17th‑century Muscovy

We have seen that Ivan IV almost undid his own achievements through his cruelty and his excessive demands on the people. Furthermore, he undermined the hereditary monarchy he himself had consolidated when in a fit of rage he killed his own heir, leaving only a sickly son, Fedor. Fedor’s death in 1598 meant the end of the dynasty and plunged Muscovy into chaos. Onerous service obligations which were (just about) acceptable from a ruler bearing God’s blessing proved unacceptable when imposed by a mere boyar, Boris Godunov, even one elected Tsar by a zemskii sobor. If nothing else, a boyar monarch inevitably had enemies among other boyars.

And so Muscovy descended into civil war, which has gone down to history as the Time of Troubles. Boyar clans, each with their clients, fought one another. Southern frontier servicemen rebelled against an increasingly demanding state. Cossacks added their own brand of plundering and murdering. In the later stages of the turmoil, both Sweden and Poland became involved, each with its own ambitions to dominate the now fragmented territories and loyalties of Muscovy.

Yet, as it turned out, there was a sufficiently robust sense of identity and potential unity for Muscovy to generate its own revival, especially when faced with the threat of domination by ‘heretics’. The decisive factors were Orthodoxy as the national religion, symbolized by the Patriarch, and the resourcefulness of local communities in organizing resistance. When one boyar clan prepared to welcome the Polish royal heir Wł adisł aw as constitutional monarch in a personal union with the Polish crown, Patriarch Germogen reacted by insisting that no one should swear loyalty to a Catholic ruler. He sent epistles to elders of the city assemblies, calling on them to mobilize a militia to prevent heretics from taking over Moscow. In Nizhny Novgorod, the merchant Kuzma Minin proclaimed the formation of a militia, and appealed to other cities to do the same:

Let us be together of one accord. . . Orthodox Christians in love and unity, and let us not tolerate the recent disorders, but fight untiringly to the death to purge the realm of Muscovy from our enemies, the Poles and Lithuanians.

Detachments came from the various cities to Iaroslavl, on the Volga, under the command of the boyar Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and marched on Moscow, where they expelled the Polish garrison.

The re‑ establishment of the Muscovite realm was thus mainly the achievement of local communities of joint responsibility, led by boyars, servicemen, urban elites, and Cossacks, and inspired by Muscovy’s role as the bastion of Orthodox Christianity. It is understandable, then, that the zemskii sobor which was summoned by the Patriarch in 1613 rejected all foreign candidates to the throne and restored the political model inherited from Ivan IV. Its delegates elected as Tsar Mikhail Romanov (r. 1613–45), descendant of the family of Ivan’s first wife. They imposed no conditions on him: the overriding priority was to restore a stable Muscovite realm with a strong ruler. It was expected, though, that he would consult with his elites before taking major decisions.

Seventeenth‑ century Muscovy was, then, ruled along the same lines as in the 16th. The royal family, the court, and the administrative chanceries grew in size, but did not change their essential nature: they supplied vital central coordination to the mobilization of people and resources taking place in the localities. Assemblies, such as the Boyar Duma and the zemskii sobor, which connected the centre with those localities, remained weakly developed and uninstitutionalized, though at times they played a crucial role in the formation of policy. What was permanent were the boyar and service noble clans, with their clientele networks in towns and villages throughout the country.

The link with the localities was reinforced by military governors (voevody ) appointed by the Tsar. They increasingly operated according to codified law and written instructions, and they were required to make frequent reports on local conditions. However, the voevody lacked specialized legal training, and they depended for part of their income on kormlenie, so that much of what they achieved they owed to personal links with their subordinates. To prevent those links becoming too cosy, they were normally appointed for only two years at a time. All the same, these personalized central–local ties were to remain characteristic of Russian governance.

During the 17th century, the chanceries developed into an effective and differentiated early modern bureaucracy, dealing in ever greater detail not only with military matters, but with finance, post, and communications, the assignment of service lands, and relations with other states. An elite lineage hierarchy (mestnichestvo ) determined entry into the chanceries, but thereafter promotion depended on merit. Officials were bound by oaths of loyalty and secrecy, which became an integral part of Russian state culture. That culture ensured that high officials, though often corrupt and self‑ enriching, did not engage in oppositional politics. The very success of these governing bodies in coping with the crises of the 17th century increased their relative power and inhibited the formation of intermediate bodies which might have mediated their relationship with the population. The only competing institution was the church, which still had its charters and wealth inherited from the past.

Meanwhile, warfare was posing ever‑ changing technical and human demands. The extension of Muscovite territory was drawing in new peoples, with their own cultures, religions, and polities: Muscovy was becoming Russia. This process required adjustments which were sometimes destabilizing. In 1648, the Dnieper Cossacks rebelled against the Polish crown and appealed to the Tsar to come to their aid. Their Hetman (leader) promised him ‘eternal loyalty’ in return for receiving supplies and the confirmation of their privileges. With their aid, Muscovy occupied Kiev and the whole of eastern Ukraine. This was a great triumph, but one achieved on the basis of a misunderstanding. The Cossacks considered their promise conditional on Muscovy continuing to fulfil its side of the agreement. The Tsar, however, regarded them as a service nobility which had pledged him eternal loyalty and subjection. During the following decades, Ukraine gradually became an integral part of the empire, yet one whose elites never wholly lost their yearning for greater freedom.

In preparing for war, Muscovy had both weaknesses and strengths. It had to borrow the latest military techniques from abroad, hence often imported foreign officers and mercenaries. Muscovy’s authority structure was relatively simple, however: it had few of the privileged intermediary institutions which obstructed military–fiscal reform in many European countries. As a result, once military innovations had been absorbed, they could be disseminated and corresponding service obligations enforced with a minimum of friction. The accompanying cultural transformation took much longer, though.

Territorial expansion likewise entailed advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, Russia’s relatively simple personalized political structure often made it easy to incorporate a new ethos: its elites became part of the empire’s branch network, and continued often to exercise their power in much the same way as previously. On the other hand, sometimes Russia’s economy and culture was at a more primitive level than those of newly absorbed peoples, who therefore chafed at Russia’s dominance. More fundamentally, Russia’s Orthodox identity faced challenges coping with the new, sometimes hostile, religions being incorporated in the empire.