The First Romanovs. (1613-1725)
Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028446767 Cornell University Library DK 114.B16 First Romanovs. (1613-1725 3 1924 028 446 767 THE FIRST ROMANOVS. ^etnuXJ ,(/? V.Xuissoru/TL 'mpcralor Jraler atruoLJ Mter- a, ^r^c^t at tAe O^e of // : The First Romanovs. (1613— 1725.) A HISTORY OF MOSCOVITE CIVILISATION AND THE RISE OF MODERN RUSSIA UNDER PETER THE GREAT AND HIS FORERUNNERS. By R. NISBET BAIN. fntH ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO., Ltd., 16, JAMES STREET, HAYMARKET, 1905- BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIOGE.' MY MOTHER. INTRODUCTION. It will be my endeavour, in the following pages, to describe the social, ecclesiastical, and political conditions of Eastern Europe from 1613 to 1725, and trace the gradual transformation, during the seventeenth century, of the semi-mOpastic, semi-barbarous Tsardom of Moscovy into the modern Russian State. The emergence of the unlooked-for and unwelcome Empire of the Tsars in the Old World was an event not inferior in importance to the discovery of the unsuspected Continents of the New, and the manner of its advent was even stranger than the advent itself. Like all periods of sudden transition, the century which divides the age of Ivan the Great from the age of Peter the Great has its own peculiar interest, abounding, as it does, in singular contradictions and picturesque contrasts. Throughout this period. East and West, savagery and civilisation strive incessantly for the mastery, and sinister and colossal shapes> fit representatives of wildly contending, elemental forces, flit phantasmagorically across the dirty ways; of the twilight scene.
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