By the creation of new appanages the Russian princes continually destroyed the very unity for which they labored.  Moreover, at a time when the great nations of the West were organizing, Muscovy or Russia had no settled relations with their civilization.  The opening of the Renaissance, the progress of discovery, the invention of printing—­by these the best spirits in Russia were stirred to fresh aspirations for national organization and participation in the great European movement.

According to the tradition, her deliverer had been foretold and was expected.  His triumphs were predicted at his birth.  The man through whom, or at least in whose name, Russia was to be restored to herself, to be freed from the Mongol yoke, and brought into living connection with Western Europe, was Ivan, son and heir of Vasili the Blind, Grand Prince of Moscow.

This child became Ivan III, surnamed the “Great,” because during his reign, 1462-1505, the expectations of his country were largely realized.  He was the first who could call himself “Ruler of all the Russias,” and he is regarded as the original founder of the Russian empire.  Already, at his accession, the Muscovite principalities were beginning to draw together, and circumstances were favorable to the prosecution of the task upon which he was called to enter—­the completing of their union and the securing of their national independence.

Ivan was a man of great cunning and prudence, and was remarkable for indomitable perseverance, which carried him triumphantly to the conclusions of his designs in a spirit of utter indifference to the ruin or bad faith that tracked his progress.  Such a man alone, who was prepared to sacrifice the scruples of honor and the demands of justice, was fit to meet the difficulties by which the grand princedom of Moscow was surrounded.  He saw them all clearly, resolved upon the course he should take; and throughout a long reign, in which the paramount ambition of rendering Russia independent and the throne supreme was the leading feature of his policy, he pursued his plans with undeviating consistency.

But that policy was not to be accomplished by open and responsible acts.  The whole character of Ivan was tinged with the duplicity of the churchmen who held a high place in his councils.  His proceedings were neither direct nor at first apparently conducive to the interests of the empire, but the great cause was secretly advancing against all impediments.  While he forbore to risk his advantages, he left an opportunity for disunion among his enemies, by which he was certain to gain in the end.  He never committed himself to a position of the security of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of a despot.