A history of Russia

by Riazanovsky

  Important causes, of course, lay behind the contrasting evolutions of the two states. To refer to our earlier analysis, the princedom of Moscow arose in a relatively primitive and pioneer northeast, where rulers managed to acquire a dominant position in a fluid and expanding society. The Lithuanian principality, on the other hand, as it emerged from the Baltic forests, came to include primarily old and well-established Kievan lands. It encompassed much of the Russian southwest, and its economic, social, and political development reflected the southwestern pattern, which we discussed in a preceding chapter and which was characterized by the great power of the boyars as against the prince. Detailed studies indicate that in the princedom of Lithuania the same noble families frequently occupied the same land in the seventeenth as in the sixteenth or fifteenth centuries, that at times they were extremely rich, even granting loans to the state, and that the votchina landholding remained dominant, while the pomestie system played a secondary role. The rulers found this entrenched landed aristocracy, as well as, to a lesser degree, the old and prosperous towns,

  too much to contend with and had to accept restrictions on princely power. The Lithuanian connection with Poland contributed to the same end. Poland served as a model of an elective monarchy with sweeping privileges for the gentry; in fact, it presented an entire gentry culture and way of life. While the social and political structure of Lithuania evolved out of its own past, Polish influences supported the rise of the gentry, supplying it with theoretical justifications and legal sanctions. Lithuania in contrast to monolithic Moscow, always had to deal with different peoples and cultures and formed a federal, not a unitary, state. In the end, as already indicated, it became a junior partner to Poland rather than a serious contender for the Kievan succession.

  The Lithuanian-Russian princedom also attracts the attention of historians of Russia because of its role in the linguistic and ethnic division of the Russians into the Great Russians, often called simply Russians, the Ukrainians, and the White Russians or Belorussians, and its particular importance for the last two groups. While the roots of the differentiation extend far back, one can speculate that events would have taken a different shape if the Russians had preserved their political unity in the Kievan state. As it actually happened, the Great Russians came to be associated with the Muscovite realm, the Ukrainians and the White Russians with Lithuania and Poland. Political separation tended to promote cultural differences, although all started with the same Kievan heritage. Francis Skorina, a scholar from Polotsk, who, early in the sixteenth century, translated the Bible and also published other works in Prague and in Vilna, has frequently been cited as the founder of a distinct southwestern Russian literary language and, in particular, as a forerunner of Belorussian literature. The Russian Orthodox Church too, as we know, finally split administratively, with a separate metropolitan established in Kiev to head the Orthodox in the Lithuanian state. The division of the Russians into the Great Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians, reinforced by centuries of separation, became a major factor in subsequent Russian history.

  Part IV: MUSCOVITE RUSSIA

  XV

  THE REIGNS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE, 1533-84, AND OF THEODORE, 1584-98

  There is nothing more unjust than to deny that there was a principle at stake in Ivan's struggle with the boyars or to see in this struggle only political stagnation. Whether Ivan IV was himself the initiator or not - most probably he was not - yet this "oprichnina" was an attempt, a hundred and fifty years before Peter's time, to found a personal autocracy like the Petrine monarchy… Just as the "reforms" had been the work of a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the boyars, the coup of 1564 was carried out by a coalition of the townsmen and the petty vassals.

  POKROVSKY

  The new system which he [Ivan the Terrible] set up was madness, but the madness of a genius.

  PARES

  With the reign of Ivan IV, the Terrible, the appanage period became definitely a thing of the past and Muscovite absolutism came fully into its own. Ivan IV was the first Muscovite ruler to be crowned tsar, to have this action approved by the Eastern patriarchs, and to use the title regularly and officially both in governing his land and in conducting foreign relations. In calling himself also "autocrat" he emphasized his complete power at home as well as the fact that he was a sovereign, not a dependent, monarch. Nevertheless, it was Ivan the Terrible's actions, rather than his titles or ideas, that offered a stunning demonstration of the new arbitrary might of the Muscovite, and now Russian, ruler. Indeed, Ivan the Terrible remains the classic Russian tyrant in spite of such successors as Peter the Great, Paul I, and Nicholas I.

  Ivan the Terrible's Childhood and the First Part of His Rule

  Ivan IV was only three years old in 1533 when his father, Basil III, died, leaving the government of Russia to his wife - Ivan's mother Helen, of the Glinsky family - and the boyar duma. The new regent acted in a haughty and arbitrary manner, disregarding the boyars and relying first on her uncle, the experienced Prince Michael Glinsky, and after his death on her lover, the youthful Prince Telepnev-Obolensky. In 1538 she died suddenly, possibly of poison. Boyar rule - if this phrase can be used to

  characterize the strife and misrule which ensued - followed her demise. To quote one brief summary of the developments:

  The regency was disputed between two princely houses, the Shuiskys and the Belskys. Thrice the power changed hands and twice the Metropolitans themselves were forcibly changed during the struggle, one of them, Joseph,

  being done to death. The Shuiskys prevailed, and three successive members of this family held power in turn. Their use of it was entirely selfish, dictated not even by class interests but simply by those of family and favour.

  Imprisonments, exiles, executions, and murders proliferated.

  All evidence indicates that Ivan IV was a sensitive, intelligent, and precocious boy. He learned to read early and read everything that he could find, especially Muscovite Church literature. He became of necessity painfully aware of the struggle and intrigues around him and also of the ambivalence of his own position. The same boyars who formally paid obeisance to him as autocrat and treated him with utmost respect on ceremonial occasions, neglected, insulted, and injured him in private life. In fact, they deprived him at will of his favorite servants and companions and ran the palace, as well as Russia, as they pleased. Bitterness and cruelty, expressed, for instance, in his torture of animals, became fundamental traits of the young ruler's character.

  At the age of thirteen Ivan IV suddenly turned on Andrew Shuisky, who was arrested and dispatched by the tsar's servants. The autocrat entered into his inheritance. The year 1547 is commonly considered the introduction to Ivan IV's effective reign. In that year, at the age of sixteen, he decided to be crowned, not as grand prince, but as tsar, paying minute attention to details in planning the ceremony in order to make it as majestic and awe-inspiring as possible. In the same year Ivan IV married Anastasia of the popular Romanov boyar family: again, he acted with great seriousness and deliberation in selecting Anastasia from a special list of eligible young Russian ladies after he had considered and dismissed the alternative of a foreign marital alliance. The marriage turned out to be a very happy one. Still in the same year, a great fire, followed by a riot, swept Moscow. As the city burned, and even the belfry of Ivan the Great in the Kremlin collapsed, crazed mobs killed an uncle of the tsar and imperiled the tsar's own life before being dispersed. The tsar himself experienced one of the psychological crises which were periodically to mark his explosive reign. He apparently believed the disaster to be a punishment for his sins: he repented publicly in Red Square and promised to rule in the interests of the people.

  What followed has traditionally been described as the first, the good, half of Ivan IV's rule. The young tsar, beneficially influenced by his kind and attractive wife, worked with a small group of able and enlightened advisers, the Chosen Council, which included Metropolitan Macarius, a priest named Sylvester, and
a court official of relatively low origin, Alexis Adashev. In 1549 he called together the first full zemskii sobor, an institution similar to a gathering of the representatives of estates in other European countries, which will be discussed in a later chapter. While our knowl-

  edge of the assembly of 1549 remains fragmentary, it seems that Ivan IV solicited and received its approval for his projected reforms, notably for a new code of law and for changes in local government, and that he also used that occasion to hear complaints and learn opinions of his subjects concerning various matters.

  In 1551 a great Church council, known as the Council of a Hundred Chapters, took place. Its decrees did much to regulate the position of the Church in relation to the state and society as well as to regulate ecclesiastical affairs proper. Significantly, the Church lost the right to acquire more land without the tsar's explicit permission, a regulation which could not, however, be effectively put into practice. In general, Metropolitan Macarius and his associates accomplished a great deal in tightening and perfecting the organization of the Church in the sprawling, but now firmly united, Russian state. One interesting aspect of this process was their incorporation of different regional Russian saints - with a number of new canonizations in 1547 and 1549 - into a single Church calendar.

  Ivan the Terrible also presented to the Church council his new legal code, the Sudebnik of 1550, and the local government reform, and received its approval. Both measures became law. The institution of a novel scheme of local government deserves special attention as one of the more daring attempts in Russian history to resolve this perennially difficult problem. The new system aimed at the elimination of corruption and oppression on the part of centrally appointed officials by means of popular participation in local affairs. Various localities had already received permission to elect their own judicial authorities to deal, drastically if need be, with crime. Now, in areas whose population guaranteed a certain amount of dues to the treasury, other locally elected officials replaced the centrally appointed governors. And even where the governors remained, the people could elect assessors to check closely on their activities and, indeed, impeach them when necessary. But we shall return to the Muscovite system of government in a later chapter.

  In 1556 Ivan IV established general regulations for military service of the gentry. While this service had existed for a long time, it remained without comprehensive organization or standardization until the new rules set a definite relationship between the size of the estate and the number of warriors and horses the landlord had to produce on demand. It should be noted that by the middle of the sixteenth century the distinction between the hereditary votchina and the pomestie, granted for service, had largely disappeared: in particular, it had become impossible to remain a landlord, hereditary or otherwise, without owing service to the tsar. In 1550 and thereabout Ivan the Terrible and his advisors also engaged in an army reform, which included new emphasis on artillery and engineering as well as development of the southern defense line. Moreover, the first

  permanent, regular regiments, known because of their chief weapon as the streltsy or musketeers, were added to the Russian army.

  The military improvements came none too soon, for in the 1550's the Muscovite state was already engaging in a series of wars. Most important, a new phase appeared in the struggle against the peoples of the steppe. After Ivan IV became tsar, just as in the time of his predecessors, Russia remained subject to constant large-scale raids by a number of Tartar armies, particularly from the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea. These repeated invasions in search of booty and slaves cost the Muscovite state dearly, because of the havoc and devastation which they wrought and the immense burden of guarding the huge southeastern frontier. Certain developments in the early years of Ivan the Terrible's reign indicated that the Tartars were increasing their strength and improving their co-ordination. In 1551, however, the Russians began an offensive against the nearest Tartar enemy, the khanate of Kazan, conquering some of its vassal tribes and building the fortress of Sviiazhsk near Kazan itself. But as soon as the great campaign against Kazan opened in 1552, the Crimean Tartars, assisted by some Turkish janissaries and artillery, invaded the Muscovite territory, aiming for Moscow itself. Only after they had been checked and had withdrawn to the southern steppe could the Russians resume their advance on Kazan. The tsar's troops surrounded the city by land and water, and after a siege of six weeks stormed it successfully, using powder to blow up some of the fortifications. The Russian heroes of the bitter fighting included commanders Prince Michael Vorotyn-sky and Prince Andrew Kurbsky, who led the first detachment to break into the city. It took another five years to establish Russian rule over the entire territory of the khanate of Kazan.

  Following the conquest of Kazan on the middle Volga, the Russians turned their attention to the mouth of the river, to Astrakhan. They seized it first in 1554 and installed their candidate there as khan. After this vassal khan established contacts with the Crimea, the Russians seized Astrakhan once more in 1556, at which time the khanate was annexed to the Muscovite state. Thus of the three chief Tartar enemies of Russia, only the Crimean state remained, with its Ottoman suzerain looming behind it. Crimean forces invaded the tsar's domain in 1554, 1557, and 1558, but were beaten back each time. On the last occasion the Russians counterattacked deep into the southern steppe, penetrating the Crimean peninsula itself.

  Another major war was waged at the opposite end of the Russian state, in the northwest, against the Livonian Order. It started in 1558 over the issue of Russian access and expansion to the Baltic beyond the small hold on the coastline at the mouth of the Neva. The first phase of this war, to 1563, brought striking successes to the Muscovite armies. In 1558 alone

  they captured some twenty Livonian strongholds, including the greatest of them, the town of Dorpat, originally built by Iaroslav the Wise and named Iuriev. In 1561 the Livonian Order was disbanded, its territories were secularized, and its last master, Gotthard Kettler, became the hereditary Duke of Courland and a vassal of the Polish king. Yet the resulting Polish-Lithuanian offensive failed, and the Russian forces seized Polotsk from Lithuania in 1563.

  Ivan IV and his assistants had many interests in the outside world other than war. As early as 1547 the Muscovite government sent an agent, the Saxon Slitte, to western Europe to invite specialists to serve the tsar. Eventually over one hundred and twenty doctors, teachers, artists, and different technicians and craftsmen from Germany accepted the Russian invitation. But when they reached Lubeck, authorities of the Hanseatic League and of the Livonian Order refused to let them through, with the result that only a few of their number ultimately came to Russia on their own. In 1553 an English captain, Richard Chancellor, in search of a new route to the East through the Arctic Ocean, reached the Russian White Sea shore near the mouth of the Northern Dvina. He went on to visit Moscow and establish direct relations between England and Russia. The agreement of 1555 gave the English great commercial advantages in the Muscovite state, for they were to pay no dues and could maintain a separate organization under the jurisdiction of their own chief factor. Arkhangelsk - Archangel in English - on the Northern Dvina became their port of entry. Ivan IV valued his English connection highly. Characteristically, the first Russian mission to England returned with some specialists in medicine and mining.

  The Second Part of Ivan the Terrible's Rule

  However, in spite of improvements at home and successes abroad, the "good" period of Ivan the Terrible's rule came gradually to its end. The change in the Muscovite government involved the tsar's break with the Chosen Council and his violent turning against many of his advisers and their associates and afterwards, as his suspicion and rage expanded, against the boyars as a whole. His personal despotism became extreme. Furthermore, Ivan the Terrible's assault on the boyars, bringing with it changes in the administrative mechanism of the state and a reign of terror, came to dominate, and to a considerable extent shatter, Russian political life, soci
ety, and economy.

  In a sense, a conflict between the tsar and the boyars followed logically from preceding history. As Muscovite absolutism rose to its heights with Ivan the Terrible, the boyar class, constantly growing with the expansion of Moscow, represented one of the few possible checks on the sovereign's

  power. Furthermore, the boyars remained partly linked to the old appanage order, which the Muscovite rulers had striven hard and successfully to destroy. The size and composition of the Muscovite boyardom reflected the rapid growth of the state. While in the first half of the fifteenth century some forty boyar families served the Muscovite ruler, in the first half of the sixteenth the number of the families had increased to over two hundred. The Muscovite boyars included descendants of former Russian or Lithuanian grand princes, descendants of former appanage princes, members of old Muscovite boyar families, and, finally, members of boyar families from other parts of Russia who had transferred their service to Moscow. The first two groups, the so-called service princes, possessed the greatest influence and prestige and also the strongest links with the past: they remained at least to some extent rulers in their own localities even after they became servitors in Moscow. The power of the Muscovite boyars, however, should not be overestimated. They showed little initiative and lacked solidarity and organization. In fact, they constantly engaged in petty squabbles and intrigues against one another, a deplorable situation well illustrated during the early years of Ivan the Terrible's reign. The Muscovite system of appointments, the notorious mestnichestvo, based on a hierarchical ranking of boyar families, as well as of the individual members within a given family, added to the boyar disunity.