and the philosophic era of the
eighteenth century, has nothing to show at all to the outward world;
for during all this time the soil from which it was to grow was merely
being prepared, and gradually, with difficulty and delay, gaining
access to such influences as would make any growth possible. All that
is important, as far as literature is concerned, in this period, are
those events and factors which had the effect of making breaches in
the wall which shut Russia off from the rest of Europe; in letting in
that light which was necessary for any literary plants to grow, and in
removing those obstacles which prevented Russia from enjoying her
rightful heritage among the rest of her sister European nations: a
heritage which she had well employed in earlier days, and which she
had lost for a time owing to the barbarian invasion.

The first event which made a breach in the wall was the marriage of
Ivan III, Tsar of Moscow, to Sophia Palaeologa, the niece of the last
of the Byzantine Emperors. She brought with her Italian architects and
other foreigners, and the work of Peter the Great, of opening a window
in Russia on to Europe, was begun.

The first printing press was established in Moscow during the reign of
Ivan the Terrible, and the first book was printed in 1564. But
literature was still under the direct control of the Church, and the
Church looked upon all innovations and all foreign learning with the
deepest mistrust. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Peter
the Great had a strange forerunner in the shape of that enigmatic
historical personage, the false Demetrius, who claimed to be the
murdered son of Ivan the Terrible, and who, in spite of his western
ideas, Polish manners, and Latin culture, succeeded in occupying the
throne of Moscow for a year. His ideal was one of progress; but he
came too soon, and paid for his prematurity with his life.

But it was from Kiev and Poland that the fruitful winds of
enlightenment were next to blow. Kiev, re-risen from its ruins and
recovered from its long slumber, became a centre of learning, and
possessed a college whose curriculum was modelled on the Jesuit
schools; and although Moscow looked upon Kiev with mistrust, an
imperative demand for schools arose in Moscow. In the meantime a
religious question had arisen fraught with consequences for Russia:
namely that of the revision of the Liturgical books, into the text of
which, after continuous copying and recopyin