CHAPTER I

THE MAKING OF RUSSIA

DURING the long dark centuries whose annals we have endeavoured to reconstruct, the tide of conquest ran westwards. It was checked at times by the might of civilisation or fanaticism, but its flow was tolerably steady and quite beyond control. Had it not been for the evolution of a still greater force on her eastern borders, the whole of Europe would have been enveloped in the coils of a Mongolian invasion. The world was saved from this calamity by the unconscious agency of Russia. It remains to trace succinctly the history of her rise, and to show how she combated the Yellow Terror, and, by a reflex action, carried the banner of European civilisation eastwards.

Long ages before the Christian era the vast plains of Eastern Europe were invaded by an Aryan race called the Veneti by Ptolemy. In the fourth century we find them struggling for existence with the Goths on the plains watered by the Vistula. They afterwards split into three branches the Veneti proper, afterwards known as the Wends, the Antes, and Slavi. The first-named pitched

1 Born at Pelusum in Egypt, A.D. 70, and flourished under M. Antoninus and Hadrian.

2 Our authority here is Jornandes, more properly styled Jordanes, who lived at Byzantium under Justinian II. His work, De Gothorum Origine et Rebus Gestis, is to be found in Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores ab Anno 500 ad 1500, 27 vols. folio.

their tents in north-eastern Europe, and have left indelible
traces in the Baltic provinces of Prussia.1 The second
spread over the plain between the Dnieper and Dniester;
while the Slavs 2 occupied the land between the latter
river and the Vistula. Their progress was impeded for a
while by contests with the Huns, but the overthrow of
their fierce foes which followed the death of Attila gave
full scope to their expansion. They crossed the Danube
and occupied the rich country between the Adriatic and
the Black Sea; then, spreading northwards, they took
possession of the lake region of Pskov and Novogorod.
These movements ceased in the seventh century, the
close of which saw the Slavs firmly established in
European Russia, Illyria, and Bulgaria. They were
employed in agriculture and stock-raising, and their
characteristics appear to have been much the same as
those observed at the present day in the rural popula-
tions of Eastern Europe.
Ancient writers agree in
depicting them as being hospitable and cheerful, firmly
attached to ancient customs, courageous, and fighting
only in self-defence. In point of culture the Slavs of a
thousand years ago failed to reach the low standard
attained by their contemporaries of the West; for they
were sparsely scattered over vast areas and plunged in
continual warfare with aggressive neighbours. Society
was organised on a patriarchal basis. The soil was held
in common by the tribe or "land," whose affairs were
discussed and whose chiefs were elected at a general
gathering of the members. The religion of the Slavs
betrayed its Eastern origin. The supreme deity was

1 The Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg claim a Wendish origin, and are officially styled "Princes of the Wends."

2 Slav, originally Slovene or Slovane, was, according to Miklositch, Vergleichende Grammatik den Slavischen Sprachen (Vienna, 1879), the tribal name of one of several Aryan clans, whose settlements stretched from the Arctic Ocean to the Ægæan Sea, from Kamskatka to the Elbe.

called Bog, his wife Siwa; but there were good spirits (belbog) to be worshipped and evil ones (chernebog) to be propitiated, and every village had its patron divinity.1

It is possible to carry too far the theory on which Mr. Buckle insisted so strongly-that the destinies of a race are moulded by their physical environment; but its general truth is demonstrated by the history of Russia. The European dominions of the Tsar are an unbroken plain. They contain no mountain fastnesses serving as a refuge for inferior races, and were thus fit arenas for a struggle for existence in which the most vigorous stem of the human family was sure to survive and to expand. And then, Russia lay on the highway of commerce between the East and West. The silks, spices, and sugar of China traversed her plains on their passage to mediæval cities, and the growth of local trade was fostered by the 35,000 miles of navigable river which the empire possesses. To this cause is due the accretion of great urban centres, which played as great a part in Muscovite history as they did in that of Western Europe. These cities were fortified to serve as rendezvous for the surrounding population in time of stress. Their government was strictly democratic; affairs being directed by a general assembly of the citizens, which elected a mayor, a commander of their trained bands, and, later, a bishop. Traders and merchants, who were the backbone of the urban population, were divided into self-governing guilds; and the city, not the individual, sent out its fleets and caravans and colonised distant regions. Each town became a nucleus of a territory whose peasant-inhabitants rendered the City Fathers the allegiance formerly paid to the tribe.

1 "God" in Sanskrit is Bhagvan.

Siva was the devoted wife of the demigod Rama, who is worshipped by Hindus with a fervour like that inspired by the Virgin Mary in Catholic lands.

With the decay of the tribal conception came radical modifications in the tenure of land. Individualism slowly triumphed over socialism; a class of agriculturists sprang up, who long remained free yeomen. But prisoners of war were reduced to slavery, and freemen who continued in service for more than a year encountered a similar fate. Hence the origin of a great body of serfs, tied down to the soil and acknowledging the mastership of their wealthier brethren. Such was the Russian township in its earlier stages of growth. It was the nidus of a self-governing republic, impelled to expand and conquer by the growth of population which follows increased material prosperity, but powerless to defend itself against foreign aggression. The consciousness of this defect led the citizens to invite soldiers of fortune to lead their militia and give organised means of repelling attack. These adventurers were styled princes (kniaz). They were called on to engage to rule according to custom and law. They were bound to keep a body of armed retainers, who were paid by a stipulated tribute.

The prince was not only the head of the executive, but the right arm of the general assembly (vetche), which still arrogated to itself the right of deciding on peace and war. He exercised judicial functions, pronouncing sentence on the findings arrived at by the jurors who decided civil and criminal suits, and levying the fine adjudged, which he appropriated to the maintenance of his dignity. The Russian princes of the tenth century held a position analogous to that occupied by the podestà of the Italian political evolution of the two proceeded on parallel lines.

republic; and, indeed, the countries for many years It was reserved for Chris

1 They were judges rather than jurymen of the British type. Their number was twelve, half of whom were chosen by the plaintiff and half by the defendant. See Stubbs' Constitutional History, chap. xiii.