Here begin the two hundred and seventy years of the reign of the branch of Moscow. This first union of the Russians, under Ivan I, denominated Kalita, constitutes an epoch; it exhibits the ascendancy of this second grand prince of Moscow over his subjects; an ascendancy the increase of which we shall witness under his successors; and for which, at the outset, this branch of the Ruriks was indebted to the support they received from the Tatars. For as a word from the khan decided the possession of the throne, that one of the two rival branches of Moscow and Tver was sure to triumph which displayed the most shrewd and consistent policy towards the horde. It was not that of the princes of Tver which thus acted. On the contrary they sometimes solicited the protection of the khans, and sometimes fought against them; we have even seen one of them ordering the massacre of the Tatars in his principality.
The princes of Moscow pursued a different system; they no doubt, detested the yoke of the khans as much as their rivals did; but they were aware that, before they could cope with the Tatars, the Russians must be united, and that is was impossible to subject and unite the latter without the assistance of the former. They therefore espoused the daughters of the khans, manifested the utmost submission to the horde, and appeared to be wholly devoted to its interests.
1 Or the Purse.
h. w. — vol. xvii. l
Now this policy, which, at the commencement of the Mongol invasion, acquired for Alexander Nevski the empire of all Russia, gave it, seventy-four years later, still more completely to Ivan I: for the sway of the Tatars was then more recognised; the Russians were more docile to their yoke; and the cities, which composed the grand principality were more powerful in themselves, and also by comparison with the rest of Russia, which became daily more and more exhausted. The wealth of Ivan I was another cause of the extension of his power.
The complaints of the prince of Tver, in 1323, prove that Iuri I, grand prince of Moscow, when he undertook to execute the vengeance of his brother- in-law Usbek, against Tver, was also entrusted with the collecting of the tributes; which, however, he retained, instead of sending them to the horde. Ivan Kalita, his brother and successor, profited by this example. Thus it was, that by making themselves lieutenants of the khan, the Muscovite grand princes first became the collectors, and finally the possessors, of the taxes throughout the whole of Russia; and thus they succeeded to all the rights of conquest enjoyed by the Tatars, and to their despotism.
There can be no doubt that one of the most copious sources of power to those sovereigns was the periodical census and the perpetual imposts, so alien to feudalism, and especially to a feudalism of princes: these imposts and censuses nothing but the Tatar conquest could have established, and they were inherited by the grand princes. Already, in the first half of the fourteenth century, these taxes had rendered Ivan Kalita rich enough to purchase entire domains and appanages,[3] the protection of Usbek Khan, and the preference of the primate, who removed his residence from Vladimir to Moscow, by which means the latter city became the capital of the empire.
It was by virtue of his authority as collector for the Tatars that Ivan Kalita practised extortion upon his subjects. We see him requiring a double tribute from the Novgorodians, under pretext that such was the will of the khan. Armed against the Russians with the dread inspired by the Tatar name, and against the Tatars with the money of the Russians; intoxicating the khan and his courtiers with gold and adulation in his frequent journeys to the horde; he was enabled, as lord paramount, to bring about the first union of all the appanaged princes against his competitor, the prince of Tver, whom he drove from Pskov and from Russia, being aided by the primate with the thunder of the church, then heard in the empire for the first time. The nobility imitated the clergy. Impelled either by fear, or cupidity, several boyars of other princes rallied round this grand prince, preferring the fiefs of so rich and so potent a lord paramount to those of the petty princes whom they abandoned.
Ivan Kalita pushed forward with horrible vigour in his ambitious career. "Woe, woe to the princes of Rostov!" exclaims Nicon, "because their power was destroyed, and everything was concentrated in Moscow." In fact, from the Kremlin, which he fortified, Ivan proclaimed himself the arbiter of his kinsfolk; he reigned in their principalities by the medium of his boyars; he arrogated to himself the right of being the sole distributor of fiefs, judge, and legislator; and if the princes resisted, and dared to wage against him a war of the public good,2 he hurried to the horde, with purse in hand, and denunciation on his lips; and the short-sighted Usbek, deceived by this ambitious monitor, was impolitic enough to disembarrass him of the most dangerous of his competitors, whom he consigned to frightful torments. The prince of Tver and his son were the most remarkable victims of this atrocious policy.
Meanwhile, Lithuania, which, from the period of the first overwhelming of Russia by the Tatars, had emancipated itself from its yoke, had now become a conquering state. About 1320, Gedimin, its leader, seized on the Russian appanages of the south and west, which had long ceased to be dependent upon the grand principality of Vladimir. Kiev, Galitch, Volhinia, became sometimes Lithuanian, sometimes Polish or Hungarian: driven to despair, their inhabitants emigrated; they formed the two military republics of the Zaparogians and Cossacks of Don. Rallying around them the unfortunate of all countries, they were destined to become one day strong enough to make head against the Turks and Tatars, between whom they were situated; and thus to embarrass the communication between those two peoples, whom a common religion, origin, and interest conspired to unite.
The grand principality was, on the other hand, repeopled by unfortunate fugitives from the southern Russian provinces, who sought refuge at Moscow. The empire, it is true, lost in extension; but it was thus rendered more proportionate to the revived power of its grand prince, who had also fewer competitors in it: those who remained could not, in point of resources, be compared with the grand principality. After all, it was much better that the latter should one day have to recover some provinces from a foreign foe, than from its domestic enemies: it was suffering an external evil instead of an internal one, which is the worst of all.
Thus, the macchiavellism of Ivan prospered. It is true that, by the confidence with which he inspired the horde, and the terrible war which he waged against his kinsmen, he restored to Russia a tranquillity to which she had long been a stranger. A dawning of order and justice reappeared under a sceptre acquired and preserved by such horrible acts of injustice; the depredations to which Russia had been a prey were repressed; commerce again flourished; great marts and new fairs were established, in which were displayed the productions of the East, of Greece, and of Italy; and the treasury of the prince was swelled still further by the profit arising from the customs.1
Such were the rapid effects of the first steps which Ivan took to execute the system of concentration of power; this great political impulse was so vigorously given, that it was perpetuated in his son Simeon the Proud, to whom Ivan left wherewithal to purchase the grand princedom from the horde, and in whom he revived the direct succession. Accordingly, Simeon effected, against Novgorod, a second union of all the Russian princes. It is to be remarked, that he was obliged to cede one half of the taxes to his brothers; but, at the same time, he reserved to himself the whole authority, which soon gives to its possessor the mastery of the revenue.
Simeon having died without children, in 1353, after a reign of twelve years, Ivan II, his brother, purchased the sovereignty with the wealth of Kalita. After the six years' reign of Ivan II, this system and this order of succession were, indeed, transiently interrupted in the person of a prince, alien to the branch of Moscow; but we shall soon see the great Dmitri Donskoi