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A History of Russia from the Birth of Peter the Great CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM J. D. -Adams Cornell University Library DK 41.M84 History of Russia from the birth of Pete 3 1924 028 567 711 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/cu31924028567711 A HISTORY OF RUSSIA A HISTORY OF RUSSIA FROM THE BIRTH OF PETER THE GREAT TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER II. W. R. MORFILL, M.A. PROFESSOR OF RUSSIAN AND OF THE OTHER SLAVONIC LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY OF BOHEMIA WITH TWELVE MAPS AND PLANS METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON 1902 PREFACE '"PHE present little work has been undertaken with the view *• of furnishing the general reader with a succinct account of the chief events of Russian history from the birth of Peter the Great to our own times. I have mostly drawn from Russian sources, and have freely availed myself of the material furnished, not only by the leading historians of the country, but also of what is contained in the historical reviews and the transactions of Russian learned societies. A great deal of valuable matter has been recently published, which has been up to the present time only partially utilised in our country. This information I have further illustrated by ex- tracts from the chief memoirs and diaries which have been published. From these many anecdotes have been gleaned which will enable us to understand persons and events more accurately than in the dignified pages of the historian. Plutarch has fully acknowledged this truth in the intro- duction to one of his realistic Lives. Some account has been given of the chief Russian authors ; it seems now universally acknowledged that we must know something of the literary and social development of a nation and not confine ourselves to battles and conquests. Towards the close of the work attention has been paid to two questions which have great interest for English readers at the present time : the relations of Finland to Russia and the development of the Siberian railway. As some ignorance on the former point prevails in England, it seemed desirable to give a few facts, elucidating the condition of the country before its union with Russia. Some attention has also been paid to the Eastern question which, in spite of the devices of politicians, is always with us. At the risk of appearing to borrow without acknowledg- vi PREFACE merit, I have thought it undesirable to burden the pages of my book with a bristling array of the sources from which I have drawn. These minutim deter the ordinary reader for whom my book is planned. I am afraid that I have not been able to avoid an occasional inconsistency in spelling. So long as there is no recognised system of transliteration of Russian names we must expect these difficulties. Of course, I have my own system and have generally followed it ; but how are we to act with Slavonic words which are half domesticated among us, and where the Englishman has frequently chosen in the most haphazard way a Polish, German or French form? The names too often appear congested with un- necessary consonants ; and I have occasionally felt a pleasure in unloading them. When the combination ch is quite familiar to us, why do we write tsch, and why has the sound of/ sometimes been metamorphosed into dsch ? There is much work still for the phonetician. W. R. Morfill Oxford, Nov. 27, 1901. —— —— CONTENTS PREFACE ...... CHAP. I. THE EARLY DAYS OF PETER II. THE REIGN OF PETER continued. 27 III. the REIGN OF PETER continued . 63 IV. THE REIGNS OF CATHERINE I. AND PETER II. no V. THE REIGN OF ANNE 120 VI. THE REIGN OF ANNE continued . 139 VII. THE REIGNS OF IVAN VI. AND ELIZABETH 'S3 VIII. THE REIGNS OF PETER III. AND CATHERINE II, 190 IX. THE REIGN OF CATHERINE II. continued 202 X. THE REIGN OF PAUL 255 XI. THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER I. 276 XII. THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER I. continued 34* XIII. THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS I. 358 XIV. THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER II. 424 V1I1 CONTENTS CHAP. 'AGE XV. SUMMARY OF THE REIGNS OF ALEXANDER III. AND NICHOLAS II., 1881-1899 .... 457 XVI. THE SPREAD OF THE RUSSIAN DOMINION IN ASIA. 467 GENEALOGICAL TABLES . 473 INDEX 475 MAPS AND PLANS I. MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE INVASIONS OF CHARLES XII. AND NAPOLEON frontispiece 2. BATTLE OF NARVA, 170O 3° 3. BATTLE OF POLTAVA, 1709 . 49 4. BATTLE OF THE RIVER PRUTH, 17H . 59 5. BATTLE OF ZORNDORF, 1758 . 180 6. BATTLE OF KUNERSDORF, 1759 181 7. BATTLE OF CHESME, 1770 224 8. SUVOROV's PASSAGE OF THE ALPS, 1 799 268 9. BATTLE OF BORODINO, l8l2 . 297 10. BATTLE OF MALOYAROSLAVETZ, l8l2 320 11. BATTLE OF NAVARINO, 1827 635 12. MAP OF THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY . facingpage 467 A HISTORY OF RUSSIA CHAPTER I THE EARLY DAYS OF PETER "DETER the son of the Tsar Alexis, by his second wife, -* Natalia Narishkin, was born at Moscow on nth June 1672. Among the anecdotes collected by Staehlin, who held various appointments in Russia and was well acquainted with the country, is one related to him by the Countess Maria Rumiantsov, who was grand-daughter of the boyar Artemon Matveov, the friend and foreign-minister of Alexis. This was a much more important post than it had been in earlier reigns, for Alexis was perhaps the first Tsar who had what would now be called a foreign policy. After the death of his first wife, who was of the family of the Miloslavskis, Alexis would not infrequently visit Matveov at the latter's own house, thereby somewhat departing from the rigours of court eti- quette. Upon one occasion when he had gone to the house without attendants (for the patriarchal habits of the period permitted of simple fashions) he saw supper ready and ex- pressed his desire to share his friend's meal ; provided that the good boyar would consent not to make any alteration in his arrangements. When the Tsar had seated himself, the wife of Matveov made her appearance, followed by her son and a young girl. It should be remembered that these were the days when the Russian women lived almost exclusively in their terems, as their apartments were called, and were but seldom seen by those who were not members of the house- hold. Like the Bulgarian women at the present day, who A 2 A HISTORY OF RUSSIA [1672 are not yet free from the fetters of Turkish custom, the Russians were then still under the influence of Mongolian tradition. The Tsar regarded the young lady with great attention " and said to -his host : I thought you had only a son, but now I perceive that you have also a daughter. How is it " that I have never seen her before ? " Your Majesty is right," rejoined Matveov, " it is quite true that I have only a son : this girl is the daughter of one of my relatives, Cyril Narishkin ; my wife has undertaken to bring her up." " You do a good work," replied the Tsar. When supper was over, the family retired, but the Tsar remained in conversation with his minister. "That young lady," said the former, " has a gentle appear- ance and you ought to think of finding a suitable marriage for her." To this Matveov replied that he was afraid it would be difficult for him to bring it about, for although she was a clever and amiable girl she had no dowry. " Well, then," said the Tsar, " you must find her a husband who does not care about money, but will be content to take her for her merits." Matveov replied that he did not think the age in which they lived likely to produce many suitors of that sort. " Well," said the Tsar in reply, " let us see if we cannot find one." Some days afterwards the Tsar again came to the house and after conversing for some time with his minister on foreign affairs, asked him if he had found a suitable husband for Natalia, as' the young lady was called. " No, I have not," replied the boyar. " I see many young men in my house, but none talk of matrimony." " Well," said the Tsar, " I think I know of a suitor who has no need of a fortune with his wife," and thereupon declared that he wished to marry her himself. And so it came about that the mother of Peter the Great was Tsaritsa. She 1672] THE EARLY DAYS OF PETER 3 had been chosen from among many Court beauties, and indeed was herself possessed of considerable personal attrac- tions, as can be seen by her portrait ; and her son inherited his share of her good looks. Indeed, Peter was in every way a man of striking appearance, being about six feet seven inches in height, and, though slender, of muscular build. The Tsar Alexis seems to have been a tender-hearted and conscientious man ; he was greatly given to religious obser- vances ; and the account of his fasting, furnished by Collins, for nine years his physician, is calculated to astonish the modern reader. In the controversy which he had with the Patriarch Nikon, who was perhaps, after Peter himself, the greatest man Russia has ever produced, there was a con- siderable probability that the pious Tsar would yield; and the overthrow of Nikon was, in reality, due to the boyars.
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