heir was of such vital importance to Russia; Irena did indeed bring forth a daughter, who was baptized with the name Theodosia, and died. This was the last expiring flicker of the paling torch of the Ivanovitch dynasty. On the 7th of January 1598 Thedor himself expired, leaving his vacant throne somewhat vaguely at the disposal of his widow, the Patriarch, the Regent, and Thedor Romanov. “In the person of this vague and virtuous sovereign,” sums up a French historian, “the race of bloody and violent men of prey who had created Russia was extinguished.”180 For the first time in her political history Russia was fronted with an interregnum. The widowed Tzaritza, the only remaining representative of the sovereign authority in the eyes of the people, made the void still more pronounced by retiring with her brother into the New Monastery of the Virgin, which hallowed retreat promptly became the centre of anxious solicitations and political manœuvrings. As Irena Godounov would do nothing to remove the deadlock, Boris Godounov became indispensable, and the Patriarch, with the assent of the principal citizens, offered him the crown of Monomachus and, as far as he was able to speak with authority, the sovereignty of the Russias. Boris wisely deferred the choice of a Tzar to the decision of a representative gathering of the Moskovite States, a step which, while it gave his enemies a longer time to develop their opposition, would place his election, if carried, on a surer foundation. The Sobor which assembled at the capital in the month of February was composed of 474 members, of which 99 were clergy, 272 of the boyarin and landowner class (of which 119 were small proprietors), and the remainder starostas, deputies from the provincial towns, and representatives of the merchant bodies.181 With the clergy and small proprietors the Godounov interest was predominant, and men of all sections were conversant with the ability and energy which the Regent had displayed in dealing with the foreign affairs of the country, left by Ivan in such unpromising plight. There were many boyarins whose pedigrees gave them a more legitimate claim to sit on the throne of Rurik, but none who inspired such confidence as did Godounov. The latter was unanimously elected to the sovereignty, and only stimulated the popular voice by affecting to hold back from the proffered dignity. 1598On the 21st of February, amid the striking of the 5000 bells of Moskva’s many churches, the Patriarch went forth at the head of his clergy, followed by the greater part of the inhabitants of the city, and bearing the ikon of the Mother of God of Vladimir, towards the monastery of the Virgin; Godounov met this imposing outpour with another procession, bearing the less celebrated but equally adorable Mother of God of Smolensk. Satisfied of the solidity of his call to the throne, he at length put aside his hesitation and allowed himself to be proclaimed Gosoudar and Tzar of all the Russias. In effect nothing was changed, except that he ruled in name what he had already ruled in fact; on the other hand, however, if he exchanged the position of Vremenszhik for that of sovereign, he lost the authority which even the weak Thedor had been able to impart to him—the authority of a time-honoured “legend.” With the Russians legend and ideal counted for more than an apprenticeship of capable public service, and greater homage was paid to an Orthodox sovereign who hid from the enemy under a haystack than to a voevoda who died fighting superbly for his country. Crueller tortures were inflicted upon brave and blameless men in their midst than any for which sixty generations of Jews were held accursed, yet it was the inflictor and not the victim who was accounted holy, and worthy to sleep beneath the wings of the archangels. Boris, with all his record of past services and recommendation of present ability, with all his benevolence and dexterity, could count on nothing more than the makeshift loyalty of his subjects.
His first action after his election, before even his coronation had taken place, was one which bespoke alike vigour and calculation. A rumour, possibly not without some foundation, but such as was current at Moskva every summer, credited the Krim Khan with designs for an immediate invasion of Russian territory. Boris did not wait for more exact information, but forthwith assembled from all parts of the gosoudarstvo a splendidly equipped army which was estimated at 500,000 men. This demonstration of potential fighting power and resource not only awed the Khan into good behaviour, but served as a hint to the Swedes and Poles that the new sovereign of Russia, albeit of comparatively humble origin, was not a factor to be despised in the affairs of North-eastern Europe; it fulfilled too another purpose, that of bringing the voevodas, boyarins, Tartar vassals, and Kozak hetmans from distant parts of the realm into immediate contact with their new ruler. The development of the quarrel between Sigismund and his uncle Karl, which gradually became a struggle between Poland and Sweden, freed Moskovy from the danger of attack from either power, and had Boris been able to wholly shake off the cautious traditions of his predecessors and enter into aggressive alliance with one or other of the combatants, Riga or Revel might have fallen into his hands and the coveted eye-hole into Europe have been secured. The Tzar, however, clung too faithfully to the old policy which had borne so little fruit. Nothing but sheer force would move the Swedes out of Estland or the Poles out of Livland, and nothing short of compulsion would make