a

periods of time the Russians were free from the actual —

presence of the Tatars, still there was the ever-present
possibility of a fresh wave of the oppressors, wandering
somewhere in search of new worlds to conquer, and
hence Russian princes had little chance to ignore
their fealty to Asiatic overlords.
The two centuries during which the Tatars con-
trolled Russia have left an impress upon its life which —
we can trace through all subsequent history. Probably
one of its prime effects lies in the fact that it isolated
Russia from the West, from all contact with the pro-
gress of civilization in the rest of Europe. No longer
did the princes of France or England have dealings
with those of Muscovy: instead, Russia became a part
of that vague land to the East under the control of
the barbarians, and Europe forgot all about her former
connections there. And she forgot so completely that
when the first English expedition set out to visit
Russia, three hundred years later, we read how the
chief source at which Willoughby and Chancellor
sought information about that land ‘on the East of
the Globe’’, was a pair of Tatars, who happened through
some strange mischance to be among the grooms in
their King’s stable. For long centuries the rest of
Europe knew little of Russia.
And of course the Russians could know as little
of what was going on in Europe. What with the domi-
nation of their new masters, and the barrier of the
right horn of the Islamic crescent which curved between
their land and the rest of civilization, the people of
Russia found themselves completely cut off from further
contact with the culture of the West. The chief result
of this isolation was that the best civilization Russia
_ knew until the sixteenth century was that which Europe
had shown her, previous to the middle of the thirteenth.
Most of this culture had come into the Kievan land
with the entrance of the Church and had been fostered
and extended by its missions. It was thus indefinitely