The re-establishment of Russian independence in the middle of the fifteenth century, had a reviving influence on national science and literature.  The nation however had been too long kept back, ever to be able to overtake their western neighbours.  From this point a new division of this period begins.  Some of the Russian princes were men of powerful and active minds; they invited artists and physicians from Greece, Italy, and Germany, into their country, and rewarded them liberally.  Ivan IV,[10] A.D. 1538-84, ordered schools to be founded in all the cities of his empire; under his reign the first printing-office was established in Moscow in 1564.  Soon afterwards a theological academy was founded at Kief.  Boris Godunof, 1598-1605, sent eighteen noble youths to study at foreign universities.  The princes of the house of Romanof showed themselves not less active.  Alexei and Fedor, the father and brother of Peter the Great, opened the way for that bold reformer, and appear as his worthy predecessors; indeed the merit of several improvements, which have been generally ascribed to Peter, belongs to them.  During this whole later period, the Polish language and literature exerted a decided influence on the Russian; and some writers began to use the dialect of White Russia, an impure mixture of the two,[11] while the pure Russian was despised as merely fit for vulgar use.  The Malo-Russian also, or Ruthenian dialect, was, by the influence of the Polish language, cultivated before the pure Russian; which last began, only in the latter half of the seventeenth century, to shake off these chains and acquire for itself an independent form.

The first germs of dramatic art were likewise carried from Poland to Russia.  In Kief, the theological students performed ecclesiastical dramas; and travelled about during the holidays, to exhibit their skill in other cities.  The scenes which they had to repeat most frequently, were the three Children in the fiery furnace, and Haman’s execution.  The tragedies of Simeon of Polotzk, in the Old Slavic language, had great success in the middle of the seventeenth century.  Their renown penetrated from the convents to the court; where they were performed before Tzar Fedor, the predecessor of Peter.[12] His minister, Matveyef, the Slavic Mecaenas of his time, and himself a writer, invited the first stage-players to Russia; and at his instigation, the first secular drama, a translation of Moliere’s “Medecin malgre lui,” was played before the gratified princesses and their enraptured maids of honour.  The sister of the two Tzars, the Tzarevna Sophia, was a great patroness of the dramatic art:  and was herself the author of several tragedies and comedies, which were acted before her by her ladies.

This latter portion of the first period, poor as it is, has nevertheless several books of travels to exhibit.  A merchant of Tver, Athanasius Nikitin, travelled in the year 1470 to India, visited the Dekkan and Golconda, and gave on his return a description of those countries.  Two other merchants of Moscow, Korobeinikof and Grekof, described a century later their travels through Syria, Palestine and Egypt.  Fedor Baikof, Russian envoy to China, published likewise a book of travels in that remarkable country.