EARLY HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Western Star, Issue 1387, 7 September 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

EARLY HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Russia celebrated tie thousandth year of her national existence in 1892, was one of tae latest countries of the Old World to enter on the historic stage. The explanation of this fact is to be discovered, not merely in the remoteness of the land, but in the circumstance (itself, doubtless, a consequence of that that the home of the Muscovite race never came within the civilising influence of the Roman Caesars. . . . The history of the great Northern Empire commences in 892, when a Scandinavain pirate, named Rurik, who had previously invaded the eastern shores of the Baltic, and reduced several Finnish an d Slavonic tribes, established at Novgorod a dynasty which lasted until 1593. This adventurer found the country divided amongst anumber of small, independent communities, the principal of which wore Kief and Novgorod; and it was the Novgorodians who called him into the land, to help them against their more powerful neighbours. About four-and-twenty years earlier, some Russains had visited

CONSTANTINOPLE, where they suffered to join an embassy from Theophilus, Emperor of the East, to Louis 1., Emperor of the West, the son and successor of Charlemagne. Their ruler was a species of Grand Duke; but his power was not very great. Rurik created a monarchy of a more important character. With the help of his Scandinavain fighting men, he conquered a large extent of country, and at his death, in 879, left to his son Igo a dominion of sufficient strength to be secure against attack. We cannot, however, describe Rurik as more than the Prince of Novgorod ; it is only at a much later date thst we hear of Russia as a sovereignty, though the term was always applied to certain regions north of the Black Sea It was dur.ng the reign of Rurik that the Russians made their first attack on Constantinople—the expedition of 865, described in a previous chapter. Thus, one of the earliest facts in their history is associated with that Imperial city which the subjects of the Czars still covet for themselves. Another fact equally remarkable is that

THE ADVANCES OF THE PRIMITIVE RHS SAINS in this direction were to great extent checked by the Turkish tiibe of the Patzinaks, who, establishing themselves on the lower course of the Borysthenes, Oi Dnieper, were employed by the Greek Emperors in resisting the progress of the Varangians and their subjects. Several other attempts were made in subsequent years, and the Byzantines suffered severely from attacks which, though always unsueessful—owing mainly to the havoc which the Greek wildfire spread among the innumerable light vessels of the assailants —were conducted with a ferocity that large numbers of non-

combatants in the worst miseries of war. Even at that Constantinople was • fated to become a Russian city; and it was said that in the Square of Taurus, in the Eastern Capital, an equestrain statue was inscribed with a prophecy to that effect. The early Russians, however, were little else than pirates. The permanentconquest of[a metropolis such as Constantinople does not seem to have entered into their designs and they were probably influenced by no other motive than the love of plunder. —From Cassell’s Illustrated Universail History.