den Horde_.[9] In the course
of these two centuries, nearly every trace of cultivation perished.
No school existed during this whole time throughout all Russia. The
Mongols set fire to the cities; sought out and destroyed what written
documents they could find; and purposely demolished all monuments of
national culture. The convents alone found in their policy a sort of
protection. Science therefore became more than ever the exclusive
possession of the monks. Among these, however, no trace of classical
learning, and hardly a show of scholastic wisdom, was to be found.
Fortunately they improved their time as well in respect to posterity
by writing annals, as for their own personal benefit by accumulating
wealth.

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,