OF RUSSIAN SERVILITY. IVAN RESUMES HIS CROWN. THE
OPRITCHNINA.EXTRACTS FROM KARAMSIN. COWARDICE OF
IVAN. МВЬШ V CONQUERED. — FRIENDSHIP OF IVAN AND QUEEN-
ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND. — IVAN ASSUMES THE COWL. RELI
GIOUS RESIGNATION. THE ONLY INDEPENDENT CHURCH. —
NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL RELIGION. EXTRACT FROM KA
RAMSIN.ANECDOTE OF GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE. — CORRE
SPONDENCE OF IVAN WITH GRIASNOI.—LIVONIA CEDED. — MURDER
OF THE CZAREWITCH.DEATH OF IVAN.APPENDIX: A NEW
ORDER OF ARCHITECTURE. RUSSIAN EQUITY. SKETCH OF
IVAN III., BY KARAMSIN.RESEMBLANCE OF PETER THE GREAT
TO THE IVANS. ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF ALEXIS, SON OF
THE CZAR PETER, BY M. DE SE^GUR.
If the reader has not made a particular study of the annals of Ilussia, he will find it difficult to believe that the sketch he is about to read is authentic history.
But all this mass of abominations, attested by history though read as fable, is not the most astonishing subject for reflection which a review of the long reign of Ivan IV. suggests. A problem altogether in-solvable to the philosopher, an eternal subject for surprise and painful meditation, is the effect produced by that unparalleled tyranny on the nation that it decimated. It not only failed to alienate the people ;
ACCESSION OF IVAN IV.313
it served to attach them. This circumstance appears to me to throw a new light on the mysteries of the human heart.
Ivan IV. was yet a child when he ascended the throne in 1533 ; he was crowned, at the age of seventeen, the 16th of January, 1546; he died in his bed in the Kremlin, after a reign of fifty-one years, the 18th of January, 1584, at the age of fifty-four; and he was mourned by his whole people, not excepting the children of his victims. Whether the Muscovite mothers wept for him we may still be permitted to doubt, as the annalists are silent on that point. In a depraved state of society, women become less completely vitiated than men ; the latter alone participate in the acts of government; from whence it follows that the social prejudices of each age and nation take stronger hold upon them than upon their helpmates. However this may be, it is certain that the monstrous reign of Ivan so fascinated Russia as to cause it to see in the heaven-daring power of its princes an object of admiration : political obedience has become in the hearts of the Russians a religious sentiment. It is, I believe, only among this people that the spectacle of martyrs bowing in adoration before their executioners has been ever beheld. Did Rome fall at the feet of Tiberius and ]N'ero to supplicate them not to abdicate the absolute power, but to implore that they would continue to burn and pillage her, to wallow in her blood, and to dishonour her children? This was done in the middle of the reign of Ivan IV., at the moment when the exercise of his tyranny was most tremendous.
VOL. II.p
314COMMENCEMENT OF HIS EEIGN.
He wished to retire; bnt the Russians, gathering round their master, besought him to continue to rule them according to his humour. Thus justified, thus assured, the tyrant recommenced his career of murder. With him, to reign was to kill; and this simple constitution was confirmed by the unanimous assent of Russia, and by the tears and laments of the nation at the death of the tyrant! Ivan, when he decided, like Nero, to throw off the yoke of glory and virtue in order to reign purely by terror, did not confine himself to refinements of cruelty unknown either before or after him, he overwhelmed also with inveetives the pitiable objects of his fury; he was ingenious and comic in his atrocity; the horrible and the burlesque refreshed at one and the same time his equally satirical and pitiless bosom. He pierced the inner heart with his sarcastic words, at the same time that, with his own hands, he tore in pieces the body ; and, in the infernal deeds which he perpetrated upon hia fellow beings, whom his restless pride took for so many enemies, the refined cruelty of words surpassed the barbarity of corporeal inflictions, even though he adopted and improved upon every species of invention by which the intensity of bodily suffering could be prolonged; for his government was the reign of torture.
Ivan IV., like the son of Agrippina, began hia reign virtuously, and, which perhaps yet more commands the love of a vain ambitious nation, with conquest. The pious counsellors and prudent advisers to whom he at this period submitted, have rendered the commencement of his government one of the most brilliant and prosperous epochs in the Muscovite annals.
A CAUSE FOR HIS TYRANNY.315
But the opening scene was short, and the metamorphosis sudden, complete, and terrible.
Kazan, the formidable bulwark of Islamism in Asia, after a memorable siege, fell, in 1552, under the assaults of the youthful Czar. The energy which the prince there displayed appeared amazing even in the eyes of semi- barbarians. He laid out and prosecuted his plan of campaign with a sagaeity of mind and an obstinaey of courage which his oldest captains were at first incapable of duly appreciating, and, afterwards, of sufficiently admiring.
On his entrance in the career of arms, the audacity of his enterprises made all prudent courage appear pusillanimous; though we shall soon see him as cowardly, as ereeping, as he was at first fearless. In becoming cruel he became dastardly: it was with him as with nearly all monsters; cruelty had imbedded its principal root in fear. He remembered all his life how he had suffered in his infancy from the despotism of the boyards. Their dissensions had endangered his existence at the period when he had no power to defend it: it might be said that manhood brought hiin no other desire than that of avenging the imbecility of childhood. But if there is one trait profoundly moral in the terrific history of this man, it is that he lost his eourage in losing his virtue.
Is it true that God, when he made the human heart, said to it, ' Thou shalt only be brave so long as thou art merciful' ?
If it were so, and if too many, too celebrated examples did not disprove the existence of so desirable a rule, faith might become too easy ; we should see God face to face in the destinies of his better crea-p 2
316CHANGE IN HIS CHARACTER.
tures, as we do see his power revealed in the life of an Ivan IV.; for, God be praised, that prince showed himself brave as a lion so long as he was generous, and dastardly as a slave when he became inhuman. This lesson, though it may be an exception in the annals of our race, is precious and consoling. I rejoice to extract it out of the depths of the horrible history of the fourth Ivan.
Owing to the energy of the young hero, whose plans were then blamed by his entire council, As-tradian underwent the fate of Kazan. Russia, delivered from the near vicinity of her ancient masters the Tartars, resounded with the shout of triumph ; but the inferior classes of her population, who knew not how to escape from one yoke without passing under another, began to idolise their youthful sovereign with the timid pride of the freedman.
The wearied Czar paused to repose in the midst of his glory : he tired of the benedictions poured upon his virtues; he bent beneath the weight of palms and laurels, and renounced for ever the pursuit of his holy career. But the folly was in his heart; it did not extend to his head. In the midst of the most irrational actions his language was full of sense, his letters of logic: their cutting style paints the malignity of his soul, but it does honour to the penetration and clearness of his understanding.
His ancient counsellors were the first to suffer. They appeared to him as traitors, or, which was the same thing in his eyes, as tutors: he therefore condemned them to exile and death ; and this sentence seemed equitable in the eyes of the nation. It was to the advice of these uncorruptible men that he
