Russia

F

2

Time of Troubles

Boris Godunov never firmly established his legitimate hold on power, partly because he was suspected of murdering Dmitry Ivanovich, Fyodor’s younger brother and last male blood relative. Furthermore, Boris was unpopular among the members of the aristocracy, who resented his power, and among the peasantry, who were heavily taxed and whose mobility he had severely restricted.

The institution of serfdom (a system in which an agricultural worker is bound to the land and the landowner) had gradually begun to take hold in Russia during the 16th century. For some time the impoverished conditions of the peasants had induced many to seek refuge in the vast steppes to the south. Independent communities of people who became known as Cossacks developed and grew near the major rivers of the steppes. Some of the Cossacks were farmers, but many were also warriors. Discontent increased as a result of a severe famine that began in 1601. In 1604 False Dmitry, a pretender claiming to be Ivan IV’s son and the rightful heir to the throne, invaded Russia with Polish troops. False Dmitry’s advance on Moscow received the overwhelming support of the peasants and Cossacks in the western provinces. Boris died unexpectedly in April 1605, and in June False Dmitry took Moscow. He was a conscientious and able ruler, but he displeased the boyars, who had hoped for a revival of their power. They revolted, murdered False Dmitry, and elevated the boyar Vasily Shuysky to the throne. This move was opposed by the Cossacks and rebellious peasants, who chafed under oppressive serf laws and feared the severity of boyar rule. They rose in southern Russia and joined another pretender, the second False Dmitry, who was already advancing on Moscow. At the same time, Zygmunt III, king of Poland, invaded from the west. After a long period of fighting and intrigue, Vasily was deposed in 1610, and the throne was left vacant. Some boyars advanced the candidacy of Władysław, the son of Zygmunt, and a Polish army entered Moscow. The entire country then fell into a state of anarchy. In 1612 an army raised by Kuzma Minin and led by Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky drove out the Poles.

The Time of Troubles, as this turbulent period became known, was subsequently seen as proof of Russia’s need for a powerful monarchy whose legitimacy and authority were accepted by all the Russian people. In the absence of an autocratic tsar, Russia appeared doomed to anarchy and to dismemberment by powerful neighbors.

G

Romanov Rule

In 1613 the Assembly of the Land elected Michael Romanov tsar. Michael was the son of the patriarch of Moscow and a great-nephew of Ivan IV’s wife. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia until 1917, when a revolution ended imperial rule in Russia.

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G

1

The Pattern of Romanov Policy

During the three centuries of Romanov rule, the dominant thread was the state’s determination that Russia become and remain a great European power. Since Central and Western Europe were economically and culturally more advanced than Russia, this policy demanded great ingenuity from the rulers and even greater sacrifice and suffering from the population. The law code of 1649 effectively divided the society into ranks and occupational classes from which neither the individual nor his or her descendants could move. Previous laws prohibiting the movement of peasants from estates were extended to include movement from cities and towns. Thus, the law code froze not only social status but also residency. By the mid-18th century the state had succeeded in making Russia militarily and economically powerful, but at the cost of imposing a harsh form of serfdom and despotic rule.

In the early 19th century, French emperor Napoleon I invaded Russia and was defeated. Russia was then widely viewed, both at home and abroad, as continental Europe’s most powerful empire. Other European countries subsequently became more powerful, however, as their economies underwent the vast changes of the Industrial Revolution, which began in England and took a number of generations to spread across Europe. The Industrial Revolution did not reach Russia until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Crimean War (1853-1856), in which Russia was defeated by France and Britain, showed that industrialized countries could equip, arm, transport, and pay for much more formidable armies and fleets than largely agricultural countries such as Russia. After the war the Romanov regime was forced to rapidly modernize the economy in order to ensure the country’s security and its position among the Great Powers, which also included Austria, Britain, France, and Prussia. At the beginning of World War I in 1914, Russia’s economy was more industrialized and its people were more urbanized and literate than they had been before the Crimean War. Still, Russia was well behind Germany and Britain. In addition, rapid modernization created acute conflicts between classes and nationalities. The strains of World War I caused internal conflicts and brought down the Romanov dynasty in 1917.

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2

The 17th Century (1613-1689)

The tsarist state in the 17th century was not very different from what it had been under the 16th-century Ryurikids. The monarch ruled in alliance with the leading aristocratic families, but his power was enhanced by the steady growth of the (still small) bureaucracy and the minor provincial landowning nobles. The tightening of serfdom and of the state’s control over the frontier Cossack communities led to a number of peasant and Cossack rebellions, of which the most famous was that of Stenka Razin in 1670.

During the reign of Michael’s son Alexis (1645-1676), Russia became involved in the struggle between Cossacks living in present-day Ukraine and that region’s Polish rulers. The Cossacks, supported by Ukrainians, revolted against the Poles, but they requested Russia’s aid to sustain their success. In 1654 Alexis extended his help in return for a Cossack pledge of loyalty, which immediately led to war between Russia and Poland. The war was settled in 1667 by a treaty that split Ukraine into two parts, divided by the Dnieper River. Poland retained the land west of the river, and Russia gained the land to the east and Kyiv. Western influences entered Russia partly through Ukraine but encountered fierce resistance, especially in the religious sphere. In the 1650s Nikon, the patriarch of Moscow, initiated a series of liturgical reforms that caused a major schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. The loss of the so-called Old Believers—those members of the church who rejected the reforms—did long-term damage to the Orthodox Church’s vitality, to its ability to remain independent of the state, and to its hold on the peasantry.

G

3

Peter I and Catherine II

The reign of Peter I (1682-1725), third son of Alexis, was a turning point in Russian history. At the end of the 17th century, Russia was a backward land that stood outside the political affairs of Europe. Superstition, distrust of foreigners, and conservatism characterized most of the society. The economy was based on primitive agriculture and the military organization was sorely out of date. Peter carried forward the Westernizing policies of his father, but in a much more radical and uncompromising manner. He remodeled the armed forces and bureaucracy along European lines, and imposed new taxes that dramatically increased the state’s revenues. He also fostered the military and metallurgical industries, whose main center became the Urals region.

Peter’s policy of territorial expansion resulted in almost constant war. He created Russia’s first navy, which took an Ottoman fortress on the Sea of Azov in 1696. Peter then turned his attention to Sweden. Early in the Great Northern War (1700-1721) between Sweden and a coalition of Russia, Poland, and Denmark, Peter conquered the northeastern coast of the Baltic Sea from Sweden, and in 1703 began building a new capital city, which he called Saint Petersburg, on the Baltic coast. The war, which officially ended with the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, established Russia as the dominant power in the Baltic region. After the war Peter took the title emperor, marking the official inauguration of the Russian Empire, and for his military accomplishments he became known as Peter the Great.

Both technological and cultural Westernization advanced quickly under Peter, but the mass of the population paid heavily for his incessant demands for soldiers and taxes. When Peter died in 1725 Russia was more respected and feared in Europe than ever before. The Russian army’s excellent performance against Prussia in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and its resounding victories over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish Wars of the 18th century resulted in Russia’s acceptance as an equal by the other leading European powers.

Under Catherine II (1762-1796), known in the West as Catherine the Great, Russia annexed 468,000 sq km (180,000 sq mi) from Poland, which disintegrated as Austria and Prussia also took Polish land. Still more significant were the gains of southern Ukrainian territories, which would become the center of Russian agriculture and heavy industry in the 19th century. Although the state’s pressure on the population relaxed somewhat after Peter’s death, serfdom continued, as did peasant resentment. In 1773 Yemelyan Pugachev led a Cossack rebellion against the monarchy that also developed into a revolt against serf owners. Romanov troops crushed the revolt in 1774, and Catherine strengthened the oppressive serf laws. She encouraged the spread of Western culture and values among the Russian elite, although as a result of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy in France, she became more suspicious of public opinion in the last years of her reign. This set the pattern for much of the 19th century, which was marked by increasing conflict between the Romanov state and sections of the educated classes who demanded Western-style freedoms and rights.

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