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The Growing Power of the Nobles

p In the sixteenth century important changes took place in the structure of Russian society. Although society remained feudal, within the framework of the class of landowning nobles many new developments were taking shape. Formerly the powerful boyars had been the main landowners. Within this group the descendants of the former princes were particularly rich and influential, owning enormous tracts of land.

p When the unified state took shape the position of these powerful boyars grew more difficult, while the dvoryane (as the old pomeshchiki came to be known—nobles who received land in return for service rendered) prospered. As the individual princedoms lost their former independence, the prosperity of the boyars’ and princes’ estates declined and they were often divided up and frequently sold or mortgaged. The dvoryane grew in numbers. The boyars vied with the tsars for power, and in their struggle to curb the power of the boyars the tsars came to rely more and more on the dvoryane for support.

p The dvoryane were also landowners but their estates were different from those of the boyars. The enormous estates of the latter were hereditary property, handed down from father to son. The estates of the dvoryane were smaller and they did not inherit them but received them direct from the tsar in return for military service. If a member of the dvoryanstvo ceased to serve with the forces of the Russian state his lands were automatically confiscated.

p This meant that the dvoryane were dependent on the tsar of Russia. They were quite content with this state of affairs, since earlier when they had been dependent on the petty princes their position had been decidedly less favourable. They had been nothing but insignificant servants of the princes or still worse, 254 servants of the princes’ servants, and received tiny estates in return. The prince’s bailiff supervised their service. During that period the dvoryane were quite cut off from the outside world in the confines of remote estates.

As the individual princedoms gradually merged in a unified Russian state the position of the dvoryane started to improve considerably. The tsars of Russia accepted large numbers of the dvoryane into their service and gave them estates. A completely different life opened up for the dvoryane: it was much more worthwhile for them to serve a rich and powerful Russian tsar. He distributed larger estates and more peasants and service to him was much more palatable—it meant more freedom of action, material gain and social prestige after the previous relative humiliation. It was to this mass of dvoryane that the new Tsar Ivan IV (known as the Terrible) turned for support when he sought to introduce order and state control in the formerly independent princedoms.

The Reforms of Ivan the Terrible.
The Oprichnina

p The large territory of the Russian state included the former independent Russian princedoms, and little had actually changed in the administration and customs of many of them. The descendants of the former princes still exerted considerable power in the provinces. Isolated pockets of the former princedoms still held out clinging to their independence, ruled over by the boyars and petty princes, who still had armed detachments at their disposal and went to war with whole armies of retainers. As before, these princes used to give small estates to their vassals, issuing charters to this effect, referring to themselves as sovereigns and enjoying complete authority over the fates of the commoners in their service. As before the common people looked upon the local boyar as their overlord rather than the tsar. All these factors undermined the authority of the centralised state administration. In Moscow itself the boyars obstructed the implementation of governmental policies. They considered that their noble blood made them the social equals of the tsar and they were unwilling to submit to his supreme authority. The princes undermined the consolidation of a centralised state, threatening its very existence. From early in his reign Ivan IV started to seek ways to enforce strong central government.

p In his struggle against the boyars the tsar turned to the dvoryane. In 1564 when he set up the Oprichnina (a whole complex of measures designed to consolidate the autocracy) this struggle entered a decisive phase.

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p In 1564 Ivan IV unexpectedly left Moscow for Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, a short distance to the north of the capital, and announced to the boyars that he no longer had any desire to be their tsar. He demanded that he be allowed to divide his kingdom into two parts, in one of which he would rule as he alone saw fit. One of his first tasks would be to pick out from among his followers those whom he wished to retain in his service and who were suited to the new work in store for them.

p The tsar’s request was complied with and the state was divided into two distinct and independent realms—an Oprichnina and a Zemshchina, the former under his personal rule. Ivan IV gradually incorporated into this land the best half of the state complete with the rich towns and trade routes, driving out the boyars, depriving them of their hereditary property and having many of them executed. Those whom he left unharmed were expelled into the Zemshchina where the old boyar rule still held sway. Ivan the Terrible even instituted there for appearances’ sake a new “tsar”, the Tartar Simeon Bekbulatovich who was in great awe of the tsar and obediently carried out all his commands. The tsar deliberately wrote formal petitions to him, signing his name without any title as if he was one of Bekbulatovich’s subjects. In practice however it was Ivan IV who ruled over them all.

p In this way the power of the boyars in the provinces was seriously undermined. They were not however deprived of the status of privileged landowners. Those among them who survived the conflict with the tsar now occupied a position similar to that of the dvoryane and were happy to receive land wherever it was given them. The tsar distributed the hereditary estates of the boyars among the dvoryane, they were given many new estates often complete with peasants who were obliged to work for them.

p The reckless greed of Ivan’s supporters knew no bounds. They seized the boyars’ property and made off with the peasants’ horses, cows and corn. If the peasants put up any resistance they were murdered. One of them was known to boast: "I set off with one horse and came back with forty-nine. Twenty-two of them were drawing sleighs piled high with divers wares.”

p Ivan’s oprichniki (the dvoryane who had supported Ivan IV when he set up his new realm of Oprichnina} galloped across the land with a dog’s head and a broom tied to their saddles to signify that they would bare their teeth and make short work of their sovereign’s enemies like dogs and that they would sweep all treason out of the land.

Ivan IV carried out his reforms with merciless cruelty. It was no coincidence that later the words oprichnik and Oprichnina came to stand for the unbridled arbitrariness of the loyal curs of autocracy. The “justification” for this institution was that it did 256 away with the power of the boyars in their former princedoms and replaced the old order by the real power of the tsar. In the process, the lesser nobles who were granted land in return for their service and who provided the tsar’s main support were to come to constitute a much more powerful social group. It was they who built Ivan’s kingdom.

Serfdom

p As the power of the dvoryane grew the position of the peasants greatly worsened. Their obligations to their masters were greatly increased, as were the landowners’ powers to force them to work. Earlier the peasants had been able to change masters and at specific periods of the year go to settle in a new area. Ivan IV was to change all this: the time when peasants were allowed to change masters was confined to the week either side of St. Yuri’s Day (November 26th) which fell at the end of the farming season and thus meant a minimum of loss to the landowners.

At the end of Ivan the Terrible’s reign this ancient right was done away with altogether. Gradually the landowners bound their peasants to the land and serfdom took root.

The Annexation of the Volga Basin
and Western Siberia

p Not far from the eastern borders of the Russian state was a broad and easily navigable river, the Volga, providing an excellent route to the East—to Persia and Turkey and still further afield via the Caspian Sea. As yet however the Russians did not control the river for the whole of its length. After the disintegration of the Golden Horde the Tartars had set up two khanates on the Volga, centred on Kazan and Astrakhan.

p In 1552 Ivan the Terrible marched on Kazan with a large army of 150,000 soldiers and 150 cannon. The Russian troops laid siege to the town and this time Russian military equipment was to prove superior to that of the Tartars. Russian engineers dug holes under the walls of the city which they filled with boxes of gunpowder and then exploded. The troops then entered the city through the holes that had thus been made in the walls. Ivan the Terrible rode into the city in triumph. Four years later Ivan’s troops were to gain another victory, over the Astrakhan Khanate. In this way Russia extended its power over the whole of the Volga basin and was thus able to open up an important new trade route, as well as strengthening her eastern borders. In the south, the borders of Russia extended as far as the lower reaches of the Terek and the 257 foothills of the Caucasus. Kabarda voluntarily passed under Russian protectorship and in the middle of the sixteenth century Bashkiria followed suit.

p Beyond the Urals there still existed the Siberian Khanate, covering part of Western Siberia including the Tobol and Irtysh river valleys. The merchants of Novgorod had been wont to come this far for furs. In the sixteenth century this territory was ruled over by Khan Kuchum, who exploited the local inhabitants and demanded tribute from them in the form of furs. The Russian dvoryane of the Stroganov family who had come to settle in those parts helped the Russian state to gain possession of the Siberian Khanate. They mustered a small force of free Cossacks who had fled from Russia to avoid oppression at the hands of the boyars, and put them and several bands of their armed retainers under the command of Yermak Timofeyevich, supplying him with gunpowder, bullets, cannon and grain. Yermak’s final force consisted of some 800 men. With this small force he was to occupy vast territories.

p In 1581 Ivan the Terrible gave a charter to the Stroganovs permitting them to conquer Siberia. Yermak’s men rode down from the eastern slopes of the Urals and attacked the Siberian Khanate. The Tartars were unable to contend with the firearms of the Russian troops. Yermak won the day but he did not succeed in making his way home from Siberia. He was drowned in the river Irtysh while escaping from a night attack made by the Tartars. Part of the population of Siberia professed allegiance to Russia of their own free will and by the end of the sixteenth century Russian villages started to grow up there.

Later, in the seventeenth century Eastern Siberia was also incorporated in the Russian state, so that by this time it included the eastern part of Europe and extended far beyond the Urals. During Ivan’s reign the state had grown considerably in both size and power.

Cultural Development and the Introduction of Printing

p The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw important cultural advances in Russia, centred on Moscow.

p During the reign of Ivan the Terrible the first printing press was set up in Moscow, which meant that book production became at once a much quicker and cheaper process.

p The first printer in Moscow was Ivan Fyodorov (who died in 1583). One of the very first books to be published was an edition of The Acts of the Apostles printed in ornamental Slavonic script.

p This first printing house aroused the wrath of those who were 258 employed to copy books by hand, since they saw in this discovery a dangerous rival, which would deprive them of a livelihood. They destroyed the printing shop and Ivan Fyodorov was obliged to flee. Soon afterwards Ivan the Terrible arranged for it to be set up again but this time nearer his court in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. Later a monument was erected to Ivan Fyodorov in Moscow not far from the Kremlin, near the site of his original printing house.

p Russian crafts also flowered at this time, iron-casting in particular. One of the most famous iron-casters was Andrei Chokhov (died c. 1630) who worked at the cannon foundry in Moscow. Each of his cannon was of a distinctive shape; they were cast in wax moulds and were extremely efficient weapons. Each cannon was given a special name, such as Bear, Wolf, Vixen or Achilles. The most famous of them was the Tsar Cannon, which still stands in the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin. It weighs forty tons and its 259 rich decoration includes the figure of the Tsar on horseback—hence its name.

p Many of the buildings erected during that period were to become famous examples of Russian architecture. They include the magnificent Cathedral of Basil the Blessed, which still enhances Red Square today. The church was built at the command of Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the capture of Kazan. It consists of a group of chapel towers crowned with domes; all the chapels are linked together by vaulted archways and have galleries round the walls. Each of the domes is decorated differently, with zig-zag and wave patterns. Yet they all harmonise in a delightful inimitable whole that is a joy to behold.

A famous Russian engineer of the period was Fyodor Kon, who built many famous fortifications in the second half of the sixteenth century. It was he who planned the walls and towers enclosing the White Town (the area within the present-day boulevards), thus making Moscow into a fortress. He also supervised the building of the mighty walls and towers of Smolensk, a project requiring the labour of six thousand workmen. At the very end of the sixteenth century the Ivan the Great Tower was raised to a height of 250 feet inside the walls of the Moscow Kremlin. This 250-foot tower is most impressive with its strict simplicity of line and elegant proportions. It was used both as belfry and watch-tower: vigilant watchmen kept a lookout from its upper gallery to make sure no enemies were approaching Moscow.

The Peasant War Led by Ivan Bolotnikov

p The early seventeenth century was marked by a great deal of peasant unrest, more than there had ever been before in Russia. One outburst followed another and these years went down in history as the Time of Troubles. The most significant of these outbreaks was the peasant revolt led by Ivan Bolotnikov (d. 1608).

p Bolotnikov was a serf in the service of Prince Telyatevsky. In his youth he had run away from his master, after which he had been taken prisoner by the Tartars and then sold to the Turks. After several years of back-breaking work as a galley-slave, he escaped from Turkey to Venice.

p While in Venice Bolotnikov heard that large-scale peasant uprisings had broken out in Russia. Popular discontent had been rife ever since the reign of Ivan IV’s son, Fyodor (1584-1598). These revolts continued during the regency of Boris Godunov who was later elected tsar, since Fyodor died leaving no heirs. During Boris Godunov’s reign (1598-1605) a terrible famine spread in Russia lasting for three years. People were reduced to eating the 260 261 262 bark of trees, cats and dogs. Masses of peasants ran away from their masters, and one immediate consequence was the formation of large bands of homeless peasants which took to attacking the dvoryane and the merchants. A number of pretenders were to appear on the scene putting forward claims to the throne. The protege of the Polish nobles was a former monk Grigory Otrepyev who proclaimed to be Ivan the Terrible’s son Dmitry. Dmitry the Pretender was hailed as Tsar of Russia by the Polish nobles. Meanwhile popular uprisings grew more and more frequent throughout the country.

p Bolotnikov was an avowed opponent of slavery and he defended the interests of the common people. He was an intelligent, brave and resourceful man, with rich experience of life and well-versed in the art of war. By way of Germany and Poland he eventually made his way back to Russia and in 1606 he became the leader of the peasant insurgents. Oppressed peasants flocked to join him.

p Bolotnikov sent proclamations throughout the land summoning the peasants to take up arms against the landowners: "Leave the boyars and the landowners, plunder their dwellings, seize their chattels. Wreak vengeance on the warlords, the servants of the tsar, lock them up.” He was also joined by another peasant leader, Ileika Muromets, champion of the Cossack poor. Other oppressed peoples followed the Russian example: the Mordvinians in the Volga valley also rose up; discontent was rife among the Bashkirs in the Urals foothills, and the Kalmyks in the Astrakhan area. The peasant serfs were the driving force behind the revolt; they sought to do away with serfdom and put an end to feudal oppression. Bolotnikov urged the peasants to do away with the boyars, seize their land and property and divide it up among themselves. He declared the peasants free from feudal bondage and this became the main motive behind the uprising.

p Bolotnikov’s army marched on Moscow and set up camp near the city. The new Tsar Vassily Shuisky (1552-1612) set out to do battle with them.

On the approaches to Moscow treachery occurred in Bolotnikov’s army. Some dvoryane from Ryazan who had hitherto supported him went over to Vassily Shuisky. Bolotnikov was obliged to retreat from Moscow and muster his forces near Tula. Shuisky laid siege to Tula in June 1607. By October famine was raging in Tula, yet Bolotnikov’s followers still held out. Then the tsar gave orders for the river Upa which flowed through the city to be dammed. The river flooded the city and in October the town surrendered. Bolotnikov’s eyes were put out and he was then drowned. The revolt was suppressed with ruthless ferocity.

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The Common People’s Struggle Against the Polish
and Swedish Nobles in the Early Seventeenth Century

p Unable to deal with the insurgent peasants with his own army, Tsar Vassily Shuisky decided to turn to the Swedish king for help. In the spring of 1609 foreign troops dressed in glistening steel armour marched into Novgorod. These were forces sent by the Swedish king which were made up of a total of 15,000 Swedish, German, French, English and Scottish mercenaries. Soon they had captured the whole province of Novgorod.

p At this time Poland was very hostilely disposed to Sweden. As soon as the Swedish troops crossed the Russian frontier, Polish troops were also sent into Russia, for the Polish nobles were eager to claim their part of the booty. The Poles penetrated deep into Russia and at the village of Klushino (between Moscow and Smolensk) Shuisky’s troops were routed.

p In July 1610 the Muscovite boyars overthrew Shuisky, forced him to become a monk and started to vie with one another for power. They finally decided to elect a foreign prince as tsar—Wladyslaw, the 15-year-old son of the Polish King, Sigismund III (1587-1632).

Meanwhile Polish forces were advancing on Moscow. For a time power was in the hands of seven boyars, whose rule proved utterly ineffectual. They took an oath of allegiance to Wladyslaw in the Cathedral of the Dormition and opened the gates of the city to the Polish nobles. In the autumn of 1610 Polish troops occupied Moscow and their warlords were to become the country’s new rulers. This was perhaps the nadir of Muscovite misfortune. Moscow, the capital of the realm, was in the hands of foreign conquerors: the Polish nobles set themselves up in the Kremlin, deployed their guards and seized the keys of the city. They forbade the peasants from the surrounding villages to enter the city and instituted a night curfew. The Polish soldiers sallied forth to the neighbouring villages, seizing grain, livestock and harassing the peasants. The Polish nobles stole many valuables from the treasury of the tsars and started to seize large estates for themselves and their followers. The Polish King Sigismund captured Smolensk and other towns on Russia’s western borders, while the Swedes were occupying Novgorod.

Popular Resistance Led by Minin and Pozharsky

p The foreign invaders were dismembering the Russian state. Something had to be done to save the country before it was too late. Only a widespread popular movement could put an end to 264 this sorry state of affairs. The common people rose to the occasion. Popular resistance began in the cities of northern Russia and was soon to centre on the town of Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga. The movement was organised by the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Kozma Minin (d. 1616). A large army was needed to drive out the Polish invaders and for the upkeep of such an army a great deal of money was required. Minin exhorted the people, "Do not spare anything, we must not hesitate to sell our houses, hire out our wives and children and gather in money for wages to pay the soldiers.” From all parts of the country men brought Minin money, valuables and produce. The people sacrificed their last possessions. Many cities sent armed detachments in answer to Minin’s appeal, and soon a large popular army was mustered.

p The experienced commander Prince Dmitry Pozharsky (c. 1578-1642) was chosen to lead the army. The administrative side of the campaign and the treasury were in the hands of Minin. In 1612 the Russian forces marched to Yaroslavl, where they were joined by forces from other towns.

p Soon alarming news reached Minin and Pozharsky. Large detachments of Poles well supplied with arms and victuals and led by hetman Chodkiewicz set out to help the Poles in Moscow. At this news Minin and Pozharsky led their men to Moscow as fast as possible.

There were many peasant and Cossack detachments camped near Moscow at that time since numerous peasant uprisings were still in progress. At first these peasants were unwilling to have anything to do with Pozharsky’s men; part of them moved further afield from Moscow, but the rest eventually joined the common campaign against the foreign invaders. These reinforcements decided the outcome of the struggle. Chodkiewicz was beaten back and the Poles encamped in Moscow then had no one to turn to. Minin and Pozharsky’s army laid siege to Moscow. At the end of November the Poles were defeated once and for all and driven out of the city. Such was the ignominious conclusion of their sally into Russia, where they were defeated by the concerted efforts of the common people.