By Mrs. MARY S. ROBINSON.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE LITHUANIAN AND LIVONIAN ORDERS.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, three new races entered Slavonia whose character essentially modified its subsequent history. From the northwest came the Germans, from the east the Tartar Mongols, from the west the Lithuanians. The modern Russian divisions of Livonia and Esthonia, with the outlying regions, were peopled in the ninth century with the Tchud or Lett tribes, of the Finnish race,—the most ancient, it is believed, of living European peoples. The Russian Finns of the present time number one and a half million souls; but though they long retained their distinctive nationality, they have yielded to the process of “Russification,” and to-day, among the majority of them, their ancient character is noticeable merely by certain peculiarities of physiognomy and dialect. They are short and thick of stature, tough as oak, and of a hickory hue. The countenance is blurred and unfinished, so to speak. The face is broad and flat, the cheek bones high, the nose depressed and bridgeless. Their dialects are primitive and meager. Their manners and superstitions are traceable to the earliest of known races; their religious observances antedate those of any known form of paganism. They remain, in fact, pagan at heart, loyal to their ancient gods, though with these they are willing to give Saint Nicholas some qualified homage. They recognize a good and an evil principle, both to be equally revered. An offspring and mingling of the two is Keremet, who, with his progeny of Keremets, is more mischievous than malevolent, and to whom, far in the depths of the forests, offerings and sacrifices are made. The evil principle is ShaÏtan, philologically allied with the Arabic Shatana, and the still older Hebrew SÂtÂn. The Finn buys his bride, by paying to her father a kalm or fee. With his fellows he practices an agricultural communism. Through a thousand years he has remained without education, incapable, apparently, of progress, unchangeable. At present, however, the Russian Finn, along with the other races of the country, is being merged into the ubiquitous, self-asserting Russian.

The Baltic Letts, occupying Esthonia, had been subjugated by the Dane, Knut the Great, the conqueror of England. But Livonia had submitted to the arms of Iaroslaf the Great, who founded there Iurief, later called Dorpat; and Mstislaf, son of Vladimir Monomakh, had taken one of the chief cities of the Tchudi. The princes of Polotsk and the republic of Novgorod claimed the country and virtually bore rule over it. To Livonia early in the twelfth century came the German merchant in search of trade, and the Latin priest, seeking souls for his hire and subjects for his Pope. The monk Meinhard, commissioned by the Archbishop of Bremen, compulsorily brought the Livonians under his sway, and was constituted bishop of their country. But this invasion of a stranger race bearing the wares of commerce, and the authority of Rome behind the symbol of the cross, implied the overthrow of the untutored but brave descendants of the Tchud hero Kalevy, the extinction of their liberties and their independence. In 1187 Meinhard completed a church at UexhÜll, and surrounded it with a fortification. Eleven years later the tribes revolted against their episcopal master, and killed him in open warfare. They then plunged into the Dwina to wash off and send back to Germany their baptism, and restored to their shrines their ancient gods. Innocent III preached a crusade against them, and another bishop, commander of a large fleet, built for his capital the town of Riga (1200). In the following year was established the Order of the Brothers of the Army of Christ, or the Sword Bearers, later known as the Livonian Knights, “men of iron,” who broke the strength of the tribes, and against whom the Russian princes, occupied with their own dissensions, made no united resistance. The knights intrenched themselves firmly in the regions whither they hewed with the sword a pathway for the cross, and built fortifications of cemented stone, that were a wonder and a terror to the simple natives, who were driven in herds to the waters of baptism, or massacred if they offered resistance. A song of the Tchudi of Pskof, entitled “The Days of Slavery,” commemorates this period of misery: “Destroying fiends were unchained against us. The priests strangled us with their rosaries, the greedy knights plundered us, murderers with their weapons cut us in pieces. The father of the cross stole our wealth; he stole the treasure from the hiding place. He hewed down the sacred tree, he polluted the fountain, the waters of salvation. The axe smote the oak of Tara, the cruel hatchet the tree of Kero.”

About 1225, a second military order established itself in Livonia, and built four considerable towns, among them Thorn and Koenigsberg, in the depopulated country. Their black cross was borne, along with the red cross of the sword-bearers, and in course of time the two orders became associated, and together imposed a crushing servitude upon the remnants of the Tchudi, who were reduced to a form of serfdom; and though in later times their liberty has been yielded them again, the German nobility retained their lands. The aboriginal Livonian remained ever separate from his conqueror, the Papal German. The Kalevy-Poeg, the epic of the Tchud Esthonians, recites the career of the son of Kalev, the personification of the race, the hero of Titanic force. He swam the Gulf of Finland. His club was the trunk of an oak; with his horse and his immense harrow he plowed all Esthonia; he exterminated the beasts of prey, conquered the magicians of Finland, and the genii of the caves. He descended into hell and had single combat with Sarvig, the horned. He sailed to the ends of the earth, and when the fiery breath of the northern spirits burned his vessel, he built another of silver. When the heavens were lurid with the flames of these spirits, he laughed and said to his pilot: “With their darts of fire they light us on our way, since the sun has gone to rest, and we are passed beyond the daylight.” No fury of the elements could destroy him. He went to the isle of flame, of smoke, and of boiling water, where the mountains throw forth fire (Iceland). There he encountered a giant woman, who, plucking grass for her kine, crushed with it several of his sailors, as if they had been insects. He fought with men whose bodies were those of dogs, possibly the Greenland Esquimaux; and pauses in his onward strides only when told by a magician that the wall of the world’s end is still far away. When he is told of the landing of the sword-bearers, the men whose armor can neither be pierced with the spear nor cleft with the axe, his unconquerable heart is troubled. He seeks the tomb of his father for counsel, but the place is silent; the leaves murmur plaintively, the winds sigh, the dew itself is moved, the eye of the clouds is wet, all Esthonian nature shares in the forebodings of the national hero. He gathers his warriors by the Embach, and raises the battle cry. Bloody is the field, mournful the victory! All the brave are slain, the brothers of Kalevy-Poeg among them. His charger is cut down by the hand of the stranger. He who had overcome the demon Sarvig, who had laughed at the spirits of the north, could not subdue the men of iron, whose strength surpassed that of the gods. Captive to Mana, god of death, his wrist held fast in a cleft of the rock hard by the gate of hell, he comes no more to vindicate the liberties of his sons, his people. Long looked they for his return; but like his kinsman, perhaps his sire, Kolyvan, who lies under the rock whereon is built the city of Revel, he is holden captive of Mana. Thus sorrowfully closes the career of the Arthur of this primitive people.

The German planted region was destined to be a thorn in the side of Russia. Protracted wars were maintained between the foreigners of the west and the Slavs of the realm. Four hundred years passed ere an appearance of tranquillity and of union was attained; and even now the governments of Esthonia and Livonia are not among the more trusted provinces of the empire. The people of that region, restive under absolutism, dimly conscious of rights withheld, and of oppressive restrictions, encourage the spirit of revolution, and invite to their sea-bordered home many of the malcontents of the empire.

Up to the opening of the thirteenth century, Russian civilization had kept a relative pace with that of the east. Receiving industries, arts and religion from Byzantium, and civic form from Scandinavia, it had been united under Iaroslaf the Great, and had maintained with some degree of order feudal divisions corresponding to those of the other European nations in the same centuries. This relative development the empire bade fair to maintain without serious lapses, when a calamity utterly without precedent, immeasurably disastrous, suddenly fell upon the realm, and shattered her incipient civilization beyond the power of repairing. Nature has been a step-mother to Russia, says one of her native historians. Fate was a second, a harsher step-mother.

“In those times, (1224) there came upon us, on account of our sins, unknown nations,” write the chroniclers. No one could tell their origin, whence they came, what religion they professed. “God alone knew who they were: God, and perhaps a few wise men learned in books.” All Europe was affrighted at the apparition of these Asiatic hordes. The Pope and the sovereigns prepared to meet them with combined forces. But upon Russia alone fell the shock, the subjugation, the humiliating servitude, imposed by these numberless and mysterious armies, whom it was whispered among the people were Gog and Magog, prophesied to come at the end of the world, when all things would be destroyed by anti-Christ.

The Ta-ta, Das, or Tatars were Mongol, pastoral tribes, settled at the base of the Altai Mountains. Occupied exclusively with their flocks, they wandered from pasture to pasture, from river to river. The Land of Grass is the name given to-day, by the inhabitants, to modern Tartary. They built no walls nor towns, knew nothing of writing or of arts beyond the simplest. Their treaties were made orally. They were equally destitute of laws and of religion, save perhaps a vague adoration of the sun. They respected nothing but strength and bravery: age and weakness they despised, and like other barbarians, they left the pining, the feeble and the aged among them to perish. Their food was milk and the flesh of their herds: their clothing was made of the skins of their animals. They practiced polygamy, and had a community of wives; when the father died the son married his younger wives. Trained to ride from their infancy, they were taught also to let fly their arrows at birds and other small creatures, and thus acquired the courage and skill essential to their predatory existence. They had no infantry, and laid no sieges. When they would capture a town, they fell upon the suburban villages. Each leader seized ten men and compelled them to carry wood, stones, and whatever material was accessible for the filling up of fosses. The prisoners were also forced to dig trenches. But save for purposes of utility, they took no prisoners, choosing rather the extermination of the entire population.

This barbarous and appalling people, in their earlier advances, invaded China, whither they passed with incomprehensible suddenness: nor of the direction of their movements, nor of their departure could aught be presaged. The present dynasty of that country is of the Mantchoo Tatars, who, in respect of political influence, are dominant in the empire.

As they increased and formed a rude nationality, a mighty chief arose among them, Temutchin, or Genghis Khan. In a general congress of their princes, assembled early in the thirteenth century, he proclaimed himself emperor, averring that as but one sun shone in the heavens, in like manner the whole earth should be subject to one sole sovereign. Placing himself at the head of this nation, composed of half a million armed cavalry, he initiated a widely devastating conquest, by destroying the teeming populations of Mantchuria, Tangut, Northern China, Turkestan, Great Bokhara, and the remainder of Western Asia to the plains of the Crimea.

The ruin inflicted by these wild hordes has never been repaired. During the captainship of Genghis Khan, an approximately correct estimate shows that eighteen million five hundred thousand human beings were slaughtered by his horsemen in China and Tangut alone. Turkestan, once called the Garden of the East, and Great Bokhara, after the lapse of six centuries, bear the evidences of the Tatar invasion on their many depopulated wastes. Upon the occupation of Nessa, a town in Kiva, the people were bound together in couples, and above seventy thousand were despatched thus by the Tatar arrows. At Merv, seven hundred thousand, or, according to another authority, one million three hundred thousand corpses were left to corrupt the atmosphere once teeming with life, and rich in its bountiful fruitfulness. At Nishapoor, in Persia, seven hundred and forty-seven thousand lives were extinguished. To prevent the living from hiding under the piles of the dead, the bodies were decapitated. At Herat, in Afghanistan, one million six hundred thousand were mowed down by the Tatar cimetars. After the enemy had vanished, forty persons, the mournful remnant from the massacre, came together in the principal mosque of the ruined city. These regions have never recovered a tithe of their former prosperity.

[To be continued.]

PRONOUNCING LIST OF RUSSIAN PROPER NAMES.

Explanation of signs used: [=a], [=e], [=i], [=o], [=u], long, as in fate, mete, mite, mote, mute.

[)a], [)e], [)i], [)o], short, as in add, met, if, off.

Ö like the prolonged sound of e in her.

Ä, the Italian a, as in arm.

Ï, the Italian i, like [=e].

o, in the syllables of most Russian words, has a sound between [=o] and [)o]. For typographical reasons, however, we give simply the [=o], advising that the vowel sound be not made too long.

u, in most Russian syllables, has a liquid sound like yu.

Consonants, when succeeding one another, unite their sounds rapidly. Thus, in Svi-at´o-slaf, the sounds of s and v follow one another much as s and t unite in the English word step.

• Altai´; altÄÏ.
• Apemas; Ä´pe-mas.
• Askold; as´kold.
• Baikal; ba´kal.
• Blachernae; blÄ-cher´nae.
• Buslaivitch; bus-la-É-vitch.
• Dir; dÏr.
• Dnieper; dnee´per.
• Dniester; dnee´ster.
• Dwina; dwi´na, or dwÏ´na.
• Esthonia; es-tho´nia.
• Ezeroum; ez-er-oom´.
• Finningia; fin-ning´ia.
• Galitsch; gÄl´-itsch.
• Gallicia; gallic´ia.
• Iaroslaf; yar´o-slaf.
• Iaropolk; yar´o-polk.
• Idano; Ï-dÄ´-no.
• Ienikale; yen-i-kÄ´le.
• Igor; i´gor.
• Ilmen; il´men.
• Izborsk; iz´borsk.
• Kalmuck; kÄl´mook.
• Kama; kÄ´ma.
• Karaites; kar-a´tes.
• Karamsin; kar-Äm-sin´.
• Kazan; kÄ-zÄn´.
• Kazarui; kÄ-zar-uÏ´.
• Kherson; ker´son.
• Kiakta; kÏ-a´kta.
• Kief; keef.
• Kirghiz; keer´jeez.
• Kliasma; klÏ-as´ma.
• Koenigsberg; kÖ´-nigs-berg.
• Kroats; kro´Äts.
• Kroatia; kro-a´tia.
• Kuria; qu´ria.
• Kyrie Eleison; ky´rie el-ei´-son. (Lord, have mercy upon us. Opening of the Greek Liturgy.)
• Lithuania; lith-u-a´nia.
• Livonia; liv-o´nia.
• Meria; me´ria.
• Mikula Selianinovitch; mik´-u-la
• sel-ian-in´ovitch.
• Mir; mÏr.
• Morea; mo-re´a.
• Moscow; mos´ko.
• Moskova; mos-ko´va.
• Mstislaf; ms-ti´slaf.
• Murom; mu´rom.
• Muromians; mu-ro´mians.
• Mursk; mursk.
• Neva; ne´va.
• Niemen; nee´men.
• Nijni-Novgorod (Lower Novgorod); nijnÏ-novgorod.
• Novgorod-severski; nov´gorod-sever´ski.
• Novgorod (Veliki, or the Great); nov´gorod.
• Oka; o´ka.
• Okof; o´kof.
• Oleg; o´leg.
• Olga; ol´ga.
• Olgovitchi; ol-go-vitch´Ï.
• Osmomuisl; os-mom´u-isl.
• PeÏpus; pay´ee-pus.
• Perum; pa´rum.
• Periaslaf; pe-ri´a-slaf.
• Petchenegs; petch´en-egs.
• Polotsk; pol´otsk.
• Polovtsui; pol-ov-tsuÏ´.
• Poliane; po-li-Ä-nÉ´.
• Pskof; pskof.
• Riazan; rÏ-a-zan´.
• Rogneda; rog-ne´-da.
• Rurik; ru´rik.
• Russkia pravda; russ-ki´ya prÄv´da.
• Rostof; rost´of.
• Samoyedes; sam´oi-Ëdes.
• Scythia; cith´ia.
• Sineus; sin´-e-us.
• Slav; slÄv.
• Slavic; slÄv´ic.
• Slavonic; slÄv-on´ic.
• Slavonia; slÄv-on´ia.
• StaraÏa Rusa; star-a´-ya ru´-sa.
• Stanovoi; stÄn-o-voÏ´.
• Sud; sood.
• Suzdal; suz´dÄl.
• Sviatoslaf; svÏ-Ä-´to-slaf.
• Tatar; tÄ´tar.
• Taurid; tau´rid.
• Tcheki; tchek´Ï.
• Tcherkess; cher´kess.
• Tchernigof; cher´ni-gof.
• Tcheremisa; tcher-e-mÏs´a.
• Tchudi; tchu´di.
• Tchud; tchud.
• Tobolsk; to´bolsk.
• Toropets; to´ro-pets.
• Truvor; tru´vor.
• Tsargrad; tsar´grad.
• Ukase; yu-kase.
• Valdai; vÄl-dÄÏ´.
• Varangian: vÄ-rÄng´ian.
• Variag; vÄ´ri-ag.
• Variag-Slav; vid. Variag and Slav.
• Vasili; vas´-i-li.
• Veliki; vel-Ï´-ki.
• Ves; ves.
• VetchÉ; vetch´É.
• Vladimir; vlÄd´i-mÏr.
• Voivodui; voÏ-vo-dui´.
• Volhynia; vol-hyn´ia.
• Volkhof; volk´hof.
• Volos; vo´los.
• Zagorodni; zÄ-go-rod´-ni.
• Zimisces; zim-is´ces.