Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: Peter the Great.] A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA BY MARY PLATT PARMELE ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1907 Copyright, 1899, 1904, 1906, BY MARY PLATT PARMELE PREFACE. If this book seems to have departed from the proper ideal of historic narrative--if it is the history of a _Power_, and not of a _People_--it is because the Russian people have had no history yet. There has been no evolution of a Russian nation, but only of a vast governing system; and the words "Russian Empire" stand for a majestic world-power in which the mass of its people have no part. A splendidly embroidered robe of Europeanism is worn over a chaotic, undeveloped mass of semi-barbarism. The reasons for this incongruity--the natural obstacles with which Russia has had to contend; the strange ethnic problems with which it has had to deal; its triumphant entry into the family of great nations; and the circumstances leading to the disastrous conflict recently concluded, and the changed conditions resulting from it--such is the story this book has tried to tell. M. P. P. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Natural Conditions Greek Colonies on the Black Sea The Scythians Ancient Traces of Slavonic Race CHAPTER II. Hunnish Invasion Distribution of Races Slavonic Religion Primitive Political Conceptions CHAPTER III. The Scandinavian in Russia Rurik Oleg Igor Olga's Vengeance Olga a Christian Sviatoslaf Russia the Champion of the Greek Empire in Bulgaria Norse Dominance in Heroic Period CHAPTER IV. System of Appanages Vladimir the Sinner Becomes Vladimir the Saint Russia Forcibly Christianized Causes Underlying Antagonism Between Greek and Latin Church Russia Joined to the Greek Currents and Separated from the Latin CHAPTER V. Principalities Headship of House of Rurik Relation of Grand Prince to the Others Civilizing Influences from Greek Sources Cruelty not Indigenous with the Slavs How and Whence it Came Primitive Social Elements The Drujina End of Heroic Period Andrew Bogoliubski New Political Center at Suzdal CHAPTER VI. The Republic of Novgorod Invasion of Baltic Provinces by Germans Livonian and Teutonic Orders Russian Territory Becomes Prussia Mongol Invasion Genghis Khan Cause of Downfall CHAPTER VII. The Rule of the Khans Humiliation of Princes Novgorod the Last to Fall Alexander Nevski Russia Under the Yoke CHAPTER VIII. Lithuania Its Union with Poland A Conquest of Russia Intended Daniel First Prince of Moscow Moscow Becomes the Ecclesiastical Center Power Gravitates Toward that State Centralization Dmitri Donskoi Golden Horde Crumbling CHAPTER IX.