CHAPTER IV
YEARS OF WAR AND WOE

From 1092 to 1167

Character of Vsevolod.—Succession of Sviatopolk.—His Discomfiture.—Deplorable Condition of Russia.—Death of Sviatopolk.—His Character.—Accession of Monomaque.—Curious Festival at Kief.—Energy of Monomaque.—Alarm of the Emperor at Constantinople.—Horrors of War.—Death of Monomaque.—His Remarkable Character.—Pious Letter to his Children.—Accession of Mstislaf.—His Short but Stormy Reign.—Struggles for the Throne.—Final Victory of Ysiaslaf.—Moscow in the Province of Souzdal.—Death of Ysiaslaf.—Wonderful Career of Rostislaf.—Rising Power of Moscow.—Georgievitch, Prince of Moscow.

Vsevolod has the reputation of having been a man of piety. But he was quite destitute of that force of character which one required to hold the helm in such stormy times. He was a man of great humanity and of unblemished morals. The woes which desolated his realms, and which he was utterly unable to avert, crushed his spirit and hastened his death. Perceiving that his dying hour was at hand, he sent for his two sons, Vlademer and Rostislaf, and the sorrowing old man breathed his last in their arms.

Vsevolod was the favorite son of Yaroslaf the Great, and his father, with his dying breath, had expressed the wish that Vsevolod, when death should come to him, might be placed in the tomb by his side. These affectionate wishes of the dying father were gratified, and the remains of Vsevolod were deposited, with the most imposing ceremonies of those days, in the church of Saint Sophia, by the side of those of his father. The people, forgetting his weakness and remembering only his amiability, wept at his burial.

Vlademer, the eldest son of Vsevolod, with great magnanimity surrendered the crown to his cousin Sviatopolk, saying,

"His father was older than mine, and reigned at Kief before my father. I wish to avoid dissension and the horrors of civil war."

He then proclaimed Sviatopolk sovereign of Russia. The new sovereign had been feudal lord of the province of Novgorod; he, however, soon left his northern capital to take up his residence in the more imperial palaces of Kief. But disaster seemed to be the doom of Russia, and the sounds of rejoicing which attended his accession to the throne had hardly died away ere a new scene of woe burst upon the devoted land.

The young king was rash and headstrong. He provoked the ire of one of the strong neighboring provinces, which was under the sway of an energetic feudal prince, ostensibly a vassal of the crown, but who, in his pride and power, arrogated independence. The banners of a hostile army were soon approaching Kief. Sviatopolk marched heroically to meet them. A battle was fought, in which he and his army were awfully defeated. Thousands were driven by the conquerors into a stream, swollen by the rains, where they miserably perished. The fugitives, led by Sviatopolk, in dismay fled back to Kief and took refuge behind the walls of the city. The enemy pressed on, ravaging, with the most cruel desolation, the whole region around Kief, and in a second battle conquered the king and drove him out of his realms. The whole of southern Russia was abandoned to barbaric destruction. Nestor gives a graphic sketch of the misery which prevailed:

"One saw everywhere," he writes, "villages in flames; churches, houses, granaries were reduced to heaps of ashes; and the unfortunate citizens were either expiring beneath the blows of their enemies, or were awaiting death with terror. Prisoners, half naked, were dragged in chains to the most distant and savage regions. As they toiled along, they said, weeping, one to another, 'I am from such a village, and I from such a village. No horses or cattle were to be seen upon our plains. The fields were abandoned to weeds, and ferocious beasts ranged the places but recently occupied by Christians."

The whole reign of Sviatopolk, which continued until the year 1113, was one continued storm of war. It would only weary the reader to endeavor to disentangle the labyrinth of confusion, and to describe the ebbings and floodings of battle. Every man's hand was against his neighbor; and friends to-day were foes to-morrow. Sviatopolk himself was one of the most imperfect of men. He was perfidious, ungrateful and suspicious; haughty in prosperity, mean and cringing in adversity. His religion was the inspiration of superstition and cowardice, not of intelligence and love. Whenever he embarked upon any important expedition, he took an ecclesiastic to the tomb of Saint Theodosius, there to implore the blessing of Heaven. If successful in the enterprise, he returned to the tomb to give thanks. This was the beginning and the end of his piety. Without any scruple he violated the most sacred laws of morality. The marriage vow was entirely disregarded, and he was ever ready to commit any crime which would afford gratification to his passions, or which would advance his interests.

The death of Sviatopolk occurred in a season of general anarchy, and it was uncertain who would seize the throne. The citizens of Kief met in solemn and anxious assembly, and offered the crown to an illustrious noble, Monomaque, a brother of Sviatopolk, and a man who had acquired renown in many enterprises of most desperate daring. In truth it required energy and courage of no ordinary character for a man at that time to accept the crown. Innumerable assailants would immediately fall upon him, putting to the most imminent peril not only the crown, but the head which wore it. By the Russian custom of descent, the crown incontestably belonged to the oldest son of Sviatoslaf, and Monomaque, out of regard to his rights, declined the proffered gift. This refusal was accompanied by the most melancholy results. A terrible tumult broke out in the city. There was no arm of law sufficiently powerful to restrain the mob, and anarchy, with all its desolation, reigned for a time triumphant. A deputation of the most influential citizens of Kief was immediately sent to Monomaque, with the most earnest entreaty that he would hasten to rescue them and their city from the impending ruin. The heroic prince could not turn a deaf ear to this appeal. He hastened to the city, where his presence, combined with the knowledge which all had of his energy and courage, at once appeased the tumult. He ascended the throne, greeted by the acclamations of the whole city. No opposition ventured to manifest itself, and Monomaque was soon in the undisputed possession of power.

Nothing can give one a more vivid idea of the state of the times than the festivals appointed in honor of the new reign as described by the ancient annalists. The bones of two saints were transferred from one church to another in the city. A magnificent coffin of silver, embellished with gold, precious stones, and bas reliefs, so exquisitely carved as to excite the admiration even of the Grecian artists, contained the sacred relics, and excited the wonder and veneration of the whole multitude. The imposing ceremony drew to Kief the princes, the clergy, the lords, the warriors, even, from the most distant parts of the empire. The gates of the city and the streets were encumbered with such multitudes that, in order to open a passage for the clergy with the sarcophagus, the monarch caused cloths, garments, precious furs and pieces of silver to be scattered to draw away the throng. A luxurious feast was given to the princes, and, for three days, all the poor of the city were entertained at the expense of the public treasure.

Monomaque now fitted out sundry expeditions under his enterprising son to extend the territories of Russia and to bring tumultuous tribes and nations into subjection and order. His son Mstislaf was sent into the country of the Tchoudes, now Livonia, on the shores of the Baltic. He overran the territory, seized the capital and established order. His son Vsevolod, who was stationed at Novgorod, made an expedition into Finland. His army experienced inconceivable sufferings in that cold, inhospitable clime. Still they overawed the inhabitants and secured tranquillity. Another son, Georges, marched to the Volga, embarked his army in a fleet of barges, and floated along the stream to eastern Bulgaria, conquered an army raised to oppose him, and returned to his principality laden with booty. Another son, Yaropolk, assailed the tumultuous tribes upon the Don. Brilliant success accompanied his enterprise. Among his captives he found one maiden of such rare beauty that he made her his wife. At the same time the kingdom of Russia was invaded by barbarous hordes from the shores of the Caspian. Monomaque himself headed an army and assailed the invaders with such impetuosity that they were driven, with much loss, back again to their wilds.

The military renown Monomaque thus attained made his name a terror even to the most distant tribes, and, for a time, held in awe those turbulent spirits who had been filling the world with violence. Elated by his conquests, Monomaque fitted out an expedition to Greece. A large army descended the Dnieper, took possession of Thrace, and threatened Adrianople. The emperor, in great alarm, sent embassadors to Monomaque with the most precious presents. There was a cornelian exquisitely cut and set, a golden chain and necklace, a crown of gold, and, most precious of all, a crucifix made of wood of the true cross! The metropolitan bishop of Ephesus, who was sent with these presents, was authorized, in the name of the church and of the empire, to place the crown upon the brow of Monomaque in gorgeous coronation in the cathedral church of Kief, and to proclaim Monomaque Emperor of Russia. This crown, called the golden bonnet of Monomaque, is still preserved in the Museum of Antiquities at Moscow.

These were dark and awful days. Horrible as war now is, it was then attended with woes now unknown. Gleb, prince of Minsk, with a ferocious band, attacked the city of Sloutsk; after a terrible scene of carnage, in which most of those capable of bearing arms were slain, the city was burned to ashes, and all the survivors, men, women and children, were driven off as captives to the banks of the Dwina, where they were incorporated with the tribe of their savage conqueror. In revenge, Monomaque sent his son Yaropolk to Droutsk, one of the cities of Gleb. No pen can depict the horrors of the assault. After a few hours of dismay, shriekings and blood, the city was in ashes, and the wretched victims of man's pride and revenge were conducted to the vicinity of Kief, where they reared their huts, and in widowhood, orphanage and penury, commenced life anew. Gleb himself in this foray was taken prisoner, conducted to Kief, and detained there a captive until he died.

Monomaque reigned thirteen years, during which time he was incessantly engaged in wars with the audacious nobles of the provinces who refused to recognize his supremacy, and many of whom were equal to him in power. He died May 19, 1126, in the seventy-third year of his age, renowned, say the ancient annalists, for the splendor of his victories and the purity of his morals. He was fully conscious of the approach of death, and seems to have been sustained, in that trying hour, by the consolations of religion. He lived in an age of darkness and of tumult; but he was a man of prayer, and, according to the light he had, he walked humbly with God. Commending his soul to the Saviour he fell asleep. It is recorded that he was a man of such lively emotions that his voice often trembled, and his eyes were filled with tears as he implored God's blessing upon his distracted country. He wrote, just before his death, a long letter to his children, conceived in the most lovely spirit of piety. We have space but for a few extracts from these Christian counsels of a dying father. The whole letter, written on parchment, is still preserved in the archives of the monarchy.

"The foundation of all virtue," he wrote, "is the fear of God and the love of man. O my dear children, praise God and love your fellow-men. It is not fasting, it is not solitude, it is not a monastic life which will secure for you the divine approval—it is doing good to your fellow-creatures alone. Never forget the poor. Take care of them, and ever remember that your wealth comes from God, and that it is only intrusted to you for a short time. Do not hoard up your riches; that is contrary to the precepts of the Saviour. Be a father to the orphans, the protectors of widows, and never permit the powerful to oppress the weak. Never take the name of God in vain, and never violate your oath. Do not envy the triumph of the wicked, or the success of the impious; but abstain from everything that is wrong. Banish from your hearts all the suggestions of pride, and remember that we are all perishable—to-day full of life, to-morrow in the tomb. Regard with horror, falsehood, intemperance and impurity—vices equally dangerous to the body and to the soul. Treat aged men with the same respect with which you would treat your parents, and love all men as your brothers.

"When you make a journey in your provinces, do not suffer the members of your suite to inflict the least injury upon the inhabitants. Treat with particular respect strangers, of whatever quality, and if you can not confer upon them favors, treat them with a spirit of benevolence, since, upon the manner with which they are treated, depends the evil or good report which they will take back with them to their own land. Salute every one whom you meet. Love your wives, but do not permit them to govern you. When you have learned any thing useful, endeavor to imprint it upon your memory, and be always seeking to acquire information. My father spoke five languages, a fact which excited the admiration of strangers.

"Guard against idleness, which is the mother of all vices. Man ought always to be occupied. When you are traveling on horseback, instead of allowing your mind to wander upon vain thoughts, recite your prayers, or, at least, repeat the shortest and best of them all: 'Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us.' Never retire at night without falling upon your knees before God in prayer, and never let the sun find you in your bed. Always go to church at an early hour in the morning to offer to God the homage of your first and freshest thoughts. This was the custom of my father and of all the pious people who surrounded him. With the first rays of the sun they praised the Lord, and exclaimed, with fervor, 'Condescend, O Lord, with thy divine light to illumine my soul.'"

The faults of Monomaque were those of his age, non vitia hominis, sed vitia sœculi; but his virtues were truly Christian, and it can hardly be doubted that, as his earthly crown dropped from his brow, he received a brighter crown in heaven. The devastations of the barbarians in that day were so awful, burning cities and churches, and massacring women and children, that they were regarded as enemies of the human race, and were pursued with exterminating vengeance.