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Updated: June 20, 2025
I know very well that the shocking barbarities which disfigure the history of Russia may be urged, reasonably, as evidence of a contrary character; but these I should rather lay to the charge of the boyars, the class which was depraved by the despotism which it exercised or submitted to, than to the nation itself.
The gods of his fathers, to whom he had done such honor, had no abiding place in his heart; and that belief which would be most to his advantage was for him the best. To settle the question he sent ten of his chief boyars, or nobles, to the south, that they might examine and report on the religions of the different countries. They were not long in coming to a decision.
I am not sure whether the tower was built to commemorate his fame or that of his grandfather, Ivan the Third, also called "the Terrible," of whom Karasmin says that, "when excited with anger, his glance would make a timid woman swoon; that petitioners dreaded to approach his throne, and that even at his table the boyars, his grandees, trembled before him."
All the princes and boyars, with their wives, brought to him costly presents; and the Tsar received them and said: "Long years of happiness to my lord Prince Yaroslav Lasarevich, my beloved son-in-law, and his wife, my daughter, the fair Princess Anastasia!"
The rout became general, and the leaders spurred on their steeds in hopes of reaching the Dnieper. Six princes and seventy of the chief boyars or voievodes remained on the field of battle. It was the Crécy and Poitiers of the Russian chivalry. Hardly a tenth of the army escaped; the Kievians alone left ten thousand dead.
He began by putting to death several great boyars of the family of Rurik, while their wives and children were driven naked into the forests, where they died under the scourge. Novgorod had been ruined by his grandfather. He marched against it, in a freak of madness, gathered a throng of the helpless people within a great enclosure, and butchered them with his own hand.
The body was divided into three orders of rank: first, the simple guards; second, those corresponding to the French barons; and, third, the Boyars, the most illustrious of all, second only to the Prince. The Drujina was therefore the germ of aristocratic Russia, next below it coming the great body of the people, the citizens and traders, then the peasant, and last of all the slave.
The boyars on the Volga and some of the Pechenegian princes embraced the gospel of salvation together with his subjects, and rejoiced to be admitted to holy baptism.
And when the day for the marriage came, the King commanded all his princes and boyars to assemble in the palace; and they all went in procession to the church, and Sila Tsarevich was married to the fair Queen Truda. Then they returned to the palace, seated themselves at table, and feasted and made merry.
Forthwith a number of princes and boyars and the twelve knights fell upon him, and were going to put him to death; but Yaroslav set his lance under his arm, seized the Tsar with his left hand, and clutching his sword with his right, he fell to slaying the princes and knights on all sides.
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