Everything about Tsardom Of Russia totally explained
The
Tsardom of Rus' (Russian: Царство Русское) was the official name for the Russian state between
Ivan IV's assumption of the title of
Tsar (Emperor) in
1547 and
Peter the Great's foundation of the
Russian Empire in
1721. The name originated from the fact that it contained all of the
Rus lands that were at the time free of foreign states domination.
Some
Western sources refer to this state as
Muscovite Russia or
Muscovy, the term originally applied to its predecessor, the
Grand Duchy of Moscow. Diverse researchers consider the propagation of this term in Western Europe as a result of political interests of Poland that Godunov would have weathered this crisis has he not died in
1605. As a result, False Dmitriy I entered Moscow and was crowned tsar that year, following the murder of Tsar
Fedor II, Godunov's son.
Subsequently, Russia entered a period of continuous chaos, known as
The Time of Troubles (Смутное Время). Despite the tsar's persecution of the boyars, the townspeople's dissatisfaction, and the gradual enserfment of the peasantry, efforts at restricting the power of the tsar were only halfhearted. Finding no institutional alternative to the autocracy, discontented Russians rallied behind various pretenders to the throne. During that period, the goal of political activity was to gain influence over the sitting autocrat or to place one's own candidate on the throne. The boyars fought among themselves, the lower classes revolted blindly, and foreign armies occupied
the Kremlin in Moscow, prompting many to accept tsarist absolutism as a necessary means to restoring order and unity in Russia.
The Time of Troubles included a civil war in which a struggle over the throne was complicated by the machinations of rival boyar factions, the intervention of regional powers Poland and Sweden, and intense popular discontent, led by
Ivan Bolotnikov. False Dmitriy I and his Polish garrison were overthrown, and a boyar,
Vasily Shuysky, was proclaimed tsar in
1606. In his attempt to retain the throne, Shuysky allied himself with the Swedes, unleashing the
Ingrian War with Sweden.
False Dmitriy II, allied with the Poles, appeared under the walls of Moscow and set up a mock court in the village of
Tushino.
In
1609 Poland intervened into Russian affairs officially, captured Shuisky, and occupied the Kremlin. A group of Russian boyars signed in
1610 a treaty of peace, recognising
Ladislaus IV of Poland, son of Polish king
Sigismund III Vasa, as tsar. In 1611,
False Dmitriy III appeared in the Swedish-occupied territories, but was soon apprehended and executed. The Polish presence led to a patriotic revival among the Russians, and a volunteer army, financed by the
Stroganov merchants and blessed by the Orthodox Church, was formed in
Nizhny Novgorod and, led by Prince
Dmitry Pozharsky and
Kuzma Minin, drove the Poles out of the Kremlin. In
1613 a
zemsky sobor proclaimed the boyar
Mikhail Romanov as tsar, beginning the 300-year reign of the
Romanov family.
Romanovs
The immediate task of the new dynasty was to restore order. Fortunately for Russia, its major enemies, Poland and Sweden, were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in
1617. The
Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618) was ended with the
Truce of Deulino in
1618, restoring temporarily Polish and Lithuanian rule over some territories, including
Smolensk, lost by the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania in
1509.
The early
Romanovs were weak rulers. Under Mikhail, state affairs were in the hands of the tsar's father,
Filaret, who in
1619 became patriarch of the Orthodox Church. Later, Mikhail's son
Aleksey (r.
1645-
1676) relied on a boyar,
Boris Morozov, to run his government. Morozov abused his position by exploiting the populace, and in
1648 Aleksey dismissed him in the wake of the
Salt Riot in Moscow.
After
an unsuccessful attempt to regain Smolensk from Poland in
1632, Russia made peace with Poland in
1634. Polish king
Wladyslaw IV, whose father and predecessor
Sigismund III Vasa had been elected by Russian boyars as tsar of Russia during the Time of Troubles, renounced all claims to the title as a condition of the peace treaty.
Legal code of 1649
The autocracy survived the Time of Troubles and the rule of weak or corrupt tsars because of the strength of the government's central bureaucracy. Government functionaries continued to serve, regardless of the ruler's legitimacy or the boyar faction controlling the throne. In the
17th century, the bureaucracy expanded dramatically. The number of government departments (
prikazy ; sing.,
prikaz ) increased from twenty-two in
1613 to eighty by mid-century. Although the departments often had overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions, the central government, through provincial governors, was able to control and regulate all social groups, as well as trade, manufacturing, and even the Orthodox Church.
The
Sobornoye Ulozheniye, a comprehensive legal code introduced in
1649, illustrates the extent of state control over Russian society. By that time, the boyars had largely merged with the new elite, who were obligatory servitors of the state, to form a new nobility, the dvoryanstvo. The state required service from both the old and the new nobility, primarily in the military because of permanent warfare on southern and western borders and attacks of nomads. In return, the nobility received land and peasants. In the preceding century, the state had gradually curtailed peasants' rights to move from one landlord to another; the
1649 code officially attached peasants to their domicile.
The state fully sanctioned
serfdom, and runaway peasants became state fugitives. Landlords had complete power over their peasants . Peasants living on state-owned land, however, were not considered serfs. They were organized into communes, which were responsible for taxes and other obligations. Like serfs, however, state peasants were attached to the land they farmed. Middle-class urban tradesmen and craftsmen were assessed taxes, and, like the serfs, they were forbidden to change residence. All segments of the population were subject to military levy and to special taxes. By chaining much of Russian society to specific domiciles, the legal code of 1649 curtailed movement and subordinated the people to the interests of the state.
Under this code, increased state taxes and regulations exacerbated the social discontent that had been simmering since the Time of Troubles. In the
1650s and
1660s, the number of peasant escapes increased dramatically. A favorite refuge was the
Don River region, domain of the
Don Cossacks. A major uprising occurred in the Volga region in
1670 and
1671.
Stenka Razin, a Cossack who was from the Don River region, led a revolt that drew together wealthy Cossacks who were well established in the region and escaped serfs seeking free land. The unexpected uprising swept up the Volga River valley and even threatened Moscow. Tsarist troops finally defeated the rebels after they'd occupied major cities along the Volga in an operation whose panache captured the imaginations of later generations of Russians. Razin was publicly tortured and executed.
Conquest of Ukraine
Russia continued its territorial growth through the
17th century. In the south-west, it acquired eastern
Ukraine, which had been under
Polish-Lithuanian rule. The Ukrainian
Cossacks, warriors organized in military formations, lived in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the
Crimean Tatar lands, and Russia. Although they'd served in the Polish army as mercenaries, the Cossacks of the
Zaporozhian Host remained fiercely independent and staged a number of rebellions against the Poles. In
1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Cossacks in rebellion during the
Khmelnytsky Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they suffered under Polish rule. Initially, Ukrainians were allied with
Crimean Tatars, which had helped them to throw off Polish rule. Once the Poles convinced the Tartars to switch sides, the Ukrainians needed military help to maintain their position.
In 1654 the Ukrainian leader,
Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar,
Aleksey I. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer, which was ratified in the
Treaty of Pereyaslav, led to
a protracted war between Poland and Russia. The
Treaty of Andrusovo, which ended the war in
1667, split Ukraine along the river
Dnieper, reuniting the western sector (or
Right-bank Ukraine) with Poland and leaving the eastern sector (
Left-bank Ukraine) as the
Cossack Hetmanate, self-governing under the suzerainty of the tsar.
Russia's southwestern expansion, particularly its incorporation of eastern Ukraine, had
unintended consequences. Most Ukrainians were Orthodox, but their close contact with the
Roman Catholic and the Polish Counter-Reformation also brought them Western intellectual currents. Through the
Academy in Kiev, Russia gained links to Polish and Central European influences and to the wider Orthodox world. Although the Ukrainian link stimulated creativity in many areas, it also undermined traditional Russian religious practices and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church discovered that its isolation from
Constantinople had caused variations to creep into its
liturgical books and practices.
The Russian Orthodox patriarch,
Nikon, was determined to bring the Russian texts back into conformity with the
Greek originals. But Nikon encountered fierce opposition among the many Russians who viewed the corrections as improper foreign intrusions, or perhaps the work of the devil. When the Orthodox Church forced Nikon's reforms, a schism resulted in
1667. Those who didn't accept the reforms came to be called the
Old Believers; they were officially pronounced heretics and were persecuted by the church and the state. The chief opposition figure, the protopope
Abbacum, was burned at the stake. The split subsequently became permanent, and many merchants and peasants joined the Old Believers.
The tsar's court also felt the impact of Ukraine and the West. Kiev was a major transmitter of new ideas and insight through the famed scholarly academy that
Metropolitan Mohyla founded there in
1631. Among the results of this infusion of ideas into Russia were
baroque styles of
architecture, literature, and
icon painting. Other more direct channels to the West opened as international trade increased and more foreigners came to Russia. The tsar's court was interested in the West's more advanced technology, particularly when military applications were involved. By the end of the 17th century, Ukrainian, Polish, and West European penetration had undermined the Russian cultural synthesis--at least among the elite--and had prepared the way for an even more radical transformation.
Conquest of Siberia
Russia's eastward expansion encountered relatively little resistance. In
1581 the
Stroganov merchant family, interested in fur trade, hired a
Cossack leader,
Yermak Timofeyevich, to lead an expedition into western
Siberia. Yermak defeated the
Siberia Khanate and claimed the territories west of the
Ob' and
Irtysh rivers for Russia.
From such bases as
Mangazeya, merchants, traders, and explorers pushed eastward from the
Ob' River to the
Yenisey River, then to the
Lena River and to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648 Cossack
Semyon Dezhnev opened the passage between America and Asia. By the middle of the 17th century, Russians had reached the
Amur River and the outskirts of the
Chinese Empire.
After a period of conflict with the
Manchu Dynasty, Russia made peace with
China in
1689. By the
Treaty of Nerchinsk, Russia ceded its claims to the Amur Valley, but it gained access to the region east of
Lake Baikal and the trade route to
Beijing. Peace with China consolidated the initial breakthrough to the Pacific that had been made in the middle of the century.
Early Imperial Russia
The following article in the series describes how in the 18th century, Russia was transformed from a static, somewhat isolated, traditional state into the more dynamic, partially Westernized, and secularized
Russian Empire. This transformation was in no small measure a result of the vision, energy, and determination of
Peter the Great. Historians disagree about the extent to which Peter himself transformed Russia, but they generally concur that he laid the foundations for empire building over the next two centuries. The era that Peter initiated signaled the advent of Russia as a major European power. But, although the Russian Empire would play a leading political role in the next century, its retention of serfdom precluded economic progress of any significant degree. As West European economic growth accelerated during the
Industrial Revolution, which had begun in the second half of the eighteenth century, Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new problems for the empire as a great power.
Key texts
- Grigory Kotoshikhin's Russia during the reign of Alexey Mikhailovich (1665) is the indispensable source for those studying administration of the Russian tsardom
- Domostroy is a 16th-century set of rules regulating everyday behaviour in the Russian boyar families.
Further Information
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