Russia A History

by Gregory L. Freeze

  Western Influence and Church Schism

  Acquisition of left-bank Ukraine was important for yet another reason: it brought an influx of learned men, and their new ideas, from that region. One was F. M. Rtishchev, who introduced polyphonic music, founded the first poorhouse and first hospital, and brought Ukrainian educational influence to Moscow (with the establishment of a school at Andreev Monastery). For the first time the state began to take up social tasks, in effect embarking on the path of Western absolutism. Similarly, it also began to require more education of those in civil service, created state economic monopolies, and established a ‘Secret Chancellery’ (originally just the tsar’s private chancellery, but after 1663 a kind of economic administration that foreigners often regarded as a supervisory or police organ). Beginning in 1649 it refurbished its ‘troops of the new order’ and in 1668 even attempted to construct the first naval fleet (its five ships, however, being torched during the Razin rebellion in Astrakhan).

  Alexis also behaved differently, especially after his marriage in 1671 to a woman who was more open-minded about the West. In 1672 the tsar and his family attended the first theatrical performance in Russia: the tragicomedy Ahasuerus and Esther, composed by the Lutheran pastor Johann Gottfried Grigorii. The play, which lasted nine (!) hours and was staged at the family’s summer residence in Preobrazhenskoe, marked the emergence of a ‘court theatre’; the following year it staged the ballet Orpheus und Eurydice by Heinrich Schütz. And table music also became common at the court.

  The Orthodox Church opposed the penetration of Western culture, but with declining effectiveness. However, its will did initially prevail: in 1652, for example, foreigners were forcibly resettled from Moscow to its environs—the North Europeans (‘Germans’) to the so-called ‘new German suburb’ (novaia nemetskaia sloboda) and the Poles to special districts. Subsequently, however, the influence of the Church steadily declined. One reason was the establishment of the ‘Monastery Chancellery’ in 1649, a secular body responsible for judicial matters involving both lay and ecclesiastical parties. Its creation was a distant analogue to the ‘Church Regulatory Charters’ in the West. Two other critical factors in the Church’s decline were the ‘Nikon affair’ and the schism.

  In the first half of the seventeenth century the Church had already split into opposing camps of reformers and conservatives, their position partly traceable to Ukrainian influences, but also to the practical problem of correcting liturgical books. With respect to the latter, the central question was whether to standardize texts on the basis of Greek originals presumed to be uncorrupted (the opinion of Patriarch Iosif), or concentrate on internal spiritual life (as demanded by a group of clergy under Vonifatev, the father-confessor of Tsar Alexis). The latter’s circle of ‘Friends of God’ (subsequently known as the ‘Zealots of Piety’ in the literature) included the future Patriarch Nikon, who served as metropolitan of Novgorod for three years before his elevation to the patriarchate in 1652. As patriarch he expanded the correction of texts into a fundamental reform of church ritual in 1653; the primary goal was to reverse the separate development of Russian Orthodoxy that had been in progress ever since the fall of Constantinople in the mid-fifteenth century. Moreover, by re-establishing ritual unity with the Kiev metropolitanate, such reform could also reinforce the political union with Ukraine.

  These reforms, however, evoked fierce opposition from his former friends in the Zealots of Piety. Among them was the cathedral archpriest, Avvakum Petrovich, who became Nikon’s intransigent adversary and leader of the ‘old ritualists’ or ‘old believers’—that is, those who remained loyal to the old rites and defended the national religious idea against ‘re-Hellenization’. Nikon, however, enjoyed the support and friendship of the tsar; by 1653 Avvakum and his friends were already imprisoned, and two years later Avvakum himself was banished into exile, where he wrote his autobiography, the first in Russian history and justly famous for its literary and stylistic qualities. In 1667 a church council upheld Nikon’s reforms and excommunicated its opponents, thereby formalizing the schism (raskol) in the Church.

  Naturally, the causes of the schism went much deeper than a blind attachment to the old rites. Rather, the Old Belief represented a much broader social movement—a protest against enserfment, the centralizing activities of the government, and the intrusion of Western innovations. It also acquired apocalyptical expectations (especially in the north) and, after martyrdom of Bishop Pavel of Kolomna in 1657, claimed many more victims, Avvakum himself being burnt at the stake in 1682. The Old Believers also established a powerful centre at the Solovetskii Monastery on the White Sea, where the resistance of some 500 monks and fugitives from the Razin rebellion grew into an outright uprising. With a heavy heart Tsar Alexis used force to suppress the rebellion; the monastery, however, fiercely resisted and was finally taken only through betrayal.

  The council of 1667 recognized the Nikonian reforms as valid, but also took measures against Nikon himself. At issue was his conception of the patriarch’s power: this peasant’s son stubbornly insisted that the tsar be subordinate to the patriarch—i.e. that they did not constitute a diarchy, the model that prevailed under Filaret and Michael. The tsar, favourably inclined towards Nikon, at first acquiesced and conferred the title ‘Great Sovereign’ on the patriarch in 1654, despite the absence of kinship (in contrast to Filaret’s case). But Nikon later far exceeded the Byzantine conception of a ‘symphony’ between the secular and sacred domains and exploited the fact that the status of the tsar in the Russian Church had never been precisely formulated. Alexis cautiously expressed a different opinion in 1657–8, and it soon came to a personal confrontation between the two men. Nikon withdrew, but refused to resign from his office; according to canon law, only the Eastern patriarchs could order his removal. At the end of 1666 the tsar convened such a council, but with only the less important patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria personally present. Not surprisingly, the latter—who were materially dependent upon Russian support—found Nikon guilty and even recommended expanding the tsar’s power in the Church. After a few Russian bishops protested, the council settled on a compromise that ascribed worldly matters to the tsar, spiritual matters to the patriarch. Although this formula nominally preserved the status of the Church, it could not conceal the fact that the Church emerged from the schism and the Nikon affair deeply weakened. Thus the devastation that the Time of Troubles had dealt to tradition (starina) now extended to the Church, hitherto the sole spiritual power and a second pillar of autocracy. The reign of Alexis, so rich in rebellion, came to an end; the way was now free for a breakthrough to the modern era.

  The Dawning of Modernity (1676–1689)

  The Reign of Fedor (1676–1682)

  Alexis’s eldest son, who had received elaborate preparation to accede to the throne, died in 1670. Thus, when Alexis himself died six years later, the throne passed to his second eldest son, the sickly and bed-ridden Fedor, who was not quite 15 years old and had only another six years to live. Next in line included Ivan, who was mentally retarded, and then the 4-year-old Peter (Petr Alekseevich) from Alexis’s second marriage, a strong and robust child who would go down in history as Peter the Great. Under the circumstances, the head of the foreign chancellery, A. S. Matveev, urged Peter’s mother, Natalia Naryshkina, to speak out in favour of her son. But his suggestion ignited a power struggle between the Naryshkins and the family of Alexis’s first marriage (the Miloslavskiis, from which had come Fedor, Ivan, and their sister Sofia). Once the Miloslavskiis gained the upper hand, Matveev paid dearly for his initiative: dismissal and banishment into exile. The new tsar Fedor thus lost a Western-oriented statesman of great ability and a main conduit for West European cultural influence. It must have been a heavy blow to the tsar, who himself had been educated by Simeon Polotskii (a West Russian monk and poet), knew Polish, and wore Western clothing.

  However, the West could hardly be ignored over the long term. That was clearly demonstrated by the ‘Turki
sh question’: after centuries of spurning appeals for an alliance against the Turks, Moscow now chose to confront the Ottoman Empire and waged its first war (from 1676 to 1681, virtually the entire reign of Fedor). The campaign, conducted without Western support, focused on Ukraine and hetman P. Doroshenko’s attempt to unite both the right and left banks of the Dnieper. But the war ended inconclusively, as the Peace of Bakhchisarai (1681) simply reaffirmed the status quo ante bellum and hence Moscow’s possession of left-bank (eastern) Ukraine.

  Domestically, xenophobic measures (for example, closing the tsar’s ‘German’ theatre) foundered on needs for systematic Europeanization. Thus, in contrast to the gradual military and economic policies of earlier decades, Moscow now began a conscious modernization of autocracy—amazingly enough, during the ‘weak’ reign of Fedor. The changes occurred not merely because the time was ‘ripe’, but because of vigorous support from the tsar’s favourites and advisers, especially V. V. Golitsyn.

  The two most elemental reforms concerned taxation and the army—those spheres where the premodern state made the greatest demands on subjects. In 1679 the state completed a fiscal reform begun in the 1620s: it shifted the tax base from land to household, using a census of 1678–9 (which indicated an approximate population of 11.2 million subjects) and recorded in special ‘revision books’. According to historian P. N. Miliukov, the new household-based tax produced revenues of 1.9 million roubles and enabled Moscow to abolish the ‘Streltsy levies’. Altogether, the army consumed 62 per cent of state revenues (1.5 million roubles). The new standing army, which now essentially displaced the noble regiments, put at the tsar’s disposal approximately 200,000 troops (including Ukrainian Cossacks). It was divided into eight military districts, which later formed the basis for Peter’s division of the realm into eight administrative regions (gubernii).

  Closely related to the military reform was the abolition of the ‘system of precedence’ (mestnichestvo). This system, which tied service position to birthright and the career of forefathers, was a serious problem: it blocked appointment on the basis of merit and ability and spawned endless litigious disputes. It was already subjected to some restrictions: in 1550 for wartime service and in 1621 for diplomatic missions. The well-born opposed these incursions, not only because they were so materially bound to service (in contrast to Western nobles), but also because they regarded precedence a matter of honour.

  Nevertheless, in 1682 Fedor abolished precedence. Above all, his government understood that precedence must not be extended to the ever-expanding lower strata of servitors (chancellery secretaries; big merchants [gosti]), where individual merit was critical. Abolition of precedence actually formed part of a larger reform proposal prepared under Golitsyn’s leadership and approved by the tsar. Abolition of precedence was also closely linked to military reform—the disbanding of military units called the ‘hundreds’ and the introduction of regiments, companies, and Western service ranks. Lineage books were still compiled (to determine claims to noble status), but they included the lower nobility and even non-noble ranks. The manifesto abolishing precedence is still more remarkable for its invocation of natural law—dramatic testimony to the declining influence of the Orthodox Church. Specifically, in justifying the reform, Fedor explained that he held the reins of power from God in order to govern and to issue laws for the ‘general welfare’ (obshchee dobro). Thus this manifesto, composed entirely in the spirit of European absolutism, marked the onset of modernity in Russia. The government now had philosophical support for borrowing from the West; the traditional touchstone—‘as it was under earlier great sovereigns’—no longer prevailed. Although other reform plans did founder on the opposition of clergy and noble élites, Western rationality began to displace Orthodoxy, hitherto the sole authority.

  Moreover, Fedor’s reforms improved administration and, especially, finances. The government achieved a certain level of bureaucratization in Moscow, if not a general centralization. At the same time, it also strengthened its power at the provincial level, chiefly by investing more authority in the district governor (voevoda). The underlying dynamic was a pragmatic response to the shortage of competent people (a fundamental problem throughout Russian history), which was most apparent at the provincial level. The government also decided to conduct a land survey, which had long been demanded by the nobility and was finally undertaken after Fedor’s death. But further discussions of tax reform and the convocation of townspeople and peasants under Golitsyn’s leadership were interrupted by Fedor’s death. These initiatives suggest a programme of reform that, had he lived longer, could have reached the scale it did under Peter the Great.

  The reform, moreover, also included plans to establish the first institution of higher learning. The proposal originated with Simeon Polotskii: although Polotskii himself died in 1680, his pupil Silvestr Medvedev prepared the draft statute for a ‘Slavic-Greek-Latin’ school in 1682. Its programmatic introduction also invoked the concept of ‘general welfare’, thus reflecting the influence of the early Enlightenment; although still alluding to the sagacity of Solomon, the document also spoke of orderly justice and administration and adduced cameralist ideas of the well-ordered ‘police state’ (Policeystaat). Fedor, whose first wife was Polish, had a marked propensity for the Polish Latin world; as the historian V. O. Kliuchevskii observed, Russia would have obtained its Western culture from Rome, not Peter’s Amsterdam, had Fedor reigned for ten to fifteen years and bequeathed a son as his successor.

  Struggle for Succession

  Fedor’s death in 1682 unleashed a new power struggle between the Miloslavskii and Naryshkin clans, each determined to resolve—to their own advantage—the succession claim of the two half-brothers, Ivan (a Miloslavskii) and Peter (a Naryshkin). Legally and especially theologically, precedence rested with the feeble-minded Ivan. Fearful that the Miloslavskiis would continue Fedor’s ‘Latinizing’ tendencies, however, the patriarch himself interceded on behalf of the intelligent Peter: he convoked a council to proclaim the new ruler and annulled the exile of Matveev. But before the latter could return to Moscow, the situation had radically changed.

  Whereas Peter’s interests were represented by his mother Natalia Naryshkina, his half-sister Sofia became the leader of the Miloslavskiis. Her education marked by strong Ukrainian and Polish influences, Sofia herself symbolized the emancipation of élite women, who had been kept in the background in old Russia. During the next seven years she actually governed the country and thus became a precursor to the empresses who would rule in the eighteenth century. The pro-Petrine historiography has propagated a highly negative image of Sofia (including the insinuation that, from the outset, she conspired to seize power for herself). In fact, however, Sofia at first sought only to secure her family’s position by ensuring the coronation of Ivan.

  But she could hardly have succeeded had she not been able to exploit a simultaneous revolt of the Streltsy—élite troops created a century and a half earlier, but since subjected to a precipitous economic and social decline. Indeed, their salaries had fallen and at the very time that they were forbidden to supplement their income by plying a trade in Moscow. They especially resented the ‘troops of new order’ and felt themselves to be victims of discrimination. Hostility towards them was in fact widespread: the government distrusted the Streltsy because so many of them were Old Believers; the nobility despised them for giving refuge to fugitive serfs; and taxpayers identified them with the loathsome ‘Streltsy tax’. The Streltsy also complained that they were maltreated by their superiors and even used as unfree labour.

  Although Peter had already ascended the throne, the Miloslavskiis conspired to exploit this discontent. They set 15 May 1682 (the anniversary of the suspicious death of the Tsarevich Dmitrii in Uglich) as the date for a massacre that, according to plans, was to take the lives of forty-six adversaries. To incite the mass of Streltsy, they spread false rumours that the Naryshkins had murdered Ivan; it did not help when the Streltsy who stormed the
Kremlin were shown that Ivan was alive. For three days long they raged, killing some seventy victims, including Matveev (who had just returned from exile) and other high officials. The young Peter had to watch this bloodbath and suffered a nervous shock that had a profound impact on the rest of his life.

  To Sofia’s credit, she herself acted with moderation and persuaded the Streltsy to allow the mere banishment of many other boyars. She also reached a compromise agreement with I. A. Khovanskii (head of the Streltsy Chancellery and the rebels’ leader) for the coronation of both tsareviches, as Ivan V and Peter I, on 26 May (using a specially constructed double throne). The manifesto justifying this diarchy cited precedents in world history but also practical advantages: one tsar could remain in the Kremlin while the other led military campaigns. More problematic was the regency of Sofia (which had been offered by the Streltsy): Ivan was already of age and Peter’s mother could have been his regent.

  As the rebels continued to indulge in a violent reign of terror (the ‘Khovanshchina’) and declared all bondsmen to be free, Sofia attempted to pacify them with gifts of money. But the Streltsy felt increasingly insecure. In early June they demanded that the government rename them ‘court infantry’ and also acknowledge the honourable goals of their rebellion—through a formal declaration and erection of a column on Red Square that would explain why so many famous men had to perish. Their political programme could have exerted considerable influence had the Streltsy themselves enjoyed the support of the general populace. But they had the support only of Old Believers, who—after Avvakum’s immolation (on the eve of the rebellion)—regarded Khovanskii as their leader. At his insistence a debate over the true belief was staged in the Kremlin, with the participation of the patriarch and numerous high-ranking church officials. But the most sensational moment came when, contrary to tradition, Sofia herself intervened in the debate and, using deft arguments, dealt Khovanskii a defeat. She then put the rebels under pressure by announcing that the court was moving out of Moscow.