foreign artificers. Like the European settlers on the coast of Africa in more recent times, they wished the barbarians of the interior to be restricted to the use of their primitive weapons. One of the Polish kings, for example, threatened with death the English sailors who should attempt to carry on the illicit trade in arms, on the ground that “the Muscovite, who is not only our opponent of to-day but the eternal enemy of all free nations, should not be allowed to supply himself with cannons, bullets and munitions or with artisans who manufacture arms hitherto unknown to those barbarians.” This was precisely the reason why Ivan IV. was so anxious to force his way to the coast. His grandfather had obtained from Venice an “artist” who undertook “to build churches and palaces, to cast big bells and cannons, to fire off the said cannons and to make every sort of castings very cunningly”; and with the aid of that clever Venetian he had become the proud possessor of a “cannon-house,” subsequently dignified with the name of “arsenal” In imitation of the grandfather the grandson gave a commission to a Saxon, in whom he had confidence, to collect artists and artisans in Germany and bring them to Moscow, but he was prevented from carrying out his scheme by the Livonian Order (1547). A few years later (1553) he found unexpectedly a different route for communication with the West. A ship of an English squadron which was trying First relations with England. to reach China by the North-East passage, entered the northern Dvina, and her captain, Richard Chancellor, journeyed to Moscow in quest of opportunities for trade. He met with such a favourable reception from the tsar that on his return to England a special envoy was sent to Moscow by Queen Mary, and he succeeded in obtaining for his countrymen the privilege of trading freely in Russian towns. In return the Russians were allowed to trade freely in England. This afforded great satisfaction to Ivan, but it did not entirely satisfy his requirements, because the new route by the White Sea and North Cape was long and uncertain and for a great part of the year communications were stopped by the ice. He continued, therefore, his efforts to reach the Baltic coast, and he soon came into collision with the Swedes. After a dilatory war of three years he concluded a peace on the ground of free commercial relations, and then he attacked the Livonian Order, on the pretext that the Livonian town of Dorpat had not paid tribute according to ancient treaties. Finding himself unable to resist the Muscovites, the grand master of the Order put himself under Polish protection, and this led to a seven years war (1563-70) with Poland, during which the Swedes and Danes intervened on their own account. Ivan did not display much military talent, but he showed a remarkable amount of tenacity. No sooner had he made peace with the Poles and failed to get himself elected as their king, than he began a war with the Swedes which dragged on for more than a decade (1572-1583), and before it was ended he was again at war with Poland (1579-81). Though severely tried by disappointments and defeats he never lost hope, and when he died in 1584 he was preparing to renew the struggle and endeavouring to form for that purpose an alliance with England; his great idea, however, was not to be realized till more than a century later, and meanwhile the tsardom of Muscovy had to pass through a severe internal crisis in which its existence was seriously endangered.
Ivan the Terrible had succeeded in stamping out ruthlessly all open resistance to his will, and had created an autocratic Theodore I., 1584-1598. government of the Oriental type; but the elements of disorder were still lying beneath the surface, and as soon as the cunning, energetic despot died they reappeared. His son and successor, Theodore (Feodor), was a weak man of saintly character, very ill fitted to consolidate his father's work and maintain order among the ambitious, turbulent nobles; but he had the good fortune to have an energetic brother-in-law, with no pretensions to sanctity, called Boris Godunov, who was able, with the tsar's moral support, to keep his fellow-boyars in order. This he did during fourteen years, and his administration was signalized by two important innovations—the attaching of the peasants to the land (adscriptio glebae) and the creation of the patriarchate—both of which deserve a passing notice.
Boris has often been called the creator of serfage in Russia, but in reality he merely accelerated a process which was the natural result of economic conditions. In a primitive, Beginnings of serfdom. thinly populated, agricultural country, in which the demand for agricultural labour greatly exceeds the supply, the value of land is in proportion to the number of permanent labourers settled on it, and the landed proprietors naturally try to attract to their estates as many peasants as possible; and in this competition the large proprietors have evidently an advantage over their humbler and weaker rivals. Such had been for a considerable time the condition of Russia, and the small proprietors were now becoming so impoverished that they could no longer fulfil their duties to the state. The remedy they proposed was that the labourers should be prohibited from migrating from one estate to another, and an order to that effect was issued, with the result that the peasants, being no longer able to change their domicile and seek new employers, fell practically under the unlimited power of the proprietors on whose land they resided. This change was, of course, popular among the lower and middle ranks of the landlord class, but was very displeasing to the great nobles.
The second of the two innovations above mentioned was popular among all classes. Hitherto the highest authority in The patriarchate. the Russian Church was the metropolitan, who was nominally under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople, and as soon as Constantinople fell into the hands of the infidel, and the tsars of Muscovy claimed to be the successors of the Byzantine emperors, it seemed right and proper that the Russian Church should become autocephalous and be governed by an independent Russian patriarch. The change was very dexterously effected by Godunov, with the formal assent of the Eastern Orthodox Church as a whole, and one of his adherents was placed on the patriarchal throne.
Having thus gained the support of a large majority of the landed proprietors and the ecclesiastics, Boris Godunov increased Boris Godunov, 1598-1605. his influence to such an extent that on the death of Tsar Feodor without male issue in 1598 he was elected his successor by a Great National Assembly. His short reign was not so successful as his administration under the weak Feodor. The oligarchical party considered it a disgrace to obey a simple boyar; conspiracies were frequent, the rural districts were desolated by famine and plague, great bands of armed brigands roamed about the country committing all manner of atrocities, the Cossacks on the frontier were restless, and the government showed itself incapable of maintaining order. Under the influence of the great nobles who had unsuccessfully opposed the election of Godunov, the general discontent took the form of hostility to him as a usurper, and rumours were heard that the late The pseudo-Demetrius. tsar's younger brother Dimitri (Demetrius), supposed to be dead, was still alive and in hiding. In 1603 man calling himself Dimitri, and professing to be the rightful heir to the throne, appeared in Poland, and a few months later he crossed the frontier with a large force of Poles, Russian exiles, German mercenaries and Cossacks from the Dnieper and the Don. In reality the younger son of Ivan the Terrible had been strangled before his brother's death—by orders, it was said, of Godunov—and the mysterious individual who was impersonating him was an impostor; but he was regarded as the rightful heir by a large section of the population, and immediately after Boris's death in 1605 he made his triumphal entry into Moscow. Thus began a period of Russian history commonly called “the Troublous Times,” which lasted until 1613. (See Demetrius, Pseudo-.)
The reign of Dimitri was short and uneventful. Before a year had passed a conspiracy was formed against him by Basil Shuiski, 1606-10. an ambitious noble called Basil (Vassili) Shuiski, and he was assassinated in the Kremlin. The chief conspirator, Shuiski, seized the power and was elected tsar by an Assembly composed of his faction, but neither
