NIKON'S ATTEMPT--RASKOLNIKS In the building of an empire there are two processes--the building up, and the tearing down.

The plow is no less essential than the trowel.
The period after Boris had been for Russia the period of the wholesome plow.

The harvest was far off.

But the name Romanoff was going to stand for another Russia, not like the old Russia of Kief, nor yet the new Russia of Moscow; but another and a Europeanized Russia, in which, after long struggles, the Slavonic and half-Asiatic giant was going to tear down the walls of separation, escape from his barbarism, and compel Europe to share with him her civilization.
The man who was to make the first breach in the walls was the grandson of Mikhail Romanoff--Peter, known as "The Great." But the mills of the gods grind slowly--especially when they have a great work in hand; and there were to be three colorless reigns before the coming of the Liberator in 1689--seventy-six years before they would learn that to have a savage despot seated on a barbaric throne, with crown and robes incrusted with jewels, and terrorizing a brutish, ignorant, and barbaric people--was not to be Great.
The reigns of Mikhail and of his son Alexis and his grandson Feodor were to be reigns of preparation and reform.

Of course there were turbulent uprisings and foreign wars, and perils on the frontiers near the Baltic and the Black seas.