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Updated: June 20, 2025
The dress of the upper classes became more Eastern the flowing caftan replaced the tunic, the blood of the races mingled to some extent; even the Princes and boyars contracting marriages with Mongol women, so that in some of the future sovereigns the blood of the Tatar was to be mingled with that of Rurik.
When he attempted to force the Boyars he met with stubborn opposition, and was finally assassinated. From these incidents, which might be indefinitely multiplied from the old chronicles, we see that in the early period of Russian history the Boyars and knights were a body of free men, possessing a considerable amount of political power.
He even recalled his son, but the brave boy refused to obey, saying that "he would rather die at his post than follow the example of his father." The murmurs of the people, the supplication of the priests, the indignation of the boyars, forced him to return to the army, but he returned only to cover it with shame and himself with disgrace.
No one who has once tasted sweets will afterward take that which is bitter; nor can we now any longer abide in heathenism." Then the boyars said to Vladimir: "If the religion of the Greeks had not been good, your grandmother Olga, who was the wisest of women, would not have embraced it."
It will suffice, at this point, to say that by astute policy and good fortune Ivan added to his dominions nineteen thousand square miles of territory and four millions of subjects, made himself supreme autocrat and his voice the sole arbiter of fate, reduced the boyars and subordinate princes to dependence on his throne, established a new and improved system of administration in all the details of government, and by his marriage with Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial family, driven by the Turks from Constantinople to Rome, gained for his standard the two-headed eagle, the symbol of autocracy, and for himself the supreme title of czar.
The next day she called Bova to her and said: "Hark ye, Anhusei, to-morrow my father will have a great feast, and all the princes, boyars, and knights will be present to eat and drink and sport; you must stand near me at the table to do my bidding."
Now the humiliated Princes and boyars were to have their turn. The mother of Ivan IV., Helena Glinski, was the only obstacle in their way. She speedily died, the victim of poison, and then there was no one to stem the tide of princely and oligarchic reaction against autocracy; and the many years of Ivan's minority would give plenty of time to re-establish their lost authority.
This angered him, and he began to beat them; and when he seized one by the head, his head dropped off, and when he seized a hand, the hand dropped off, and when he seized a foot, the foot dropped off; nevertheless, the princes and boyars dared not complain to the Tsar. Then little Yaroslav went to his mother and said: "Mother, tell me the truth have I a father or no?"
Then began Yaroslav Lasarevich to praise the bravery of his son, and to tell how he had overthrown Tsars and powerful knights; whereat all the princes and boyars marvelled at his bravery, and declared there were no other such knights in the world as these, father and son, and that no one could stand against them.
"The boyars did not like it very well to be obliged to build these ships," continued Rollo. "And there was another thing that they disliked still more." "What was that?" asked Mr. George. "Why, the emperor made them send off their sons to be educated in different foreign countries," replied Rollo.
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