The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький
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and guide it forward on the path of power. The conclusion of the treaties of Stolbova and Deoulino drove deep wedges into the territory of the tzarstvo and thrust Moskovy back yet farther from the Baltic and from Western Europe; but all the elements of survival and absorption were present in the momentarily weakened state. While Sweden, devoid of natural resources, was manuring a fitful crop of laurels and grafted possessions with the blood of magnificently disciplined armies, the wealth of Perm and Sibiria and the trade of Makar’ev and Azov was pouring into Russia the life-spring of recuperation, the wherewithal to wring victory from defeat, and weary down less enduring opponents. And while the Poles were opening wider and wider the doors of their Constitution to every species of privileged obstruction and respectable anarchy, the Moskovites, warned by past experiences, and constrained by the grim spectre of the scaffold on the Red Place—which was not always a mere spectre—were “beating the forehead” to the sovereign authority as unreservedly as they had done in the days of the fearsome Ivan. With the firm establishment of the first Romanov on the throne the Russian Empire became an accomplished fact, and the ground was prepared for the work of his famous grandson. This was the turning-point of the long struggle for existence, and from thenceforth the two-headed eagle, blazoned with S. George the Conqueror, soars ever more prominently in the eastern heavens. With the consecration of the Patriarch Filarete in the Ouspienskie Cathedral, in the presence of the Tzar and the high boyarins, prelates, and councillors, nobles, clergy, and people, with the historic jewel-wrought Bogoroditza of Vladimir shedding its sacred lustre on the assembled throng, and the crown of Monomachus sparkling in the light of the illuminating tapers, closes the last scene of the grounding of the Russian Empire; and here may be fitly quoted, from the old Slavonic saga, “Oh, men of the Russian land, already are you this side the hill.”
S. Solov’ev, Kostomarov
198 Answering to the Saxon reeve; in towns mayor or baillie, of lesser importance than a posadnik.
199 S. Solov’ev, Kostomarov.
200 King’s son, a convenient designation scarcely reproduced in English by the somewhat vague “Prince”; “Crown Prince,” with reference to an elective monarchy, being of course inadmissible.
201 Or Saygadatchnuiy; Solov’ev uses both spellings.
202 S. Solov’ev; De Koch and Schoell, Histoire abrégée des Traités de Paix.
I.—TABLE OF RUSSIAN PRINCES OF THE LINE OF RURIK, FROM SVIATOSLAV I.
II.—HOUSE OF MSTISLAV VLADIMIROVITCH.
III.—HOUSE OF SOUZDAL-VLADIMIR AND SUB-HOUSE OF MOSKVA AND TVER.
IV.—GRAND PRINCES AND TZARS OF MOSKOVY.
GLOSSARY OF RUSSIAN WORDS EMPLOYED WITHOUT EXPLANATION IN TEXT
| Baba yaga | witch in Slavonic myth |
| Bogoroditza | Mother-of-God |
| gorod | town |
| gosoudarstvo | realm, sovereignty |
| ikon | picture of a saint in relief |
| kolokol | church bell |
| lavra | monastery of superior grade |
| oblast | district, region |
| posadnik | mayor of free city |
| sobor | national council or Parliament; cathedral |
| Spasskie | of-the-Saviour |
| Strielitz | body-guard, originally archers |
| velikie | great, grand |
| vetché | town or communal council |
| voevoda | military commander |
| zamok | castle |
Novels & Novellas:
Dead Souls
(Nikolai Gogol)
Author’s Preface to the First Portion of this Work