Historic Tales: the Romance of Reality. Vol. 08 (of 15), Russian

Part 1

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Édition d'Élite

Historical Tales

The Romance of Reality

CHARLES MORRIS

Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the Dramatists," etc.

IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES

Volume VIII

Russian

J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON

Copyright, 1898, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS 5

OLEG THE VARANGIAN 14

THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA 21

VLADIMIR THE GREAT 29

THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA 41

THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS 49

THE VICTORY OF THE DON 55

IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS 60

THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT 64

IVAN THE TERRIBLE 74

THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA 80

THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA 85

THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS 101

THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY 110

Part 2

BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT 114

CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM 123

THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ 132

THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS 142

MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF 149

A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE 155

FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE 165

BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT 174

HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN 184

A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE 195

THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS 202

A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE 220

KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND 226

SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE 231

THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY 241

THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND 248

SCHAMYL, THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA 258

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 267

THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL 276

AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE 284

THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK 293

THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA 300

THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN 311

AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA 319

THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN 329

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

RUSSIAN.

PAGE

Part 3

THE KREMLIN Frontispiece.

CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW 40

GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW 55

CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT 78

KIAKHTA, SIBERIA 84

CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS CROWNED 109

ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA 122

DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT, MOSCOW 136

PETER THE GREAT 142

ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER 156

SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA 160

A RUSSIAN DROSKY 189

THE CITY OF KASAN 199

SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM 223

RUSSIAN PEASANTS 249

MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA 267

THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 290

THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST 297

DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA 300

GROUP OF SIBERIANS 320

THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS.

Far over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain, spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. Across this great plain, in all directions, flow myriads of meandering streams, many of them swelling into noble rivers, whose waters find their outlet in great seas. Over it blow the biting winds of the Arctic zone, chaining its waters in fetters of ice for half the year. On it in summer shine warm suns, in whose enlivening rays life flows full again.

Such is the land with which we have to deal, Russia, the seeding-place of nations, the home of restless tribes. Here the vast level of Northern Asia spreads like a sea over half of Europe, following the lowlands between the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Over these broad plains the fierce horsemen of the East long found an easy pathway to the rich and doomed cities of the West. Russia was playing its part in the grand drama of the nations in far-off days when such a land was hardly known to exist.

Have any of my readers ever from a hill-top looked out over a broad, low-lying meadow-land filled with morning mist, a dense white shroud under which everything lay hidden, all life and movement lost to view? In such a scene, as the mist thins under the rays of the rising sun, vague forms at first dimly appear, magnified and monstrous in their outlines, the shadows of a buried wonderland. Then, as the mist slowly lifts, like a great white curtain, living and moving objects appear below, still of strange outlines and unnatural dimensions. Finally, as if by the sweep of an enchanter's wand, the mists vanish, the land lies clear under the solar rays, and we perceive that these seeming monsters and giants are but the familiar forms which we know so well, those of houses and trees, men and their herds, actively stirring beneath us, clearly revealed as the things of every day.

It is thus that the land of Russia appears to us when the mists of prehistoric time first begin to lift. Half-formed figures appear, rising, vanishing, showing large through the vapor; stirring, interwoven, endlessly coming and going; a phantasmagoria which it is impossible more than half to understand. At that early date the great Russian plain seems to have been the home of unnumbered tribes of varied race and origin, made up of men doubtless full of hopes and aspirations like ourselves, yet whose story we fail to read on the blurred page of history, and concerning whom we must rest content with knowing a few of the names.

Yet progressive civilizations had long existed in the countries to the south, Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Persia. History was actively being made there, but it had not penetrated the mist-laden North. The Greeks founded colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea, but they troubled themselves little about the seething tribes with whom they came there into contact. The land they called Scythia, and its people Scythians, but the latter were scarcely known until about 500 B.C., when Darius, the great Persian king, crossed the Danube and invaded their country. He found life there in abundance, and more warlike activity than he relished, for the fierce nomads drove him and his army in terror from their soil, and only fortune and a bridge of boats saved them from perishing.

It was this event that first gave the people of old Russia a place on the page of history. Herodotus, the charming old historian and story-teller, wrote down for us all he could learn about them, though what he says has probably as much fancy in it as fact.

We are told that these broad levels were formerly inhabited by a people called the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians and went--it is hard to tell whither. A shadow of their name survives in the Crimea, and some believe that they were the ancestors of the Cymri, the Celts of the West.

Part 4

The Scythians, who thus came into history like a cloud of war, made the god of war their chief deity. The temples which they built to this deity were of the simplest, being great heaps of fagots, which were added to every year as they rotted away under the rains. Into the top of the heap was thrust an ancient iron sword as the emblem of the god. To this grim symbol more victims were sacrificed than to all the other deities; not only cattle and horses, but prisoners taken in battle, of whom one out of every hundred died to honor the god, their blood being caught in vessels and poured on the sword.

A people with a worship like this must have been savage in grain. To prove their prowess in war they cut off the heads of the slain and carried them to the king. Like the Indians of the West, they scalped their enemies. These scalps, softened by treatment, they used as napkins at their meals, and even sewed them together to make cloaks. Here was a refinement in barbarity undreamed of by the Indians.

These were not their only savage customs. They drank the blood of the first enemy killed by them in battle, and at their high feasts used drinking-cups made from the skulls of their foes. When a chief died cruelty was given free vent. The slaves and horses of the dead chief were slain at his grave, and placed upright like a circle of horsemen around the royal tomb, being impaled on sharp timbers to keep them in an upright position.

Tribes with habits like these have no history. There is nothing in their careers worth the telling, and no one to tell it if there were. Their origin, manners, and customs may be of interest, but not their intertribal quarrels.

Herodotus tells us of others besides the Scythians. There were the Melanchlainai, who dressed only in black; the Neuri, who once a year changed into wolves; the Agathyrei, who took pleasure in trinkets of gold; the Sauromati, children of the Amazons, or women warriors; the Argippei, bald-headed and snub-nosed from their birth; the Issedones, who feasted on the dead bodies of their parents; the Arimaspians, a one-eyed race; the Gryphons, guardians of great hoards of gold; the Hyperboreans, in whose land white feathers (snow-flakes?) fell all the year round from the skies.

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