subjects. When one of the Grand Princes proposed to send his son, whom
they did not want, to be their Prince, they replied: "Send him here if
he has a spare head." It was a fearless, proud republic, as patriotic
and as quarrelsome as Florence, which it somewhat resembled. Their
Prince was in reality a figurehead. He was considered essential to the
dignity of the state, but his fortunes were in the hands of two
political parties, of which he represented the party in the ascendant.
Novgorod was a commercial city--its life was in its trade with the
Orient and the Greek Empire, and like the Italian cities, its politics
were swayed by economic interests. Those in trade with the East
through the Volga desired a Prince from one of the great families about
that Oriental artery in the Southeast; while those whose fortunes
depended upon the Greeks preferred one from Kief or the principalities
on the Dnieper. When one party fell, the Prince fell with it, and as
the formula expressed it, they then "made him a reverence, and showed
him the way out of Novgorod"--or else held him captive until his
successor arrived.

Princes might come, and Princes might go, but an irrepressible spirit
of freedom "went on forever"; the reigns all too short and troubled to
disturb the ancient liberties and customs of the republic. No Grand
Prince was ever powerful enough to impose upon them a Prince they did
not want, and no Prince strong enough to oppose the will of the people;
every act of his requiring the sanction of their _posadnik_, a high
official--and every decision subject to reversal by the _Vetché_, the
popular assembly. The _Vetché_ was, in fact, the real sovereign of the
proud republic which styled itself, "My Lord Novgorod the Great." Such
was the remarkable state which played an important, and certainly the
most picturesque, part in the history of Russia.