Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) _The Story of Moscow_ _All rights reserved_ [Illustration: _Ikon of the Holy Virgin of Vladimir_] _The Story of_ MOSCOW _by Wirt Gerrare Illustrated by Helen M. James_ [Illustration: colophon] _London: J. M. Dent & Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden, W. C. 1900_ PREFACE Readers of the modern histories of Russia may wonder by what right Moscow is included among MEDIÆVAL TOWNS, for it is the fashion of recent writers to ignore the history of the mighty Euro-Asian empire prior to the eighteenth century and the reign of Peter the Great. It is at that period this story of the old Muscovite capital ends. To many, then, this account of the town and its vicissitudes during the preceding five centuries may have the charm of novelty; perchance to others, who have wrongly concluded that the old buildings were all destroyed during Napoleon's invasion, the few typical antiquities chosen for illustration out of many like, will attract to a closer acquaintance with memorials of a past that was but little influenced by the art of the west. Moscow, where the east merges with the west but remains distinct and unconquered, has a fascination all its own; the town not only has been great, but is so yet; its influence pervades the Russian empire and is still mutable and active; its story therefore comprises more than the legends and associations of an ordinary city, but, if confined merely to an enumeration of the facts and traditions of the past will not be void of interest, and however fully given, must fall far short of what the imaginative reader may reasonably expect. Of the meagre character of this present account I am fully aware; of its positive errors I am, at present, unhappily ignorant, but I trust that those who discover mistakes will not only forgive, but notify me of them, that later readers may be as grateful for the favour as I myself shall be. Of place names I have given the idiomatic, instead of the usual literal translation; where I have attempted an equivalent reproduction of the original the transliteration will be comprehensible to those who know nothing of either French or German. That I may not be charged with inconsistency in this, I may explain that where a foreign spelling--as rouble--has become familiar I have used the Anglicism. To most readers the names will, I fear, be unpronounceable however spelled; but only the expert will regret that I have not given the original Russian. To them the excuse I offer is, that to everyone ignorant of the tongue Russian