at a distance—­and soon thereafter mysteriously died (1591).  There can be no doubt that the unexplained tragedy of this child’s death was perfectly understood by Boris; and when Feodor also died, seven years later (1598), there was not one of the old Muscovite line to succeed to the throne.  But so wise had been the administration of affairs by the astute Regent that a change was dreaded.  A council offered him the crown, which he feigned a reluctance to accept, preferring that the invitation should come from a source which would admit of no question as to his rights in the future.  Accordingly, the States-General or Sobor was convened, and Boris Godunof was chosen by acclamation.

The work of three reigns was undone.  A boyar was Tsar of Russia—­and a boyar not in the line of Rurik and with Tatar blood in his veins!  But this bold and unscrupulous man had performed a service to the state.  The work of the Muscovite Princes was finished, and the extinction of the line was the next necessary event in the path of progress.

Boris had large and comprehensive views and proceeded upon new lines of policy to reconstruct the state.  He saw that Russia must be Europeanized, and he also saw that at least one radical change in her internal policy might be used to insure his popularity with the Princes and nobles.  The Russian peasantry was an enormous force which was not utilized to its fullest extent.  It included almost the entire rural population of Russia.  The peasant was legally a freeman.  He lived unchanged under the old Slavonic patriarchal system of Mirs, or communes, and Volosts.  These were the largest political organizations of which he had personal cognizance.  He knew nothing about Muscovite consolidation, nor oligarchy, nor autocracy.  No crumbs from the modern banquet had fallen into his lap.  With a thin veneer of orthodoxy over their paganism and superstition the people listened in childish wonder to the same old tales—­they lived their old primitive life of toil under the same system of simple fair-dealing and justice.  If their commune owned the land it tilled, they all shared the benefit of the harvests, paid their tax to the state, and all was well.  If not, it swarmed like a community of bees to some wealthy neighbor’s estate and sold its labor to him, and then if he proved too hard a taskmaster—­even for a patient Russian peasant—­they might swarm again and work for another.

The tie binding them to special localities was only the very slightest.  There were no mountains to love, one part of the monotonous plateau was about like another; and as for their homes, their wooden huts were burned down so often there were no memories attached to them.