by Riazanovsky
Foreign relations in the course of the reign included Theodore's unsuccessful candidacy to the Polish throne, following Stephen Bathory's death in 1586, and a successful war against Sweden, which ended in 1595 with the return to the Muscovite state of the towns and territory near the Gulf of Finland which had been ceded by the treaty of 1583. The pre-Livonian War frontier was thus re-established. In 1586 an Orthodox Georgian kingdom in Transcaucasia, beset by Moslems, begged to be accepted as a vassal of the Russian tsar. While Georgia lay too far away for more than a nominal, transitory connection to be established in the sixteenth century, the request pointed to one direction of later Russian expansion.
Theodore's reign also witnessed, in 1591, the death of Prince Dmitrii of Uglich in a setting which made it one of the most famous detective stories
of Russian history. Nine-and-a-half-year-old Dmitrii, the tsar's brother and the only other remaining male member of the ruling family, died, his throat slit, in the courtyard of his residence in Uglich. The populace rioted, accused the child's guardians of murder, and killed them. An official investigating commission, headed by Prince Basil Shuisky, declared that Dmitrii had been playing with a knife and had injured himself fatally while in an epileptic fit. Many contemporaries and later historians concluded that Dmitrii had been murdered on orders of Boris Godunov who had determined to become tsar himself. Platonov, however, argued persuasively against this view: as a son of Ivan the Terrible's seventh wife - while canonically only three were allowed - Dmitrii's rights to the throne were highly dubious; the tsar, still in his thirties, could well have a son or sons of his own; Boris Godunov would have staged the murder much more skillfully, without immediate leads to his agents and associates. More recently Vernadsky established that no first-hand evidence of an assassination exists at all, although accusations of murder arose immediately following Prince Dmitrii's apparently accidental death. But, whereas scholars may well remain satisfied with Platonov's and Vernadsky's explanation, the general public will, no doubt, prefer the older version, enshrined in Pushkin's play and Musorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov.
Even if Boris Godunov did not murder Dmitrii, he made every other effort to secure power. Coming from a Mongol gentry family which had been converted to Orthodoxy and Russified, himself virtually illiterate, Boris Godunov showed uncanny intelligence and abilities in palace intrigue, diplomacy, and statecraft. He capitalized also on his proximity to Tsar Theodore, who was married to Boris's sister, Irene. In the course of several years Boris Godunov managed to defeat his rivals at court and become the effective ruler of Russia in about 1588. In addition to power and enormous private wealth, Boris Godunov obtained exceptional outward signs of his high position: a most impressive and ever-growing official title; the formal right to conduct foreign relations on behalf of the Muscovite state; and a separate court, imitating that of the tsar, where foreign ambassadors had to present themselves after they had paid their respects to Theodore. When the tsar died in 1598, without an heir, Boris Godunov stood ready and waiting to ascend the throne. His reign, however, was to be not so much a successful consummation of his ambition as a prelude to the Time of Troubles.
XVI
THE TIME OF TROUBLES, 1598-1613
O God, save thy people, and bless thine heritage…, preserve this city and this holy Temple, and every city and land from pestilence, famine, earthquake, flood, fire, the sword, the invasion of enemies, and from civil war…
AN ORTHODOX PRAYER
The Time of Troubles - Smutnoe Vremia, in Russian - refers to a particularly turbulent, confusing, and painful segment of Russian history at the beginning of the seventeenth century, or, roughly, from Boris Godu-nov's accession to the Muscovite throne in 1598 to the election of Michael as tsar and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty in Russia in 1613. Following the greatest student of the Time of Troubles, Platonov, we may subdivide those years into three consecutive segments on the basis of the paramount issues at stake: the dynastic, the social, and the national. This classification immediately suggests the complexity of the subject.
The dynastic aspect stemmed from the fact that with the passing of Tsar Theodore the Muscovite ruling family died out. For the first time in Muscovite history there remained no natural successor to the throne. The problem of succession was exacerbated because there existed no law of succession in the Muscovite state, because a number of claimants appeared, because Russians looked in different directions for a new ruler, and because, apparently, they placed a very high premium on some link with the extinct dynasty, which opened the way to fantastic intrigues and impersonations.
While the dynastic issue emerged through the accidental absence of an heir, the national issue resulted largely from the centuries-old Russian struggle in the west and in the north. Poland, and to a lesser extent Sweden, felt compelled to take advantage of the sudden Russian weakness. The complex involvement of Poland, especially, in the Time of Troubles reflected some of the key problems and possibilities in the history of eastern Europe.
But it is the social element that demands our main attention. For it was the social disorganization, strife, and virtual collapse that made the dynastic issue so critical and opened the Muscovite state to foreign intrigues and invasions. The Time of Troubles can be understood only as the end product of the rise of the Muscovite state with its attendant dislocations and ten-
sions. It has often been said that Russian history, by comparison with the histories of western European countries, has represented a cruder or simpler process, in particular that Russian social structure has exhibited a certain lack of complexity and differentiation. While this approach must be treated circumspectly, it must not be dismissed. We noted earlier that it might be appropriate to describe appanage Russia in terms of an incipient or undeveloped feudalism. The rise of Moscow meant a further drastic simplification of Russian social relations.
To expand and to defend its growing territory, the Muscovite state relied on service people, that is, on men who fought its battles and also performed the administrative and other work for the government. The service people - eventually known as the service gentry, or simply gentry - were supported by their estates. In this manner, the pomestie, an estate granted for service, became basic to the Muscovite social order. After the acquisition of Novgorod, in its continuing search for land suitable for pomestiia, the Muscovite government confiscated most of the holdings of the Novgorodian boyars and even half of those of the Novgorodian Church. Hereditary landlords too, it will be remembered, found themselves obligated to serve the state. The rapid Muscovite expansion and the continuous wars on all frontiers, except the north and northeast, taxed the resources of the government and the people to the breaking point. Muscovite authorities made frantic efforts to obtain more service gentry. "Needing men fit for military service, in addition to the old class of its servitors, free and bonded, nobles and commoners, the government selects the necessary men and establishes on pomestiia people from everywhere, from all the layers of Muscovite society in which there existed elements answering the military requirements." Thus, for example, small landholders in the areas of Novgorod and Pskov and an ever-increasing number of Mongols, some of whom had not even been converted to Christianity, became members of the Muscovite service gentry.
When Moscow succeeded in the "gathering of Russia" and the appanages disappeared, the princes and boyars failed to make a strong stand against Muscovite centralization and absolutism. Many of them, indeed, were slaughtered, without offering resistance, by Ivan the Terrible. But the relatively easy victory of the Muscovite despots over the old upper classes left problems in its wake. Notably, it has been argued that the Muscovite government displaced the appanage ruling elements all too rapidly, more rapidly than it could provide effective substitutes. The resulting weakening of the political and social framework contributed its share to the Time of Troubles. And so did the boyar reaction following the decline in the tsar's authority after Boris Godunov's death.
As the
Muscovite state expanded, centralizing and standardizing administration and institutions and subjugating the interests of other classes to those of the service gentry, towns also suffered. They became administra-
tive and military centers at the expense of local self-government, commercial elements, and the middle class as a whole. This transformation occurred most strikingly in Novgorod and Pskov, but similar changes affected many other towns as well.
Most important, however, was a deterioration in the position of the peasants, who constituted the great bulk of the people. They, of course, provided the labor force on the estates of the service gentry, and, therefore, were affected immediately and directly by the rise of that class. Specifically, the growth of the service gentry meant that more and more state lands and peasants fell into gentry hands through the pomestie system. Gentry landlords, themselves straining to perform burdensome state obligations, squeezed what they could from the peasants. Furthermore, the ravages of the oprichnina brought outright disaster to the already overtaxed peasant economy of much of central Russia. Famine, which appeared in the second half of Ivan the Terrible's reign, was to return in the frightful years of 1601-3.
Many peasants tried to escape. The Russian conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan opened up fertile lands to the southeast, and at first the government encouraged migration to consolidate the Russian hold on the area. But this policy could not be reconciled with the interests of the service gentry, whose peasants had to be prevented from fleeing if their masters were to retain the ability to serve the state. Therefore, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Muscovite authorities made an especially determined effort to secure and guarantee the labor force of the gentry. Legal migration ceased. The state also tried to curb Church landholding, and especially to prevent the transfer of any gentry land to the Church. Furthermore, serfdom as such finally became fully established in Russia. While the long-term process of the growth of serfdom will be discussed later, it should be mentioned here that the government's dedication to the interests of the service gentry at least contributed to it.
Hard-pressed economically and increasingly deprived of their rights, the peasants continued to flee to the borderlands in spite of all prohibitions. The shattering impact of the oprichnina provided another stimulus for the growth of that restless, dislocated, and dissatisfied lower-class element which played such a significant role during the Time of Troubles. Moreover, some fugitive peasants became cossacks. The cossacks, first mentioned in the chronicles in 1444, represented free or virtually free societies of warlike adventurers that began to emerge along distant borders and in areas of overlapping jurisdictions and uncertain control. Combining military organization and skill, the spirit of adventure, and a hatred of the Muscovite political and social system, and linked socially to the broad masses, the cossacks were to act as another major and explosive element in the Time of Troubles.
Dissatisfied elements in the Russian state included also a number of con-
quered peoples and tribes, especially in the Volga basin. The gentry itself, while a privileged class, had many complaints against the exacting government. Finally, it should be emphasized that conditions and problems varied in the different parts of the huge Muscovite state, and that the Time of Troubles included local as much as national developments. The Russian north, for example, had no problem of defense and very few gentry or serfs. Since a brief general account can pay only the scantest attention to these local variations, the interested student must be referred to more specialized literature, particularly to the writings of Platonov.
The Reign of Boris Godunov and the Dynastic Phase of the Time of Troubles
With the passing of Theodore, the Muscovite dynasty died out and a new tsar had to be found. While it is generally believed that Boris Godunov remained in control of the situation, he formally ascended the throne only after being elected by a specially convened zemskii sobor and implored by the patriarch, the clergy, and the people to accept the crown. He proved to be, or rather continued to be, an intelligent and able ruler. Interested in learning from the West, Boris Godunov even thought of establishing a university in Moscow, but abandoned this idea because of the opposition of the clergy. He did, however, send eighteen young men to study abroad. In foreign policy, Boris Godunov maintained peaceful relations with other countries and promoted trade, concluding commercial treaties with England and with the Hansa.
But, in spite of the efforts of the ruler, Boris Godunov's brief reign, 1598- 1605, witnessed tragic events. In 1601 drought and famine brought disaster to the people. The crops failed again in 1602 and also, to a considerable extent, in 1603. Famine reached catastrophic proportions; epidemics followed. Although the government tried to feed the population of Moscow free of charge, direct supplies to other towns, and find employment for the destitute, its measures availed little against the calamity. It has been estimated that more than 100,000 people perished in the capital alone. Starving people devoured grass, bark, cadavers of animals and, on occasion, even other human beings. Large bands of desperate men that roamed and looted the countryside and sometimes gave battle to regular troops appeared and became a characteristic phenomenon of the Time of Troubles.
At this point rumors to the effect that Boris Godunov was a criminal and a usurper and that Russia was being punished for his sins began to spread. It was alleged that he had plotted to assassinate Prince Dmitrii; it was alleged further that in reality another boy had been murdered, that the prince has escaped and would return to claim his rightful inheritance. The claimant soon appeared in person. Many historians believe that False
Dmitrii was in fact a certain Gregory Otrepiev, a young man of service class origin, who had become a monk and then left his monastery. Very possibly he believed himself to be the true Prince Dmitrii. Apparently he lived in Moscow in 1601 and early 1602, but escaped to the cossacks when authorities became interested in his assertions and decided to arrest him. Next he appeared in Lithuania, where he reiterated his claim to be Ivan
the Terrible's son Prince Dmitrii. While the Polish government gave him no official recognition, he obtained support from the Jesuits and from certain Lithuanian and Polish aristocrats. He also fell in love with the daughter of a Polish aristocrat, the beautiful Marina Mniszech. The Jesuits received from him the promise to champion Catholicism in Russia. The role of the Muscovite boyars in the rise of False Dmitrii remains less clear. Yet, in spite of the paucity and frequent absence of evidence, many scholars have become convinced that important boyar circles secretly supported False Dmitrii in order to destroy Boris Godunov. Indeed, the entire False Dmitrii episode has been described as a boyar stratagem. Boris Godunov, on his part, in an effort to defend his position, turned violently against the boyars around the throne, instituting in 1601 a veritable purge of them. In October 1604, False Dmitrii invaded Russia at the head of some 1,500 cossacks, Polish soldiers of fortune, and other adventurers.
Most surprisingly, the foolhardy enterprise succeeded. False Dmitrii's manifestoes proclaiming him to be the true tsar had their effect, in spite of Boris Godunov's attempts to confirm that Prince Dmitrii was dead and to brand the pretender as an impostor and a criminal by such means as his excommunication from the Church and the testimony of Gregory Otrepiev's uncle. Much of southern Russia, including such large centers as Chernigov, welcomed False Dmitrii; in a number of places authorities and population wavered in their stand, but failed to offer firm resistance. Dissatisfaction and unrest within the Muscovite state proved to be more valuable to the pretender's cause than Polish and Lithuanian aid. False Dmitrii's motley forces suffered repeated defeats, but regrouped and reappeared. Still, False Dmitrii probably owed his victory to a stroke of luck: in April 1605, when the military odds against the pretender appeared overwhelming, Boris Godunov suddenly died. Shortly after his death his commander, Theodore Basmanov, went over to False Dmitrii's side, Boris Godunov's wife and his young son and successor Theodore were deposed and murdered in Moscow, a
nd on June 20, 1605, False Dmitrii entered the capital in triumph.
The people rejoiced at what they believed to be the miraculous return of the true tsar to ascend his ancestral throne. On the eve of the riots that overthrew the Godunovs, Basil Shuisky himself had already publicly reversed his testimony and claimed that in Uglich Prince Dmitrii had escaped the assassins, who killed another boy instead. In July 1605, Prince Dmitrii's mother, who had become a nun under the name of Martha, was brought to identify her alleged long-lost child: in the course of a tender meeting she proclaimed him her own. Followers of False Dmitrii, such as Theodore Basmanov, succeeded the supporters of Godunov around the throne. A Greek cleric, Ignatius, who had been among the first to side with the pretender, replaced Boris Godunov's friend Job as patriarch. The new tsar returned from disgrace, prison, or exile the boyars who had suffered during
the last years of his predecessor's reign. Those regaining favor included Philaret, formerly Theodore, Romanov, the abbot of a northern monastery whom Boris Godunov had forced to take holy orders and exiled. Philaret became the metropolitan in Rostov.
False Dmitrii has been described as an unprepossessing figure with no waistline, arms of unequal length, red hair that habitually stood up, a large wart on his face, a big ugly nose, and an expression both unsympathetic and melancholy. His qualities, however, included undeniable courage and considerable intelligence and ability. He refused to be anyone's puppet, and in particular failed to honor his promises concerning the introduction of Catholicism into Russia. Instead of acting on these promises, he propounded the grandiose project of driving the Turks out of Europe.