490 The Oprichnina [1564 from the rest to have no communications with the "traitors." When he discovered that such communications were carried on he proceeded to more drastic acts of persecution, which caused many boiars to seek refuge in Poland; these flights evoked more tyrannical measures; and a reign of terror ensued. Notable among the princes who fled to Poland was Kurbski, because he gave verbal expression to the grievances of his order. His correspondence with the Emperor - for Ivan who was fond of argument condescended to enter into controversy - does not fathom the depth of the political situation, but portrays vividly the intensity of the hostility between the Tsar and the class on whom the administration of the State had depended. Ivan at last invented a curious solution of the political problem, and proceeded to carry his design into execution in 1564. His solution was the notorious Oprichnina. Few people of the time understood his idea; he carefully abstained from explaining it; he invested it with such mystery that it seemed incomprehensible; and he carried it out with such a grotesque mise en scène that history has till recently regarded it as the wild caprice of an irresponsible madman on the throne. But, whatever judgment may be passed on its wisdom, the Oprichnina must be taken seriously, as a deliberate and carefully thought-out means of adapting the administration to the pretensions of autocracy. The plan consisted in a division of the administration of the empire into two parts, and the establishment of a new Court, distinct from the old Court of Moscow. The new institution was called the Oprichnina or "Separate Establishment," over which the Tsar presided, and those who served in it were the Oprichniki. At the beginning large tracts of territory were set apart to maintain it, to the south-west, north-east, and north of Moscow, and during the following six or seven years new regions were continually being included in its sphere, until it embraced the greater part of the central provinces. The rest of the empire remained under the old system, governed by the Council of Boiars, and was distinguished as the Zemshchina. Geographically the lands reserved for the Oprichnina ran, like a wedge, from north to south into the lands of the Zemshchina, which included all the frontier provinces on the west, south, and east. In the central provinces, the lands of the two spheres interlaced each other, and Moscow itself was divided. Such a partition of territory between the sovereign and the Council of Boiars reminds us of the partition of the Roman Empire into Senatorial and Imperial provinces. But the purpose and principle were wholly different. While Augustus assigned to the Senate the more central and pacific lands, and appropriated to his own care all those which were exposed to danger, Ivan did exactly the reverse. It is also to be noted that all the chief roads of traffic from Moscow to the frontiers, with the towns that lay on them, were included in the territory of the Oprichnina, which thus commanded the tolls; except the southern roads, where the toll revenue was not great. But the appropriation 1564] The Oprichnina 491 of the central regions was determined by the political aim which Ivan had in view. Here were the estates of the old princely families and the most powerful boiars. Ivan seized the allodial lands and converted them into feudal; and he assigned to the owners estates, subject to strict conditions of service and taxation, in other parts of the Empire. Whenever the Oprichnina seized lands, either allodial or feudal, the proprietors were uprooted, unless they were themselves enrolled in the Oprichnina. By this means the descendants of the appanaged princes, who were the most formidable members of the opposition, were detached from the places where they had power and influence, and removed to distant regions as simple men of service; while those who had hitherto "served" these princes as their liege-men became the immediate servants of the Tsar. The ancient local aristocracy thus received a crushing blow; and only a few who could convince the Tsar that they were harmless, such as Prince Mstislavski, or who joined the Oprichnina like the Princes Shuiski and Trubetskoi, maintained their positions. Such exceptions did not modify the general result, that men of simple boiar descent now succeeded to the influence of those who based their political claims on their princely origin. Thus Ivan accomplished in a more sweeping way the object which he had foreshadowed in the measure of 1550 — the creation of a class of service completely dependent on himself and lacking the traditional rights and position which had formed the strength of the aristocratic resistance. The execution of this policy, involving ubiquitous, rapid, and violent changes of ownership, caused a general upturning of society, enormously increasing the confusion and complication of the already complicated and confused relations between proprietors and peasants. Estates with their inhabitants flew from hand to hand, as has been said, "almost with the velocity of bills in a modern exchange." The peasants replied by flight to the hardships which were entailed upon them. The massive confiscations, violent and sudden, were alone sufficient to create consternation and alarm; but the administration of the Oprichnina was marked by such terrorism and savage cruelty, and rendered so infamous by the Tsar's debauches in his den of horrors at Alexandroff, that these accidental accompaniments disguised its deeper significance from contemporaries and made it appear as a measure of police rather than as an instrument of political reform. The dualism between the Zemshchina, with the Duma, and the Oprichnina, with the Tsar, was not absolute, and it was no part of the Tsar's intention that they should be antagonistic to each other. The Oprichnina did not stand outside the State. The two administrations were directed to act in concert, and the cleft which ensued was not part of Ivan's plan, but was due to the way in which it was realised. There was no duplication of bureaux, but each bureau had officials belonging to both administrations. No official acts of the Oprichnina as such are preserved. 492 The Sobory of Ivan IV [1550-75 The Duma always referred foreign questions to the Tsar, and we find the boiars of both spheres consulting together and deciding unanimously on a Lithuanian question. In 1572 the Oprichnina ceased to bear this distinct name, and became simply the Court. Nor can any significance be ascribed to the temporary elevation of Simeon Bekbulatovich, a member of the princely House of the Tartars of Kazan, who was proclaimed Great Prince of Moscow and Tsar of all the Russias in 1575. Ivan's motive in exhibiting this comedy, which lasted for a few months, is mysterious, if it was more than a caprice: Simeon was a mere puppet; he had no real authority. The temporary dual system may appear a roundabout and clumsy way for accomplishing the Tsar's aims; but it is intelligible as a compromise. It was his intention to preserve to the Duma its administrative functions, while he required a perfectly free hand to make and mar without its advice or interference. His plan secured both these ends. By severing himself from the Moscow Council and dividing the adminis tration territorially he was able without constant friction and fear of treachery to carry out his revolutionary policy. When the political power of the old noble families was annihilated and their estates in the central provinces were converted into fiefs held on conditions of service, the use of the double system was over. It has been often pretended that Ivan's reign witnessed the introduction of parliamentary institutions in a rudimentary form. This view can hardy be upheld. The Sobor, or Assembly, which was convoked at Moscow in 1550 to deliberate on remedies for the terrible condition to which the oppression of the recent boiar régime had reduced the realm, was not of the nature of a Parliament, but rather a body of administra tive character. Its importance consisted in the fact that it was composed, not merely of the higher officials and boiars who belonged to the Duma, but also of representatives of the administrative class of all grades throughout the Empire. We do not know on what principle they were chosen. The Sobor was in fact no more than an extension extraordinary of the normal Duma. It had however political, though little constitutional, significance; it showed that Ivan did not intend to rely exclusively on the advice of the aristocracy of Moscow; it was a presage of the political tendency of his reign. This Assembly was preliminary to the promulgation of Ivan's Code, which revived the law-book of his grandfather, and introduced an important change in the civil adminis tration. Justice and police were in the hands of governors, called kormlenchiki because they lived upon the land; and nothing could have been worse than their government. In some places the communes had the nominal right of assisting in the administration of justice through their heads or elders. The rural classes and the people of the provincial towns were organised in communes, presided over by elders or mayors whom they elected at their communal assemblies, and were collectively 1550-71] The Communes. The Tartars 493 responsible for the fiscal obligations of their members, the corn-tax and the hearth-tax. These communes may have been originally based on the old Slavonic mir; but although we find here and there cases of joint ownership of land which is characteristic of the mir, individual and not common ownership is the rule in the communes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The design of the new legislation was to do away with the kormlenchiki and substitute judicial authorities elected in the districts; but the condition that the proffered charters of local autonomy could be obtained only by purchase hindered many communes from availing themselves of the reform. This step seemed, in the first instance, to contradict the general policy of centralisation which had guided Ivan III; but it was not long before the locally elected magistrates became officers nominated by the central Government, and the growth of serfdom effectually put an end to that of local autonomy which the Code of Ivan IV appeared to have inaugurated. Another Sobor was summoned in 1566 for the special purpose of considering the relations of Russia with Poland. Besides boiars, functionaries of various grades, and ecclesiastics, there attended a number of merchants of Moscow and Smolensk, evidently invited on account of their special knowledge relating to the commerce between the two countries. There was no popular representation, and this Sobor has not more claim than the first to constitutional significance. While Ivan was engaged in carrying out domestic reforms and terrorising his subjects, foreign affairs did not cease to importune him. The conquests of Kazan and Astrakhan have already been mentioned. These successes, especially the former, made a profound impression on the nation, redounding to the Tsar's prestige. It remained for him, his counsellors thought, to complete the work by destroying the Tartar power of Crimea, and so to reach the Euxine; and these advisers might have deemed their opinion justified when in 1571 the Crimean Khan invaded Russia and burned Moscow, except the Kremlin, to the ground. A second invasion in the following year was repulsed. Yet the subjugation of Crimea was a project which was perhaps premature. Ivan preferred to turn the strength of his arms north-westward, and by conquering Livonia to reach the Baltic. At this time Livonia had sunk into the last stage of decay, misery, and corruption, vividly described by Sebastian Münster; there was no national feeling or unity; the population was trodden down by the corrupt German colonists, the knightly Order which governed it; and it was a question whether it was to Poland, or Russia, or Sweden, or perchance to Denmark, that it would pass. For Russia it had a special importance, not only as the street to the Baltic, but also because, after the foolish policy of the Tsars in destroying Novgorod as a commercial centre, trade had retired to Riga and the Livonian towns. Ivan conquered the greater part of the country (1557-60); and the last High Master of the Teutonic Order, Gottfried 493 472 517 493 24 494 Russia and Poland. Siberia [1558-82 Kettler, having in vain sought active help from Poland and the Empire, transferred to Poland the rights of his Order in Livonia and resigned himself to the possession of the duchy of Courland for him and his heirs (1561). But the Russian occupation of Livonia was premature. For the next twenty years there was almost unbroken war with Poland, and, as Sweden and Denmark were interested, the course of events was complicated by a succession of political combinations among the four Powers. It was varied by the candidature of the Tsar for the Polish throne, first on the death of Sigismund Augustus (1572), when Henry of Valois was elected, and again, after his abdication, in 1575, when Stephen Báthory, the Voivod of Transylvania, supported with arms by the Sultan, won the crown. It is said that Ivan was favoured by the lesser nobility, but he threw away whatever chances he had by his want of deference towards the Diet. In the Hungarian, Stephen Báthory, Poland had gained an ambitious master, Russia a formidable foe. He created a powerful army and undid all that Ivan had done. But Livonia was only a minor question in the greater issue involving the very existence of Poland, which, if it was not to be crushed ultimately between German advance on the west and the power of Moscow on the east, must extend over Russia its sway, along with its civilisation and religion. The absence of geographical boundaries rendered the dilemma inexorable: either Russia or Poland must disappear as an independent State. Internal and external circumstances combined to postpone the final solution; but Stephen Báthory had grasped the truth and logically prepared to conquer Muscovy. He besieged and failed to take Pskoff, but he would not have ceased from his enterprise if Rome had not intervened. The Tsar had sought the mediation of Gregory XIII, and the treaty which was concluded in 1582 through the negotiations of the Jesuit Possevino surrendered Livonia to Poland. The Russians had not yet the strength to grasp either the Baltic or the Black Sea. Besides the expansion of the Muscovite power to the Caspian by the capture of Astrakhan, which secured the command of the Volga from source to mouth and established authority more or less effective over the Cossacks of the Don, the reign of Ivan was also distinguished by a conquest which founded the Asiatic power of Russia. The Tsar had granted (1558) lands on the Kama to Gregory Stroganoff, member of an enterprising family which had done great service as pioneers of civilisation in the deserts north of Viatka. During the next twenty years Stroganoff and his colonists extended the sphere of their operations beyond the Ural and came into conflict with a Tartar kingdom recently founded, of which the capital was named Sibir (near Tobolsk). This State imperilled the enterprises of the Stroganoffs, and they had recourse to the somewhat hazardous expedient of hiring a band of Cossack brigands. With the Tsar's consent they engaged six hundred and forty Cossacks, who had hitherto been accustomed to waylay Russian traders. |