t as
soon as the Horde adopted Islam this movement was arrested. There was no
blending of the two races such as has taken place--and is still taking
place--between the Russian peasantry and the Finnish tribes of the
North. The Russians remained Christians, and the Tartars remained
Mahometans; and this difference of religion raised an impassable barrier
between the two nationalities.

It must, however, be admitted that the Tartar domination, though it
had little influence on the life and habits of the people, had a
considerable influence on the political development of the nation.
At the time of the conquest Russia was composed of a large number of
independent principalities, all governed by descendants of Rurik. As
these principalities were not geographical or ethnographical units, but
mere artificial, arbitrarily defined districts, which were regularly
subdivided or combined according to the hereditary rights of the
Princes, it is highly probable that they would in any case have been
sooner or later united under one sceptre; but it is quite certain that
the policy of the Khans helped to accelerate this unification and to
create the autocratic power which has since been wielded by the Tsars.
If the principalities had been united without foreign interference we
should probably have found in the united State some form of political
organisation corresponding to that which existed in the component
parts--some mixed form of government, in which the political power would
have been more or less equally divided between the Tsar and the people.
The Tartar rule interrupted this normal development by extinguishing
all free political life. The first Tsars of Muscovy were the political
descendants, not of the old independent Princes, but of the Mongol
Khans. It may be said, therefore, that the autocratic power, which
has been during the last four centuries out of all comparison the most
important factor in Russian history, was in a certain sense created by
the Mongol domination.

CHAPTER XV

THE COSSACKS

Lawlessness on the Steppe--Slave-markets of the Crimea--The Military
Cordon and the Free Cossacks--The Zaporovian Commonwealth Compared with
Sparta and with the Mediaeval Military Orders--The Cossacks of the Don,
of the Volga, and of the Ural--Border Warfare--The Modern Cossacks--Land
Tenure among the Cossacks of the Don--The Transition from Pastoral to
Agriculture Life--"Universal Law" of Social Development--Communal ve