Page 1648 : RUSSIAN HYMN — RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
first tried to throw off the Mongol yoke. Dimitri Donskoi (1359–89) fought an indecisive battle at Kulikovo, followed the next year by the Mongols for the last time storming Moscow, burning it and killing 24,000 of its people. Ivan III (1462–1505) was the first prince of Moscow to call himself Ruler of all Russia. He conquered Novgorod, and refused to pay further tribute to the khan. A Tartar-Mongol army of 150,000 men, sent to punish him, met the Russians on the Oka, and after a nine months’ encampment retreated without fighting, and Russia again was free.
Ivan IV, Ivan The Cruel, was the first to take the title of tsar, and was Russia’s first absolute ruler. When at three he came to the throne, the boyars were all-powerful, and a struggle was forced upon him, in which he was successful. Under Ivan’s feeble son Feodor (1584–98) the regent Boris Godunoff forbade the peasants to leave the estates on which they worked and thus sowed the seed which grew into the serfdom that cursed the country for the next 270 years. This regent murdered Ivan’s son Dimitri. On Godunoff’s death a runaway monk, who lived for some time among the Cossacks (“free men”), imposed himself on Russia as the murdered Dimitri. His assassination at the end of a short reign was followed by the conquest of the czardom by Sigismund of Poland. The country was freed by a general rising, started, by Minin, a Nijni-Novgorod merchant, and aided by the Cossacks. The Poles were driven out, and Mikhail Romanov (1612–45), whose grandmother was Ivan’s first wife, was chosen ruler. (See Romanoff, House of.)
In the reign of Alexis (1645–76) Russia, chiefly by the aid of the Cossacks, at last gained the upper hand in the long struggle with the rival Slav power of Poland. Up to the reign of Peter the Great (1689–1725) the country had in many respects been Mongol; this able ruler, who first called himself emperor and founded the new capital of St. Petersburg, made it European. He improved the army, started mining and manufactures, imported fine breeds of cattle, set up schools, and dug Russia’s great system of canals. The ministers, Menschikoff under Catherine I and Dolgoruki under Peter II, were the real rulers of those reigns. The power of the German party under Anne (1730–40) and Ivan (1740–41) was lost on the accession of Elizabeth (1741–62). Peter III, who by sending his army to the support of Frederick the Great against Austria saved Prussia from dismemberment, was dethroned by Catherine II (1762–96), whose wars and the first partition of Poland widened Russia’s domains in all directions. The excessive tyranny of Paul I (1796–1801) brought about his murder. In the reign of Alexander I (1801–25), the famous friend and enemy of Napoleon, took place the French invasion and the burning of Moscow. Under Nicholas I (1825–55), was fought the Crimean War. Alexander II (1855–81) freed the serfs and initiated many other reforms, which were brought to a sudden close by the insurrection of Poland (1863) and the rise of the Nihilists, who assassinated him on March 13, 1881. The reign of Alexander III (1881–94) was marked by the famine of 1890–91 and the crusade against the Jews, who were ordered to leave Moscow, Warsaw and other cities and go back to their native provinces, Nicholas II (q. v.), the present emperor, ascended the throne on the death of his father, Nov. 1, 1894. His reign was marked by the war with Japan, which began on Feb. 7, 1904, and closed on Aгg. 29 1905. (See Japan.) The result was disastrous to Russia. She lost 375,000 men in battles on land and sea, her navy was destroyed, and in settlement she surrendered to Japan her rights in Manchuria and ceded half of Sakhalin. (See Russo-Japanese War.) There followed a determined revolt throughout the empire against the government. This revolution has so far resulted in important popular concessions, including the establishment of the Duma as already mentioned. See Rambaud’s History of Russia and Edwards’ The Romanoffs.
Rus′sian Hymn. Music by Alexis Lwoff (1799–1870). English version by Henry Fothergill Chorley. (1808-72). However great the merits of Lwoff as violinist, composer and writer on musical topics, his chief fame rests upon the composition of the Russian national hymn. It has been enthusiastically received and adopted by the Russian people as a noble expression of patriotic feeling, and its usefulness as a hymn for religious worship is second only to its service as a national song.
Rus′so-Jap′anese War, The, of 1904–1905 has great military interest. It not only tested the strength of two powers, with surprising results, but it tested modern weapons of naval warfare in a unique way. Moreover, it marks a great era in the national life of Japan; and seems to presage general awakening of Asia. It concerned England very directly by relieving her of anxiety about India, and by the fact that she was Japan’s ally, bound by a treaty of 1902 to assist Japan if a third power should interpose in the hostilities. It affected America vitally, because of the close vicinity both of Japan and Russia to the American shores.
In 1894 Japan had been robbed of the greater part of the fruits of her victory over China by the ultimatum of Germany, France and Russia, which demanded that she should withdraw from the Liaotung Peninsula. Japan submitted; but silently worked until she had prepared a first-class army and navy.
Individual articles:
