Readings in Russian civilization: Vol. 1: Russia Before Peter the Great, 900-1700 9780226718439, 9780226718538

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION (page ix)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (page xi)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (page xiii)
1 THE RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE (page 1)
2 MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN LAWS (page 12)
3 THE CHRONICLE OF NOVGOROD (page 29)
4 *THE DIG AT NOVGOROD (VALENTINE YANINE, page 47)
5 RUSSIAN EPICS (page 60)
6 FEUDALISM IN RUSSIA (GEORGE VERNADSKY; L. V. CHEREPNIN, page 69)
7 THE KURBSKY-IVAN THE TERRIBLE CORRESPONDENCE (page 86)
8 IVAN GROZNY (ROBERT WIPPER, page 98)
9 *THE DEBATE ON IVAN THE TERRIBLE IN 1956 (page 110)
10 THE LIFE OF ST. SERGIUS (ST. EPIPHANIUS, page 118)
11 AVVAKUM'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY (page 128)
12 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH SCHISM (SERGE ZENKOVSKY, page 141)
13 THE LAW CODE OF 1649 (page 154)
14 *MUSCOVITE-WESTERN COMMERCIAL RELATIONS (page 162)
15 THE MONGOL IMPACT ON RUSSIA (GEORGE VERNADSKY, page 173)
16 THE FRONTIER (B. H. SUMNER, page 194)
17 THE PROBLEM OF OLD RUSSIAN CULTURE (GEORGES FLOROVSKY; NIKOLAY ANDREYEV; JAMES BILLINGTON, page 213)
CHRONOLOGY (page xv)
CORRELATION TABLES (page xxi)
INDEX (page xxvii)

Citation preview

Readings in Russian Civilization

VOLUME I

RUSSIA BEFORE PETER THE GREAT, 900-1700

|C |R ] lf | EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES, BY

THOMAS RIHA

SECOND EDITION, REVISED

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO AND LONDON

ISBN: 0-226-71853-0 (paperbound) LCN: 69-14825 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1964, 1969 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved First published 1964

Second edition, revised, 1969 | 00 99 98 97 96 9S 94 910111213 14

Printed in the United States of America €9 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

CONTENTS __voLuMEI

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION | xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi 1 THE RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE ]

2 MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN LAWS 12 3 THE CHRONICLE OF NOVGOROD 29 4 *THE DIG AT NOVGOROD VALENTINE YANINE 47

o RUSSIAN EPICS 60 6 FEUDALISM IN RUSSIA 69 GEORGE VERNADSKY; L. V. CHEREPNIN

7 THE KURBSKY-IVAN THE TERRIBLE 86 CORRESPONDENCE

8 IVAN GROZNY RosBert WIPPER 98 9 *THE DEBATE ON IVAN THE TERRIBLE IN 1956 110

10 THE LIFE OF ST. SERGIUS ST. EPIPHANIUS 118 *Items added in 2d edition. z

vi Contents , 11 AVVAKUM’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 128 12 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH SCHISM SERGE ZENKOVSKY 14)

13 THE LAW CODE OF 1649 154 14 *MUSCOVITE-WESTERN COMMERCIAL RELATIONS 162 15 THE MONGOL IMPACT ON RUSSIA Grorce VERNADSKY 173

16 THE FRONTIER | B. H. SUMNER 194. 17 THE PROBLEM OF OLD RUSSIAN CULTURE | 213 GEORGES FLorovsky; NIKOLAY ANDREYEV; JAMES BILLINGTON

CHRONOLOGY XV CORRELATION TABLES Xxi

INDEX _ Xxvii

CONTENTS VOLUME II

18 RUSSIA UNDER PETER THE GREAT John Perry 19 LOMONOSOV Boris Menshutkin 20 CATHERINE THE GREAT’S “INSTRUCTIONS” 21 *THE LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION OF 1767 — Sergei Solov’ev 22 A JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW Alexander Radishchev

23 MEMOIR ON ANCIENT AND MODERN RUSSIA

24 THE DECEMBRISTS Nicholas Karamzin

25 APOLOGY OF A MADMAN Peter Chaadaev 26 LETTER TO GOGOL Vissarion Belinsky 27 YOUNG MOSCOW ~—§ Alexander Herzen

28 WHAT IS OBLOMOVISM? _ Nikolai Dobrolyubov 29 GOING TO THE PEOPLE _ Katerina Breshkovskaia 30 *FROM A VILLAGE DIARY — Gleb Uspenskii 31 KILLING AN EMPEROR _ David Footman 32 A SLAVOPHILE STATEMENT — Ivan Aksakov 33. THE SLAV ROLE IN WORLD CIVILIZATION

Nikolai Danilevsky 34 THE FALSEHOOD OF DEMOCRACY Konstantin Pobedonostsev 385 RUSSIAN LIBERALS ~~ Paul Milyukov

36 *INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN THE 1880's , 37 AN ECONOMIC POLICY FOR THE EMPIRE Sergei Witte 38 THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA _ Richard Pipes 39 *SPEECH FROM THE THRONE Nicholas II 40 *THE GOVERNMENT’S DECLARATION

TO THE FIRST DUMA | |

41 *WE NEED A GREAT RUSSIA _ Peter Stolypin 42 MEMORANDUM TO NICHOLAS II Peter Durnovo 43 THE NATURE OF IMPERIAL RUSSIAN SOCIETY Cyril Black; Hugh Seton-Watson CHRONOLOGY CORRELATION TABLES INDEX *Items added in 2d edition.

vil

CONTENTS VOLUME III

44. *TESTIMONY ON THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION General Sergei Khabalov 45 *THE RUSSIAN VILLAGE, SUMMER 1917 46 RUSSIA’S ONE-DAY PARLIAMENT _ Victor Chernov

47 DAYS WITH LENIN Maxim Gorky

48 *DOWN WITH FACTIONALISM! Nikolai Bukharin

49 THE HISTORY OF A SOVIET COLLECTIVE FARM Fedor Belov 50 »Pand sB(7eoffici who cial 8ivin onging to th haSs

xX rticles rries ptive Ow li elon . nts! SANT t.E

€gal roced, rid land sb e ve fl gess,° votchi T ed

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© anes eo areces) eal iam context of i

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_T ya e P vill and pursui ire nd asa av

XK artic MoO ourt riarch’ agricu whi such who who 3a Ne slong, to rede). k IVmiles) nay ster (Ch Ssrticom ltur chongi b ng aseng age i wor he were and ands bel to the T el articl( (Kissi 3“ nmen mai from to T asin clud xv. Le te ath ancelleryseinen P oands elggngpacer” C gal C. es) Ing th (7 the pmental prainiain thes him well «e

XVI oncluded ases Whi eC an metro ctions the co- © The i s ° Pom ross ) wh off the politan cials” urttwo an ccurees XVi. arti est’e (5a ch H fu ere OTe § mona s, the includ d certain ces y. ticles) (aries) Bee psiclly archi the

otchi. ice) n 6 he asant y pe ote thet t patri XVIII (55 ina (H Land he lat votchin rmitted hat hee ariareh IX, Po al 1Tax cles ;,(6 ater orici i to ow reco no- ) XIX. T.)redi ered inniki recon ops tary9) sle cheG laKi Kiev ginal ere h verare heis X Posadakic (71 Land legance, ¢ lando and vorchiné dat elr , X. Le Ly udi rticles) of eeeed Mongol dated landPiarticle P s) (To the state" he ofprocess the servic lit eriods from

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t t ° D en ; t S th N P Ts (104. > Th umph r, wl she d to dis

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butotrve D enalt D po of chi heenon disese ty and ese rv who .whil hel€dmesh thei votchi ed -t The SEV he en-

Sotethang thwin Whic the ikiTawei revi > omeeld their i we chi ‘the revival

XXIi. arti uld B° unish eath ch D pomeshchl vdholdin serv}e landh ver th° articles) Adenintcte enaly rendering ngdiservice het (po.

XXIV. di The. Stre iniste Thic 3 chil q ior n toapport ervice or oth the(mi omest y older ( 3rticl “sy (P red ; Se men) “pain therwise di thd e At rofessi ice. sup his isco nonly the e Co mee alf of rigins asis of t vend the inor ans ) nal Ss se te, wh, was ent ed to idow sas ued (2articl am. es S10 sta hi ionm pose wi inu ntin thethe fifteen th Serine on es) and th ol- ssa econest’ya dh oseinoO “o others ane sma whoin i ed: the Jon ¢ ry.ry G to t ep ger Pid ynth entu radu urn ea©tredita userv Ww san ne y> as tsvotchi tion eandall pthpee serve d in edy 4sth

ck S ya th ft n b es in e tate. ndholderr

| Send, becam e se eenth e tr service- ser-

156 Law Code of 1649 In the original text the following ranks are average of 78 peasant households on his lands. enumerated; in Chapter XVI each rank was According to the Ulozhenie each was entitled entitled to a specific minimum amount of — to 100 chetverti of land in Moscow province, land in Moscow province, the income from in addition to the land he might have elsewhich was intended to maintain the individ- | where.

ual in service: /) Stryapchie: members of the fifth court

a) Boyare: nobles of the highest rank. They rank. In the seventeenth century they were commanded the army and presided over the found mainly in supply positions and working government chancelleries (the prikazy), as in the government chancelleries. They were well as advised the tsar in the Boyar Council. supposed to protect the court peasants from There were more than 30 boyars in 1649, but harm, while others waited on the tsar, carried only 15 signed the Ulozhenie because of a split his sword, etc. Still others served the boyare in their ranks. Each boyarin was entitled to and okolnichie and some held secondary po-

at least 200 chetverti of land in Moscow sitions in embassies and on military cam-

province; they usually had 1,000 chetverti and paigns. There were 800-900 of them in the more. (A chetvert? was about one and one- mid-seventeenth century. In 1638 the average

third acres.) stryapchiit “owned” twenty-four households.

b) Okolnichie: nobles of the second high- He also was entitled to 100 chetverti of land est service rank. They worked in the govern- in Moscow province. ment chancelleries, served as military gov- zg) Moscow dvoryane: men who often had ernors and ambassadors, were members of the been promoted to service in Moscow from the tsar’s council. They prepared the tsar’s jour- _ provinces and thus became the bottom stratum neys and presented foreign ambassadors to of the ruling elite of Russia. There were about the tsar. There were twenty okolnichie in the 1,000 of them in the mid-seventeenth century Boyar Council in 1668. They were entitled to and they served as ambassadors, military 150 chetverti of land in the Ulozhenie, but governors, court officials, army commanders,

usually had more. and worked in the government chancelleries. c) Dumnye Lyudi: other people, in addition They had an average of 29 peasant households to the boyare and okolnichie, who advised the each and were entitled to a minimum of 100 tsar in the Boyar Duma and held important chetverti of land in Moscow province.

positions in the leading chancelleries. They h) D’yaki: early in Russian history they included the dumnye d’yaki, non-noble pro- were personal servants of the prince, often fessional government servants in the seven- bondmen; they kept the treasury and handled teenth century usually in charge of the most correspondence. Their importance grew as important chancelleries (Foreign Affairs, Mili- | government chancelleries developed in the six-

tary, and Service Land), and the dumnye _ teenth century. In the seventeenth century they dvoryane, members of the third service rank. usually administered the chancelleries nomDuring the seventeenth century 42 families inally headed by nobles. They often directed held the lattér title; two were old families, local provincial administration and handled all

the rest of uncertain origin. Each was en- the finances. By the end of the seventeenth titled to a minimum of 150 chetverti of land. century there were about 100 d’yaki. Each The men who sat in the Boyar Council ‘were dyak was entitled to a minimum of 100 the magnates of Muscovy and each had more _ chetverti of land. than an average of 500 peasant households on i) Zhif'tsy: Members of a transitional rank

, their estates. between the Moscow and provincial dvoryane, d) Komnatnye Lyudi: persons who served usually members of the lesser families of the

the tsar in his chamber. former and the upper families of the latter. e) Stol’niki: members of the fourth court They served as the tsar’s bodyguard in his

rank. As early as the thirteenth century they regiment and ran official errands. There were waited on the great prince at table (stol). about 2,000 zhil’tsy in the seventeenth century

Members of the best families served as and each had an average of 14 peasant housestol niki. During Aleksei’s reign their num- holds on his lands in 1638. Each was entitled ber reached 500. Some were in military ser- to at least 50 chetverti of land. vice, others worked in the government chan- j) Provincial dvoryane: members of the celleries. In 1664, 114 stol’niki served at a middle service class who served largely as unit

dinner given for the English ambassador commanders over the deti boyarskie in the Charles Howard. In 1638 each stol’nik had an cavalry. They also played some role in local

Law Code of 1649 — 157 are to be returned to the Tsar’s lands past to receive fugitive peasants—there according to the land cadastres of 1627— was only a time limit for recovering

31° regardless of the urochnye leta.’ them. Therefore the lord of the local These peasants are to be returned with peasant should not be deprived of his their wives, children, and all movable labor, especially as lands have changed

property. hands frequently so that the present lord 2. The same applies to peasants who may not have been the person who rehave fled from votchinniki and pomesh- ceived the fugitives anyway. chiki to other votchinniki and pomesh- 4. All votchinniki, pomeshchiki, and

chiki, or to the towns, to the army, or officials managing the Tsar’s lands to lands belonging to the Tsar.® must have proper documents identifying 3. Fugitive peasants must be returned their peasants in case of dispute. Such with their wives, children, and movable documents must be written by public property, plus their standing grain and _ scribes.’° If there are no public scribes, threshed grain.® But the possessions then they must be written by rural or which the fugitive peasants owned in church clerks. [Illiterate landholders the years prior to this code are not to must have their documents signed by be claimed. If a fugitive peasant gave impartial, trustworthy persons.

his daughter, sister, or niece in mar- 3. Votchinniki and pomeshchiki who riage to a local peasant, do not break did not claim peasants who fled prior to up the marriage. Leave the girl with the 1627 may not do so now because these

local peasant. It was not a crime in the landholders did not petition the Tsar administration, which was, however, under listed above, were usually paid a specified centralized control and direction from Moscow. sum annually. Each was entitled to a minimum of 70 chetverti 6 “The land cadastres of 1627-31” (pistsovye

of land in Moscow province. knigi)—books which recorded the general

k) Deti boyarskie: the bulk of the middle census taken after the fire of 1626 in Moscow service class, the cavalry which made up the destroyed most of the earlier records. For military force of the Muscovite state from the peasants not included in this census (peasants end of the fifteenth century to the mid-1650’s. _ tried to avoid being included to escape taxaThere were about 35,000 members of the _ tion), other sources of legal evidence are listed middle service class at the time of the Uloz- which may be substituted to prove that a parhenie, most of them deti boyarskie. The term ticular peasant belongs on a particular piece literally means “boyar children,” which may of land. mean either that initially they were the sons 7 The urochnye leta—the fifteen-year limit of boyars, or, more likely, simply the retainers on seeking out, finding, and returning fugitive of boyars. By the mid-sixteenth century, at the peasants. After the repeal of the time limit latest, the term had neither of these meanings, there was no way a peasant could legally esrather signifying simply landholding members cape serfdom—attachment to a definite piece

of the cavalry. In the sixteenth century deti of land. ,

boyarskie were recruited from all social mi- 8The complex formula of Article 1, which lieus, including cossacks, peasants, and even applies to peasants who fled from the tsar’s slaves. This avenue of social mobility was lands, is repeated for peasants who have fled closed at the beginning of the seventeenth from others’ lands. century as the rank became hereditary. They ® This action could be taken only after apwere entitled to from 10 to 100 chetverti of propriate legal measures had been effected.

land in Moscow province and had only an 10 The money paid to public scribes for

average of 5.6 peasant households each (of writing and certifying documents was one of those who had any peasants; many did not) the major sources of state revenue. The rates for their support. They, as all other servitors are specified in Chapter XVIII.

158 Law Code of 1649 about their fugitive peasants for so their brothers, nephews, grandsons,

many. years,.!4 wives, movable property, standing grain, 6. Votchinniki and pomeshchiki are and threshed grain without any time

not to be held responsible for the taxes _ limit. Henceforth no one may receive of fugitive peasants who were registered _another’s peasants and harbor them for on their lands in the census of 1646-47 _ himself.

after they have been returned to their 10. Henceforth a person who harbors rightful lords. Future taxes will be col- _another’s peasants must pay the rightful lected from the lords to whom they are lord ten rubles per year for each fugireturned on the basis of the documents __ tive to compensate the plaintiff for his

legalizing the return.?? , lost income and the taxes he paid while 7. A votchinnik who buys a votchina — the peasant was absent and must surhas a right to all the peasants who were render the fugitive peasants to him.?4 inscribed in the land cadastres of 1627— 11. The census records of 1646-47 31. If all such peasants are not on the may be used in disputes over fugitive voichina as listed in the purchase docu- _ peasants in cases where the peasants in ments, the purchaser may take from the _— question or their fathers were not regseller’s other votchiny replacement peas- _ istered in the land cadastres of 1627-31.

ants with all their movable property, 12. If a girl flees after the promultheir standing grain, and their threshed _ gation of this code and marries another

grain.} landholder’s peasant, then her husband

8. All cases concerning fugitive peas- and children will be returned with her _ ants which were settled either by a royal _to her former landholder. The movable decree or by amicable agreement prior property of her husband, however, will

to this code may not be reopened. not be returned with them.'® 9. All peasants who have fled or flee 13. When a widower marries a fugihenceforth from the landholder with tive peasant girl, any children he had _ whom they were registered in the census by a previous marriage will not be books of 1646-47 must be returned with

| without the former, the land was worthless.

11 This provision was enacted to prevent the Article 3 of Chapter XV states that if a extraordinary congestion of the courts which votchinnik permits peasants to move from his would result if any lord who ever lost a peas- votchina, a subsequent votchinnik could not ant by flight were permitted to petition for his | demand the return of the particular peasants

return. who had been permitted to depart. 12 A census was taken in 1646-47. All peas- 14 If one landholder illegally got the bene-

ants found living on a piece of land were in- fits of the work of another landholder’s peasscribed as being subject to taxation there. ant, this provision forced the former to comThe peasant did not pay his taxes directly, pensate the latter for his loss, as well as for but through the landholder, who was subse- the taxes he had to pay for the peasant reyisquently responsible for the collection of all tered on his estate—regardless of whether the taxes due from his landholding. This provision peasant was present and working or not. From

freed the landholder from responsibility for this one can gain some idea of the value of the taxes of those fugitive peasants, registered labor in the mid-seventeenth century. Other

on his lands by the 1646-47 census, who were articles indicate the value of animals.

returned to their proper lords. 15 This is intended to penalize the land18 This provision protects the purchaser of a holder who receives a fugitive by depriving votchina from fraud and guarantees him that him of one of his workers. The peasant also

the number of peasants listed in the purchase _— loses because he would be pauperized by the documents will be there. The number of peas- loss of his property. Note also that an attempt ants was as important as the land itself, for is made to avoid breaking up marriages.

Law Code of 1649 159 surrendered with him to the lord of his 19. Peasant women who are pernew wife, but will remain with the lord. mitted to marry another landholder’s

of his first wife.?® peasant must be given release documents 14. When a plaintiff finds property in which they are precisely described.”

with the fugitive girl, a court will de- 20. When peasants arrive in a votcide the disposition of the property.?” china or in a pomest’e and say that they

15. If a widowed peasant remarries are free people and wish to live with in flight, then both she and her husband the landholder as peasants, the landwill be returned to the lord of her first holder must ascertain the truth of their husband, provided her first husband was claim. Within a year such people must

registered with a landholder. be brought to Moscow or another large 16. If the peasant widow’s first hus- city for certification.”

band was not registered with a land- 21. The lord who did not check careholder, then she must live on the prem- fully whether such people were free ises belonging to the lord of the peasant must pay the plaintiff to whom the

she married. peasants rightfully belong ten rubles 17. If a peasant in flight marries off per year per fugitive to compensate the his daughter, then his son-in-law will be plaintiff for his lost income and the

returned to the landholder of his wife. taxes he paid while the peasant was And if that son-in-law has children by absent.” a first wife, then the children will not 22. Peasant children who deny their be surrendered to the plaintiff.*® parents must be tortured.”° 18. A peasant woman in flight who 23. Those people of any rank who marries will be returned with her hus- give loans to another lord’s peasants to band?® to her former landholder. 20 The release document (otpusknaya gra-

16 Here the marriage is preserved, but the mota) was mandatory so that the landholder

family is broken up. : who released a woman to marry could not then

17 The court had to decide whether the prop- demand her return with her husband under erty belonged to the girl before she fled (in Article 12. Also, as mentioned in note 10, the which case the property would be returned writing of these documents was an important with her to her former lord), or whether the source of government income. property was acquired after the girl fled (in 21 All peasants were supposed to be regiswhich case the property would probably re- tered in the Pomestnyi Prikaz, the governmain with the lord who harbored her). mental chancellery responsible for supervising 18 Strict consistency is maintained in these the pomest’e system of government service legal relationships, but little thought is taken lands. The main office was in Moscow, others of the children, who are viewed only as future were in Kazan, Novgorod, and Pskov. A free workers. Compare this with Article 3 govern- person most likely was one who either had

ing cases originating prior to 1649. escaped census registration or else had fled 19 Four categories of peasants are included the central regions prior to 1627 and therefore

in this provision: | was not listed as a peasant in the Pomestnyi

a) Kabal’nyi chelovek: a contract bondman, Prikaz. ,

usually voluntary, who by law had to be freed 22 A landholder could not escape the penupon the death of his lord. This institution alty of Article 10 by claiming that the fugitive had been changed and codified in a law of he harbored was a free person. 1597, which served as the basis of Chapter XX 23 According to the stipulation of Article 9,

of the Ulozhenie. children were supposed to live where their b) Starinnyi chelovek: a hereditary bond- progenitors were registered by the 1646-47

man who, unlike the kabal’nyi, could be sold, census. This article attempts to inhibit denials

given away, and passed to heirs. by a fugitive of his parents to escape being c) Krest’yanin, and (d) Boby?—see note 1. returned to the fugitive’s lawful lord.

160 | Law Code of 1649 entice them to their lands will lose the each peasant. If a great deal of property loans when the peasants are returned to is involved, assess the damages in a

their rightful lords.*4 , trial.?¢ . 24. The brothers, children, and rela- 26. lf the defendant admits that he

tives of the peasants of some pomeshchi- has the fugitive peasants but denies that

ki and voichinniki were registered in the peasants came to him with any propthe census books as living in the houses _ erty; and if the plaintiff lists the propof their fathers and relatives. After the erty in his suit and then wins the case

census they separated and began to by an oath, award him five rubles for live by themselves in their own houses. the movable property of each peasant The census of 1646-47 was taken under and return the peasants to him. oath by stol’niki and Moscow dvoryane; 27. If someone denies during a trial

if they did it incorrectly, they were that he has someone’s peasant and takes severely punished and others took it a an oath on this, and later the peasant second time. Therefore the census is to _ turns up on his estate, return the peasant

be regarded as just and definitive and to the plaintiff with all the movable after September 1, 1648, no one may property listed in the suit. Beat the false complain that lords attempted to con- oath taker with the knout for three days

ceal households by such doubling up in the market place as an example to

to reduce their taxes.?5 others and then jail him for a year.?’ 25. In a suit involving peasants and Henceforth do not believe him in any

over fifty rubles of peasant movable matter and do not grant him a trial property or property to which no value against anyone for anything.

is assigned by the plaintiff, if the de- 28. The children of peasants who are fendant does not admit that the peasants _ taken from a defendant and surrendered

are on his estate, the case can be de-_ to a plaintiff by a court order must cided by taking an oath. If the de- be surrendered even though they were fendant loses he must pay four rubles not inscribed in the land cadastres of apiece for each peasant listed in the 1627-31—provided they are living with suit and five rubles for the property of their parents and not separately. _ 29. A defendant who denies in legal 24 Qne way wealthier landholders recruited

their labor force was by granting loans to years after the census, however, the governneedy peasants. This provision is one of the ment decided that all such cases had been disexpressions of the fact that the Ulozhenie was _ covered and it was willing therefore to rest written for the benefit of the middle service on the results as revised. class, whose members could not afford to 26 Muscovite legal practice assumed that no

grant loans to the peasants. one would lie while under oath. But, if he did,

25 As mentioned in note 12, the landholders _see Article 27. Note that a man is valued at were responsible for the taxes of the peasants. less than the movable property the legislators Taxes rarely were assessed on individual peas-- assumed, on the average, he would own. A ants, but rather on a whole commune, either recent study indicates, however, that in fact

on the amount and quality of land under’ the average fugitive peasant actually took cultivation or on the number and income of about 30 rubles’ worth of his own property

the households in the commune. One way to with him. reduce the latter tax was to combine house- 27 A trend noticeable in the Ulozhenie is a holds while a census was being taken. The harshening of the penalties. In early Russian government encouraged the submission of de- history a fine was levied for almost all crimes; nunciations of this illegal practice and some- corporal and capital punishment were comtimes would turn over the concealed peasants mon features of Russian justice by the midto the lord who had “discovered” them. Two seventeenth century.

Law Code of 1649 16] proceedings that he has another’s peas- themselves out to work for people of

ants and property, but then under oath ll ranks, but the latter may not hire confesses that he has the peasants on them on condition of servitude or bondhis estate, but continues to deny having age. When the hirelings finish their the property, must pay for the property work, they must be discharged without as well as return the peasants because any hindrance.*°

he lied about the peasants.” 33. Bondmen and peasants who flee

30. Votchinniki and pomeshchiki may abroad and then return to Russia can-

not transfer their pomest’e peasants to not claim that they are free men, but their votchiny and thus lay waste their must be returned to their former vot- ,

pomest’ya.”® chinniki and pomeshchiki.*

31. If peasants are transferred from 34. When fugitive peasants of differa pomest’e to a votchina and subse- ent landowners marry abroad, and then quently the pomest’e is granted to an-_ return to Russia, the landholders will other pomeshchik, then the new holder cast lots for the couple. The winning of the pomest’e may petition the Tsar pomeshchik gets the couple and must for the return of the peasants to his pay five rubles to the landholder who pomest’e with their movable property, lost because both of the peasants were in

standing grain, and threshed grain. flight abroad. 32. Peasants may voluntarily hire 28 According to the sense of Articles 3 and Bound to the land they were serfs, if to the 12, a landholder who willingly surrendered lord’s person, they would have been close to fugitive peasants probably could keep the _ slaves. property acquired while the fugitive was with 30 Chapter XX of the Ulozhenie stipulated

him. that a free person who lived with or worked

29 Most of the largest landholders had both for someone for a period exceeding three pomestya and votchiny. A law of 1556 re- months automatically became the latter’s bondquired owners of votchiny and holders of man, kabal’nyi chelovek. A person might do pomest’ya to render equal military service. this voluntarily to escape taxation. The purNevertheless transferring peasants from a__ pose of this article was to ensure that the peaspomest’e to a votchina in the eyes of the law ant supporting a lord and paying taxes did

removed them from the state’s labor force not fall inte bondage. available for assignment to any _ servitor- 81 A bondman (kholop) who returned from pomeshchik, Article 30 is another indication foreign captivity to Russia was considered a that the peasants were legally bound to the free man. The peasant serf did not enjoy this

land, not to the person of the landholder. privilege.

MUSCOVITE-—WESTERN

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS Russians of the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries had contact with only three or four types of Westerners: closely watched diplomats and travelers, technical

specialists hired for very high wages, mercenaries retained for specific wars, and merchants. The last, from England, the Netherlands, former Hansa towns, and

elsewhere, hoped to obtain items in transit from the Orient and Russian raw materials: hemp, tar, flax, timbers and other ships stores, hides, skins and furs, tallow and fats, potash, caviar, rhubarb, train-oil, linseed, grain, and metals. In exchange the foreigners brought broadcloth and other textiles, munitions, luxury goods, and precious metals. The foreigners were not content to trade with the Russians at the major points and ports of entry, Narva, Pskov, and Arkhangelsk, but established buying and selling networks inside Russia, employing many smaller Russian merchants. The Russian merchants felt they could not compete with the foreigners. Therefore they began a petition campaign in 1627 to put an end to the practice going on since

the time of Ivan IV of foreigners coming into the Muscovite state via the White Sea, and to a lesser extent the Baltic, which was under the control of Sweden. The merchants submitted additional petitions to the government against foreigners in 1635, 1637, 1639, 1642, 1646, 1648-49 (reproduced below), and 1667.

The tsar’s court and the aristocracy liked the luxury goods the foreigners brought, and the high officials (such as those of the Foreign Affairs Chancellery) did not want to part with the bribes the foreigners paid, so the government was reluctant to put an end to the privileged position of the foreign merchants. Nevertheless the great merchants capitalized on the feeling against foreigners prevalent in Russia after the Time of Troubles (1598-1618) and coerced the government into expelling the English in 1649 (on the pretext of the regicide) and the other foreigners by decrees of 1654 and 1667. This caused considerable hardship and suffering among the large numbers of lesser merchants who had acted as agents

for the foreigners. The government turned a deaf ear to their petitions. The best economic history of Russia is Peter Lyashchenko’s History of the National Economy of Russia to the 1917 Revolution. Arne Ohberg in “Russia and the World Market in the Seventeenth Century,” Scandinavian Economic History

Review, Vol. III (1955), No. 2, discusses the products Russia exported. The English involvement in the Muscovy trade is discussed by T. 5. Willan in two books, The Muscovy Merchants of 1555 and The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553-1603. An older account is by Mildred Wretts-Smith, “The English in Russia during the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Transactions of the

162

Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations 163 Royal Historical Society, 4th series, Vol. [V (1920). The standard work for many

years was by Armand J. Gerson, “The Organization and Early History of the Muscovy Company,” in his and others’ Studies in the History of English Commerce in the Tudor Period. See also Nicholas Casimir, “The English in Muscovy during the Sixteenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol.

VII (1878), which contains a number of interesting documents. The theme is continued in an article by I. I. Liubimenko, “The Struggle of the Dutch with the English for the Russian Market in the Seventeenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, Vol. VII (1924). Her article in Vol. I (1918) of the same publication, “The Correspondence of the First Stuarts with the First Romanovs,” is also relevant. Walther Kirchner’s Commercial Relations between

Russia and Europe, 1400 to 1800: Collected Essays presents his work of two decades on the subject. A. more specialized study is the one by R. H. Fisher, The Russian Fur Trade, 1550-1700.

Much information about both Russia and the foreigners themselves can be found in contemporary travel accounts, some of which were written by merchants.

An old but still valuable summary can be found in Iosif Kristianovich Gamel’ (Hamel), Early English Voyages to Northern Russia. Perhaps the most interesting travel accounts (Giles Fletcher, Jerome Horsey, Anthony Jenkinson, and others)

were published by the Hakluyt Society; some of these are currently being republished. English translations of the privilege charters the Russians granted the foreigners are presented in some of the travel accounts.

Petition of the stol’niki, stryapchie, because the Moscow gosti*? and merdvoryane, and deti boyarskie, petitioned chants in sundry markets and enterprises

merchants on forbidding foreign mer- have perished and been completely chants to trade in Russian towns, with ruined by the foreigners. Furthermore the exception of Arkhangelsk. _ the same foreigners, being in the Mus-

Written in a report (doklad) .* covite state, gather much intelligence

In the current year September 1, 1648 and write all kinds of things to their —August 31, 1649 the stol’niki, stryap- own countries.

chie, Moscow dvoryane, provincial The gosti and the merchants submit- | dvoryane, and deti boyarskie, petitioned ted a [separate] petition on this matter the Sovereign Tsar and Great Prince to the Sovereign Tsar and Great Prince Aleksei Mikhailovich of All Rus’. In Aleksei Mikhailovich of All Rus’, and

their petition was written [their re- wrote in their petition: quest] that the Sovereign order foreign- It was only recently that many for-

ers not to trade any wares in Moscow, |

and that the Sovereign order trading 1The report is not dated but must have

with foreigners [be confined] to Ark- been compiled before the Zemskii Sobor (ashangelsk; that the Sovereign order that sembly of the land) which adjourned in late

foreigners not be allowed to leave Ark- J ostt: aid 1649. here of top th hant euild members of the merchan lid.

hangelsk for Moscow and other towns There were 20-30 of them in the seventeenth

century. In exchange for major trading privi-

Translated and edited by Richard Hellie leges in Russia and unhampered travel abroad from Sbornik Kniazia Khilkowa (St. Peters- they performed various financial services for

burg, 1879), pp. 238-55. the government.

164 Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations eigners of various states began to come __ privilege charters given them [the now

from Arkhangelsk and through Nov- deceased], agents of merchants of other gorod and Pskov to Moscow and other countries have come to Moscow. They towns in the Muscovite state to sell theit sell these same privilege charters among own overseas wares and to buy Russian _‘themselves abroad and falsely claim to goods. These foreigners in the Muscovite be of the same family. They sell what-

state have engaged in many trading ever happens to be purchased from them operations in Moscow and in various’ for the Sovereign’s use at the highest towns, are selling their own goods and possible price. They live in Moscow buying Russian wares for the same cus- without paying property taxes. If the toms duties [as before],? and are paying _ price is falling on some of their oververy small customs duties to the state seas wares in Moscow, they write about by comparison with the Russian mer- this to their partners and employers so chants. They have driven away the gostt _ that they will not send these wares to and merchants from their foreign goods Arkhangelsk. When the prices on these and enterprises so that [the Russians] overseas wares rise in Moscow, they have ceased going to Arkhangelsk with order them to buy up these wares abroad their goods and money because of their _to keep the price high. Their partners

_ interference. [The foreigners] outbid and employers reply to them about the them for goods in Moscow and in the goods and deliberately send people towns and do not let them [the Rus- through Pskov and Novgorod to buy up sians] buy. They sell their own overseas the wares [already on the market] for goods in Rus’ for high prices. The for- which there is a great demand and sell eigners have begun to import into Rus’ their own for a high price. All we Ruspoor quality stretched cloth, not the sian merchants of the Muscovite state same as they imported earlier. They also have suffered great interference in the have begun to import various other yard markets from these foreigners living in goods which are of poor quality by com- Moscow. Many [other] overseas merparison with earlier years and they keep _ chants have ceased going to Arkhangelsk

the price high by comparison with for- for this reason, and it is impossible for mer years because they are living in others to begin going because these forMoscow without paying taxes. In Ark- eigners travel to Moscow and buy up hangelsk and in Moscow a large amount _ the goods they need in Rus’. They buy of royal customs duties are not collected up overseas and in Arkhangelsk secretly from them because they sell many em- and without paying any duty the overbroidered goods secretly, without pay- seas goods which are needed and for ing the duty. The foreigners, English which there is a demand and [a good] and a few Dutch, went to Moscow from price in Moscow, causing a great loss

Arkhangelsk on the basis of charters to the royal customs. The merchants granting them this privilege because have perished completely because of they brought to the former sovereigns them. Other foreigners come to Arkof blessed memory various embroidered _hangelsk but do not send their agents

and high quality textiles, sundry high to the upper Volga towns, and _ these quality goods, drink, and whole spices. foreigners also suffer great hindrance;

For these they charged only their cost, ; lich had been deprived of

without profit. Those foreigners died ,,°% 2646 the Engl had ben dpe long ago. After them, using the same state.

Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations 165 they do not want to go to Arkhangelsk the right to come to Moscow and all the in the future because of the interference towns of the Muscovite state. They could

resulting from the fact that their broth- trade duty free.’ ,

ers, the overseas foreigners, are living In 1567/68 his royal privilege charter in Moscow and in other towns without was given by the Tsar and Great Prince

paying taxes. Would the Sovereign Ivan Vasil’evich of All Rus’ to the grant them, the gosti and merchants, English merchant Vilim Gart® and his that the overseas foreigners should be colleagues. In the charter it was written ordered not to be allowed to come from that he, the Great Sovereign, had Arkhangelsk and Pskov with their wares granted the English merchants the right to Moscow and to the other towns, not to _to come in ships to his state, to Kholmo-

be allowed to trade in Rus’ and not to gory,° to the Dvina Land, and to all his buy Russian goods in Moscow and in royal patrimony of the North with sunthe towns, except in Arkhangelsk and dry wares, to Moscow, and to all the Pskov? And would the Sovereign order towns. They could trade duty free. The them, the gosti and merchants, to trade Sovereign also granted the English merwith the foreigners in Arkhangelsk, as chants [a monopoly so] that no merit was earlier, so that the overseas for- chant from any other state could come eigners will not multiply in the Mus- on any ship, boat, or vessel to any har-

covite slate... ? bor in Kholmogory, on the Ob’ river, A memorandum on foreign trade was in Vargav, on the Pechora, on the Kuloi, sent from the Foreign Affairs Chancel- on the Mezen’, on the Pechenga, to Solo-

lery which states: in 1563/64, during vetskii Island, in all the estuaries of the the reign of the Sovereign Tsar and Dvina river, and in the whole Dvina disGreat Prince of blessed memory Ivan trict of the North. If they come from Vasil’evich of All Rus’, his royal privi- any other countries [besides England], lege charter was granted to the English confiscate their goods for the Sovermerchant Saven’yan Garat‘ and his col- _ eign.?°

leagues.° The Great Sovereign granted In 1571/72 a third royal privilege them freedom to travel in ships to the charter was granted by the Tsar and

Muscovite state via the Dvina Land® Great Prince Ivan Vasil’evich of All Rus’ with sundry wares and they were given to the English merchant Savel’ Garat"

4 William Garrard, d. 1571. A wealthy Lon- those which were; for goods to be sold inside don merchant, Governor of the Russia Co. for Russia 10 per cent ad valorem was charged.

several years before his death. The Regulations came shortly after a severe

5 Actually the first charter granted to West- debasement of Russian currency, and foreignern merchants was presented to Richard Chan- ers were ordered to pay in hard currency

cellor in 1555. | which was unobtainable. This would force

6 The basin of the Northern Dvina River. them to abstain from trade within Russia. 71In the sixteenth century foreigners paid 8 William Garrard mentioned above; _foran ad valorem duty of 1 per cent upon enter- eigners often had more than one name in ing Russia, 3.5-5 per cent when selling an Russia. item, plus other minor duties and tolls. These ® A major trading city upstream from Arkcharges were higher than those paid by Rus- _hangelsk. sians. The Trade Regulations of 1653 raised 10 This was the high point of English privithe rates to 2 per cent at the point of entry, leges which were reduced when the English and 6 per cent upon sale. The New Trade government did not respond to Ivan’s political Regulations of 1667 charged 4 per cent on overtures. goods which were not weighed, 5 per cent on 12 William Garrard.

166 Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations and his comrades. They were permitted privilege charter to her merchants. He

to come in their ships to the Dvina had ordered added to the charter the Land, to Moscow, and to all the towns new favorable articles about which she of the Muscovite state and to trade had written. He permitted them to travel freely.1? They could go to Kazan’ and_ on the road [through Russia] to trade Astrakhan with the Sovereign’s knowl- in all states, to Kazan’ and to Astrakhan,

edge. They were to pay half of the to all states beyond the Caspian Sea to [usual] customs duties on their wares. Persia, to Bukhara, and to all foreign

When Tsar and Great Prince Fedor _ states. ,

Ivanovich of All Rus’ became sovereign In 1600/01 the English Queen Elizaof the Muscovite state he wrote to the beth wrote to Tsar Boris in care of her English Queen Elizabeth that he as sov- ambassador Prince Rytsar Lee’® on the ereign had granted the English mer- free trade of her English merchant subchants [the right] to trade in his state jects and on permitting [them to travel] on the basis of the last charter granted through the Muscovite state to Persia, during the reign of his father, the Sov- Bukhara, and other eastern states. By

ereign Tsar and Great Prince Ivan royal decree the ambassador was told Vasil’evich of All Rus’, in 1571/72, in answer that the Sovereign, for Queen signed by Diak Andrei Shchelkalov. Elizabeth, granted her merchants _per_In 1586/87 at the request of the Eng- mission to come into his dominions and lish Queen Elizabeth a royal privilege ship harbors, to trade freely in all comcharter was granted by Tsar and Great modities duty free on the basis of the Prince Fedor Ivanovich of All Rus’ to privilege charter granted to the merthe English merchants Sir Uland*® and = chant Fryanchik Chirei.1?7 At that time Tomas Smit** and his colleagues. They permission [to travel] to other states in

could trade in Moscow and in all the the east was repealed. towns of the Muscovite state and it was In the past year 1606/07, the English decreed that no customs duties were to King James wrote to the Sovereign Tsar

be collected from them. and Great Prince Vasilii Ivanovich of In 1588/89 it was written from the All Rus’ in care of his messenger Ivan

Sovereign Tsar and Great Prince Fedor UI’yanov*® on the free trade of his sub-

Ivanovich of All Rus’ to Queen Eliza- jects, the English merchants. By a debeth in care of her ambassador Elizar cree of Tsar Vasilii Ivanovich of All Fletcher’® that he, the Great Sovereign, Rus’ it was written to King James that

for her, Queen Elizabeth, had ordered he, the Sovereign, had granted his granted, according to her request, a ([James’s] merchants free trade without

; oo, payment of duty and ordered them given

12 This means trading without any regulation of prices or commodities to be exchanged and published a travel account entitled Voyage

as opposed to trading duty free. and Entertainment in Russia.

13 Sir Rowland Heyward, d. 1593. Mayor 15 Giles Fletcher (1548-1611) ; English Am(1570-71) and M.P. for London (1572-81). basador to Russia in 1588, author of Of the Governor of the Russia Co. for several years. Ruse Commonwealth, recently reprinted in He received the charter with Jerome Horsey, two separate editions by Cornell and Harvard whose account of a trip to Russia is available | University Presses. in Sir Edward Bond (ed.), Russia at the Close 16 Sir Richard Lee, sent as Ambassador to

of the Sixteenth Century. Boris Godunov in 1600-1601.

14 Sir Thomas Smith, Governor of the Russia 17 Sir Francis Cherry, in Russia from the

Co. in 1600 and 1611. He represented King 1850's to the 1610's. .

James I as Ambassador to Russia in 1604-5, 18 Sir John Merick.

Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations 167 his royal privilege charter. It was not | On the basis of these royal privilege written in these royal privilege charters charters English merchants and_ their how many English merchants were per- aides, arriving in the Muscovite state,

mitted to trade in the Muscovite state. have traded in sundry wares without In the past year 1614/15, the English paying duty through 1647/48. In the King James wrote to the Great Sov- past year 1647/48, by the royal decree ereign Tsar and Great Prince of blessed of Tsar and Great Prince Aleksei Mikmemory Mikhail Fedorovich of All Rus’ hailovich of All Rus’, it was ordered

in care of his ambassador Prince Ivan that full customs duty should be colMerik, Knight,!® on the free trade of lected from the English merchants and

his subjects, the English merchants. their aides on their transactions, as According to his royal decree his royal from other foreigners. It is not spelled privilege charter was given to the Eng- out specifically for what services these lish merchant Sir Tomas Smit, 16 men royal privilege charters were granted and their retinue. He, the Sovereign, to the English merchants, but [the folgranted them permission to come in lowing] is noted in the Foreign Affairs ships to the Muscovite state, to the Books: as the English Queen Elizabeth Dvina Land, to all the towns of the Mus- wrote in the past year 1600/01 to Tsar covite state, to Moscow, to Novgorod, to Boris in care of her ambassador Prince Pskov, and to all states with any wares Rytsar Lee, on the unregulated trade of and to trade freely without payment of the English merchants, in that letter of

duty. the Queen it is written that in earlier In the past year 1627/28 the royal years the trade at the Port of Arkhanprivilege charter of Tsar and Great gelsk was given solely to her English Prince Mikhail Fedorovich of All Rus’ merchants. Besides the English mer-

and his royal father, the Great Sovereign chants of no other countries came to the Most Holy Patriarch Filaret Nikitich that port and did not trade in the Musof Moscow and All Rus’ was given to covite state because the English had the English merchants, Sir John Merick, discovered the port only with great Knight, and his retinue, 23 men. Ac- losses and for that reason the privilege cording to this royal privilege charter charter was given to them.

they were permitted to come by ship After that, in the past year 1614/15, to the port of Arkhangelsk in the Dvina when the English ambassador Ivan Uly-

Land as before; from the port they anov”® was in audience with the Sovcould travel to all the towns of the ereign Tsar and Great Prince of blessed Muscovite state, to Velikii Ustyug, Vo- memory Mikhail Fedorovich and was logda, Yaroslavl’, Moscow, Novgorod, answered by the boyars, Fedor IvanoPskov, and to all [foreign] states with vich Sheremetev and his colleagues. sundry wares. They could trade freely In the speeches of the boyars and the without paying any duty. If other Eng- foreign affairs officials it was written lish merchants came to the Muscovite that the Great Sovereign Tsar and Great state in excess [of the number in the] Prince of blessed memory Ivan Vasilprivilege charter, the same customs duty evich of All Rus’ had granted and orwas to be collected from these people dered that the English merchants be on their wares as was collected from given his royal charter, that they could

other foreigners. trade duty free in the Muscovite state, 19 Sir John Merick. 20 Sir John Merick.

168 Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations and could travel to Persia. Furthermore, fort the Sovereign’s affairs in their own no merchants of other states, besides lands. According to these royal privilege

them, could come to Arkhangelsk be- charters they were permitted to come cause, seeking routes to the East Indies, to the Muscovite state to the ship dock to the Chinese state, they sailed into the [in Arkhangelsk], to Moscow, and to Dvina estuary where Arkhangelsk now the towns with sundry wares and they

is and found the harbor. In addition, were to trade freely. The full customs

it was decreed that the Dutch and the duties are to be collected on their wares. Hamburgers could come and trade in Many of these merchants do not come to the Muscovite state on the basis of royal Moscow, but [other] Dutch and Ham-

privilege charters. | burgers are trading instead of them, In the past year 1613/14 the royal claiming to be their relatives and agents, privilege charter of Tsar and Great and they come to Moscow on the basis Prince Mikhail Fedorovich of All Rus’ of the earlier privilege charters. Other was given to Mark Markov”! and his Dutch merchants, coming to Moscow, three colleagues of the Netherlands to traded on the basis of travel documents, replace an earlier privilege charter given and they do not have royal privilege them during the reign of Tsar Vasilii charters. They pay duties on their wares

Ivanovich of All Rus’. In it they were in full.... permitted to come to the Muscovite In the past year 1630/31 the Danish state to the ship harbor in Ust’ Kola,??, ambassador Maltens?® was in Moscow

to the Dvina, to the town of Arkhan- and submitted a petition to the Sovgelsk, to Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, ereign and asked the boyars that Danish and other towns with sundry wares and merchants be allowed to travel freely in to trade freely. It was ordered that half the Muscovite state, to Novgorod, Pskov, customs duty should be collected from Arkhangelsk, to Moscow, by overland them. Royal privilege charters were and water routes with sundry wares and

given to other Dutch and Hamburg to trade freely as previously. [He also merchants, Karp Demulin?® and his ten asked] that they be permitted to set up colleagues in various years, from 1613/ houses in these towns.

14 through 1637/38, at the request of By the Sovereign’s decree the Danish the Prince of Holland and the Estates ambassador was told that his Royal General. [Charters were granted] to Majesty, for brotherly friendship and others, by their petitions, for their ser- love of his sovereign King Khrist’-

vice, because they brought into the yanus,?° had ordered 6 or 10 Danish Muscovite state embroidered goods and merchants granted the right to come to

sold them to the royal treasury at cost. Moscow, and had permitted them to They made a profit for the royal treas- buy anything and to put up one house ury,”* they facilitated with aid and com- | 22 On the Kola Peninsula, near present-day 21 Marcus Marcuszoon de Vogelaar, active Murmansk. in the Russia trade until the 1650’s. He and 23 Carl de Moulin, a Dutch merchant tradhis partner, Koenraad van Klinck, had a mo- ing in Russian grain; also manufactured sailnopoly on Russian leather and hemp. The — cloth and potash in Russia.

Dutch traded in a number of small com- 24 The Tsar made a profit of 30-100 per

paniés in contrast to the monopolistic English | cent on the resale of foreign goods. _

Russia Co. The combined capital of the Dutch 25 Juel Malthe. , was at least three times larger than that of 26 Christian IV, King of Denmark and Nor-

‘the English. way 1588-1648.

Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations 169 each in Novgorod, Pskov, and Ark- besides Sweden on trading enterprises, hangelsk. In Moscow a house was pur- and there was none heretofore. Privilege

chased from David Mikolaev, the agent and travel charters were given to the of the Danish King Khrist’yanus who English, Dutch, and Hamburgers for was sent to buy grain. This same David, trading activities depending on the enby a royal order, was permitted to buy terprise, and there are no other docuanother house lot next to his own house ments on this. If the Sovereign would for these Danish merchant citizens. order the overseas foreigners sent out The Sovereign Tsar and Great Prince of the Muscovite state and order that Aleksei Mikhailovich of All Rus’, hav- henceforth Russians must trade with ing heard these extracts, ordered an foreigners in Arkhangelsk, this would interrogation of the elected dvoryane, cause no enmity between foreign states deti boyarskie, gosti, merchants, and and the Muscovite state because the townsmen: If, according to their peti- foreigners themselves are many mertion, the overseas foreigners should be chants of various states; [they] will sent out of Moscow and the other towns all equally have to trade with the Rusof the Muscovite state, and henceforth sian merchants in Arkhangelsk. Much should not be allowed to come to Mos- of what the English told the Sovereign cow and ‘the other towns, and if the is untrue: when in former years, long

Russian people should be ordered to ago, the gosti and merchants traded trade with them only in Arkhangelsk, with foreigners of various states in Arkwould this not result in enmity for the hangelsk there were at that time sundry Muscovite state with foreign states? overseas goods in the Muscovite state The foreigners have loaned the Russians only half as expensive. as now, and the money; if they will be unable to col- wares the foreigners brought were twice lect these debts from the Russians right as good as they now are. Concerning away, then who will pay these debts to the fact that the English were given the foreigners? The foreigners own privilege charters by former sovereigns:

houses in Moscow and the towns; if the English were given these charters there are no buyers for the foreigners’ on the basis of a false petition that houses, who will pay the foreigners for somehow the English had discovered

these houses? the Arkhangelsk harbor. These foreignThereupon the elected dvoryane, deti ers did not find that harbor by any boyarskie, gosti, and merchants were deliberate action: the English were sailinterrogated according to this royal ing to Ivangorod®® and they were carorder. In the interrogation all the elected ried to that harbor by the weather,”°

people said: According to an eternal and they did not find the harbor by a treaty and confirming charter it was deliberate search. The English who were

decreed that only the Swedes could given the privilege charters for that trade [by right] in the Muscovite [discovery] and could trade duty free state.27 There is no eternal treaty of the in all the towns in the Muscovite state Sovereign with any other foreign state opposite the town of Narva, about ten miles 27 There were two “eternal” treaties allow- from the Gulf of Finland. Built by Ivan III ing the Swedes to trade in Russia: the Tiav- in 1492, it was lost to the Swedes in 1581-90, zino (on the river Narva) Treaty of 1595, and and again from 1612 to 1704.

the Stolbovo Treaty of 1617. 29 A glance at the map will show that this 28 On the right bank of the Narva River, claim is preposterous.

170 Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations all died before the destruction of Mos- Muscovite state fine cloth; silks, ‘satins,

cow [in the Time of Troubles]. After taffetas, as they did in the past; to sell the destruction of Moscow, [the Eng- embroidered goods to the sovereign’s lish,] wishing to monopolize the trade treasury at their cost, without profit; in the Muscovite state, got a charter and not to import with them others’ from the Foreign Affairs Chancellery— goods [concealed] as thtir own wares. it is not known why—permitting _23 The English merchants Sir John Merik, English merchants to trade‘in Arkhan- Knight, and his colleagues, who were gelsk and in the towns of the Muscovite permitted to come to the Muscovite state

state. Then 60, 70 and more English to trade at the request of King Charles merchants began to come to the Mus- never appeared. They sold the royal covite state and began to live in the privilege, the charter, to other foreign Muscovite state without paying any merchants. Those merchants brought taxes, as if in their own land, and took into the Muscovite state various poor away various markets from the Rus- quality goods and stretched cloth.*! As sians. Buying Russian wares, the for- a result of this foreign trickery people eigners began to take them to their of various ranks of the entire Muscovite own land duty free. The same English- state suffered great losses in purchasing

men are selling sundry wares to for- [these goods]. They are selling sundry eigners of various lands. They weigh goods to the royal treasury at a great these goods in their own houses on _ profit. The same Englishmen have begun their own balance scales.*° They ship to commit another crime: violating the [goods] on Dutch, Brabant, and Ham- royal privilege charters, they have begun _ burg ships secretly, [claiming that they to sell wares which are not their own, are English bottoms,] thereby stealing [including some] spun with gold, and the royal customs revenue. Here is [yet sundry other goods which are not manuanother] illegal act committed by the factured in their own country, England.

merchants of all foreign states: when For customs purposes they are calling the ships come to town, the foreigners goods of other foreign lands their own do not allow the customs officials to wares and bring them to Moscow duty inspect their goods. They transfer [the free. In Yaroslavl’ they are buying Rus-

goods] from [their] ships to flat- sian leather for Brabant merchants in _ bottomed sailboats without the customs their own name duty free, thereby caus-

workers being present, not telling the ing great harm to the royal customs. senior customs officials about it and not In 1639/40 the customs chief, gosié’ showing [presenting for inspection] the Grigorei Mikitnikov, discovered in the overseas goods. When these goods ar- houses of the foreigners many underive in Moscow and in the towns, they clared goods. For their illegal action

register their wares with the customs they were charged double and more

for a tenth of their value and less. They customs duty. In 1644/45 the English take all these undeclared goods to their merchants presented in the customs houses secretly and steal the sovereign’s house 2114 bolts of cloth from Dutch

customs revenue. . vessels. They said that these were their Here is yet another crime of the Eng- own English cloths, but an investigation

lish: they were ordered to bring to the determined that the cloth belonged to 30 Rather than weighing them in markets State of Russia (1671) claimed that the Dutch on public scales where a fee was charged. supplied Russians with cheap cloth, thus driv31 Samuel Collins in his book, The Present ing out the more expensive English cloth.

Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations 171 Dutchmen, and was not theirs. In 1645/ goods among themselves on their ships

46 the customs head Matvei Vasil’ev in port during the fair without paying found on these same foreigners many duty. They also get wares from these undeclared wares above those registered. overseas foreigners without paying duty

Thus their guilt became clear; they are and register these goods for transit to

calling others’ goods their own; to Moscow as if these goods had come escape the duties they are not declaring to them from overseas. As a result of others’ goods in the customs house. Be- their trickery the royal customs revenue cause of their foreign trickery the vari- suffers harm and great loss. These same ous merchants of the Muscovite state foreigners, living in Moscow and in the have perished completely, they have towns, go through Novgorod and Pskov been driven away from their old mar- to their own lands many times each year kets and their age old eternal occupa- with intelligence about what is happentions and become impoverished and _ ing in the Muscovite state and they buy burdened with great debts because of goods on this basis. Whatever goods are

a lack of business. selling at a high price in Moscow they

These men of Hamburg, Brabant, agree among themselves to produce. and Holland, when a fair began to be When they come to Arkhangelsk to held in Arkhangelsk, did not go to _ trade, they buy all the best overseas Moscow and the other towns of the goods themselves for cash and will only Muscovite state until the destruction of barter for the Russian goods: Having Moscow because there was an explicit agreed among themselves, they are ordecree in Kholmogory before and even dered not to buy goods from Russians. after the destruction of Moscow order- They hold the price high on overseas

ing foreigners of these lands not to be goods so that the Russians can buy allowed into the Muscovite state with nothing from them and will not come to any wares. But the merchants of Ham- the fair in the future. Because of their burg, Brabant, and Holland, on their conspiracy many Russians have had to

own volition, in spite of the royal de- cart their goods back from Arkhancree, have been coming into the Mus- _ gelsk, others were left for the following covite state every year with their wares, year in Arkhangelsk. Some Russians,

showing the royal privilege charters weeping because of this foreign cun-

they have in the towns, even though ning, have had to sell their wares these charters were given them by the below cost. As a result of their [the Foreign Affairs Chancellery on the basis foreigners’] deliberate plot Russians of their false petition. Other foreigners have ceased going to Arkhangelsk, and travel about even without royal charters. from year to year the royal customs ‘They have built magnificent buildings revenues have suffered great losses. for themselves and are selling sundry When the merchants of Brabant, Hamwares from their own houses separately burg, and Holland did not come to [not in the markets]; they also sell in Moscow, prices on Russian goods were

the markets without a royal decree. high, and various foreign goods were These same foreigners are buying up in cheaper by half in the Muscovite state

Moscow and in the towns sundry Rus- than they are now.” ... an gon Ardangelt hey TES rh ut of res wre eh

, ’ not aware of the world-wide inflation of this

them on ships, and then trade these period.

172 Muscovite-Western Commercial Relations Concerning the fact that the for~ collectively will pay off the remaining eigners in the Muscovite state have debts to the foreigners. If foreigners built themselves houses and magnificent claim someone owes them money withdwellings in Moscow and in the towns: out documentary evidence, the Sover-

if the Tsar will order their houses and eign, according to his own royal Law all outbuildings assessed [to determine] Code (the Ulozhenie), should order what the houses are worth, the gosti them to be ignored: if foreigners trusted and merchants collectively will pay the anyone with a loan which was unsecured,

value in cash to the foreigners. __ they may, however, sue such people for Concerning the debts the merchants the debt by taking oaths. The houses of the Muscovite state owe the foreign- which the Swedes have built in Novers: the Russian merchants will pay gorod and Pskov according to the terms these debts to the foreigners. If there of the eternal peace treaty shall remain are debtors who are unable to settle as before. .immediately, the gosti and merchants —

THE MONGOL IMPACT ON RUSSIA By George Vernadsky

The two centuries of “the Mongol yoke” (13th-15th) unquestionably left imprints on many aspects of Russian life. While this is noted by all historians, very few attempts have been made to analyze the question systematically. Professor Vernadsky, an émigré Russian historian who recently retired from Yale University, devoted one volume of his monumental history of Russia to this period. His analysis of the problem is probably the most extensive available in any language, though it should be noted that is has not been accepted by all historians. A somewhat outdated treatment on a large scale is Jeremiah Curtin, The Mongols in Russia. J. F. L. Fennel’s Ivan the Great of Moscow deals with the Mongols also. There is an article by Lawrence Krader, “Feudalism and the Tartar Polity of the Middle Ages,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1, 76-99. Two Soviet historical novels of this period have been translated into English: Sergei Borodin’s Dmitri Donskoi, and Valentin Yan’s Batu Kahn: A Tale of the Thirteenth Century. The latter has an introduction by the noted Soviet historian Bakhrushin. For one aspect of a possible Mongol influence on the Russian court, see Michael Cherniavsky, “Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XX, 459-76. See also Essays in Tartar History by Boris Ischboldin, and Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (paperback). There is a debate between several scholars. on “Russia and the East” in The Development of the USSR (paperback) edited by Donald Treadgold. George Fedotov’s The Russian Religious Mind, Vol. II, analyzes the impact of the Mongols on Russian Christianity. For traces of the Mongols in Russian literature see Sergei Zenkovsky (ed.),

Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (paperback), as well as Basil Dmytryshyn’s Medieval Russia (paperback). A report on the Mongols by the Jesuit traveler John of Plano-Carpini is available in The Mongol Missions, edited by Christopher Dawson.

A convenient method of gauging the It will be recalled that the political extent of Mongol influence on Russia life of the Russian federation of the is to compare the Russian state and Kievan period was based on freedom.

society of the pre-Mongol period with ; oo

those of the postMongol era, and in qféptitted by permisin from The Mongol particular to contrast the spirit and in- —_1953 by Yale University Press. Pp. 335-50, 352~

stitutions of Muscovite Russia with 58, 361-63, 366-68, 377-78, 380-89. Footnotes

those of Russia of the Kievan age. have been omitted. 173

174 The Mongol Impact on Russia The three elements of power, the mo- of society. The government functioned narchic, aristocratic, and democratic, on the basis of the cooperation of free

counterbalanced each other, and the social classes: the boyars, the city people had a voice in the government people, and the “men” (liudi) in the throughout the country. Even in Suz- rural districts. True, there was a group dalia, where the monarchic element of peasants, the so-called smerdy, who was the strongest, both the boyars and were under the prince’s special juristhe city assembly or veche had their diction, but even they were freemen. say in affairs. The typical prince of the There was also a group of the half-free Kievan period, even the grand duke of (the so-called zakupy) whose position Suzdal, was merely head of the execu- eventually became similar to slavery, tive branch of the government and not but their enslavement was the result of

an autocrat. ... indebtedness, that is, of the unrestricted The authority of the tsar of Moscow, interplay of economic forces, not of both ideological and actual, was im- government action.

mensely stronger than that of his Suz- In the Tsardom of Moscow of the dalian forerunners. While the 16th 16th and 17th centuries we find an encentury witnessed the growth of monar- tirely new concept of society and its chical institutions throughout the Euro- relation to the state. All the classes of pean continent, the process nowhere the nation, from top to bottom, except went so far and fast as in East Russia. the slaves were bound to the service of When the envoy of the Holy Roman the state. Ironically enough, the slaves Empire, the Austrian Baron Sigismund were the only group free from governvon Heberstein, arrived in Moscow in mental regimentation. This Muscovite

1517, he felt that he entered a dif- system of universal service to the state ferent world, politically. He noted that was aptly called krepostnoy ustav (stat-

Grand Duke Vasili III surpassed all ute of bound service) by Cyril Zaitsev. other monarchs in the extent of his Both the former apanage princes and the power over’ his subjects. The English- boyars now became permanent servitors man Giles Fletcher who visited Moscow _ of the tsar, as did the lower gentry such

some seventy years after Heberstein’s as the boyar sons and the dvoriane first voyage came to the conclusion that (courtiers). Attempts at resistance to

_ “the state and form of their government the new régime on the part of the is plaine tyrannicall, as applying all to _ princes and the boyars were crushed by

the behoofe of the prince, and that after Tsar Ivan IV at the time of the a most open and barbarous manner.” oprichnina terror. Through the instiNo less deep was the contrast between _tution of military fiefs (pomestia) the pre- and post-Mongol periods in the _ tsars controlled both the gentry’s landed

realm of social relations. The very estates and the army. The necessity to foundations of Muscovite society were provide the pomestia with labor redifferent from those of the Kievan age. sulted in the establishment of serfdom, The society of Kievan Russia may be at first only of a temporary. nature, on called, with certain reservations, a free the estates of the gentry (1581). That society. There were slaves but they were peasant serfdom was made permanent considered a separate group, outside the and sanctioned by the Code of Laws

pale of the nation. The situation was (Ulozhenie) of 1649. It was also by similar to that in ancient Greece: slavery provisions of the Ulozhenie that the coexisted with the freedom of the bulk townspeople (posadskie liudi) were

The Mongol Impact on Russia 175 finally organized into so many closed tance for several centuries. Only a few communes, all of whose members were major cities in West and North Russia bound by mutual guarantee to pay taxes such as Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, and to perform special kinds of services and Galich (Halicz) escaped devastaimposed on them. Both the free peasants tion at that time. The Mongol policy on state lands and the serfs, as well as of conscripting master craftsmen and the townspeople, were considered the _ skilled artisans for the khan’s service

lowest class of the tsar’s subjects, free added a new burden even for those of military or court service but bound cities which had been spared physical to pay heavy taxes and, in some cases, _ destruction during the first period of the to compulsory labor (tiaglo, “burden”). conquest. A quota of the best Russian

Thus a distinction arose between the jewelers and craftsmen was sent to the sluzhilye liudi (men liable to “service” great khan. As we have seen, Friar John

in the technical sense of military and of Plano Carpini met one of them, the

court service) and the tiaglye liudi goldsmith Kuzma, in Guyuk’s camp. (men liable to tiaglo). The “service” Many others were requisitioned by the (in the above sense) became eventually khan of the Golden Horde for his per-

a characteristic of the nobleman; the sonal service as well as to build and “burden” that of a commoner. That embellish his capital, Saray. Artisans

distinction became a basic feature of the of various kinds—smiths, armorers, social régime of the Tsardom of Mos- _ saddlers, and so on—were also assigned

cow in the 17th century, and assumed to the ordus of the members of the even sharper forms in the St. Peters- house of Juchi as well as to those of the

burg empire of the 18th century... . major commanders of the Mongol

armies in South Russia... . i Another serious casualty of the

The wholesale looting and destruction of | Mongol conquest was the art of stone

property and life in Russia during the cutting and fretwork. The last masterMongol invasion of 1237-40 was a_ piece of that sort was the stone reliefs staggering blow which left the Russian in the Cathedral of St. George in Iuriev-

people stunned, and for a time dis- Polsky in Suzdalia, which were comrupted the normal course of economic pleted just a few years before the and political life. It is hard to estimate Mongol onslaught. The building crafts

the Russian casualties but they must in general suffered a serious setback have been tremendous, and if we in- in East Russia. Fewer stone buildings clude the vast throngs of civilians, both were erected in the Ist century of men and women, who were enslaved by Mongol domination than in the century

the Mongols they can hardly have been before, and the quality of the work less than 10 per cent of the total popu- deteriorated markedly.

lation. | Russian industrial production in genThe cities suffered most in the de- ©! was also seriously disrupted by the bacle. Such old centers of Russian civi Mongol invasion and Mongol policies lization as Kiev, Chernigov, Pereiaslav, toward craftsmen. Even Novgorod was

Riazan, Suzdal, and the somewhat fected at first, but it recovered early;

younger Vladimir-in-Suzdalia, as well its industrial depression lasted about as a number of other towns, were thor- _ half a century. In most of East Russia oughly destroyed, and the first three the depression persisted a full century. named above lost their former impor- Only in the mid-14th century, when

176 The Mongol Impact on Russia Mongol control over Russia eased con- Galich, were alsc rapidly colonized. siderably, did the revival of certain With the increase of population, more branches of industry, especially the met- and more forests were cleared to make allurgical, become noticeable. Through- tilling possible. ... out the 15th century most of the city Let us now glance at the development

crafts made a rapid progress. Not only of commerce in Russia during the Tver and Moscow but some of the small- | Mongol period. As we know, control er towns like Zvenigorod became lively of the commercial routes was an im-

‘ndustrial centers... . portant aspect of Mongol policy, and international trade constituted one of

| , it the foundations of the Mongol Empire, Agriculture was less affected by the as well as of the Golden Horde. The

Mongol invason than were the industrial khans of the Golden Horde, and escraits. In those parts of southern Russia _— pecially Mangu-Temir, did much to

which were subject to their direct con- promote the trade both of Novgorod trol the Mongols themselves encouraged _and of the Italian colonies in the Crimea raising crops, such as millet and wheat, —_ and the Azov area. The Mongol regional for the needs of their army and admin- _ governors also patronized commerce, as istration. In other parts of Russia it was _ the story of Baskak Ahmad shows.

the agricultural population which paid Hence it might have been expected the bulk of the tribute collected by or that Mongol domination would be favorfor the Mongols, and so the Mongols _able to the expansion of Russian trade. had no motive for disrupting the pro- On the whole it was, but not throughout ductivity of agriculture. The same was the period. In the first century of Montrue of hunting and fishing. The mining gol dominance Russian internal comof iron and the production of salt (by merce suffered a serious setback because evaporation) also continued unabated, of the disruption of city crafts and the

especially as most of the deposits of resulting inability of the cities to satisnear-surface iron ore (which alone was _ fy the demands of the villagers. As for mined in Russia in the Mongol period) _—_ foreign trade, in the reign of Berke it and most of the saltworks were located was all but monopolized by the power-

in the Novgorod territory; those in the ful corporations of Moslem merchants

northern part of the Grand Duchy of of Central Asian origin. Only in the Vladimir also were beyond the imme- reign of Mangu-Temir were Russian

diate reach of the Mongols. merchants given their chance—but they The ‘steady growth of agriculture in knew how to use it. As has been men-

East Russia in the Mongol period re- tioned, in Uzbeg’s reign (1314-41) sulted in making it the leading branch there was a large Russian colony in Saof the national economy. Its expansion ay; and merchants must have constiin the central and northern parts of the _ tuted the core of it. From the story of country was an aspect of the movement the execution of Grand Duke Michael of the population, in the first period of | of Tver in Uzbeg's camp In the north Mongol domination, to the areas which Caucasus (1319), it is known that a seemed safest from encroachment, such "umber of Russian merchants lived as the regions around Moscow and Tver. there at that time. According to the The northeastern sections of the Grand story, they wanted to place Michael’s Duchy of Vladimir beyond the Volga, body in a nearby church but were forchiefly the regions of Kostroma and bidden by the Mongols to do it. As we

The Mongol Impact on Russia 177 know from the account of Tokhtamysh’s khan of the Golden Horde was the sucampaign (1382), by that time the Rus- preme ruler of Russia—its “tsar” as the

sians controlled the Volga shipping. Russian annals called him. No Russian The Russian chronicles of the period prince was entitled to rule over his land display a good knowledge of the geogra- without the required patent of authority

phy of the Golden Horde and on various from the khan....

occasions mention not only Saray but From the political angle, the deother commercial centers like Urgenj struction of most of the major cities of and Astrakhan. Information about them East Russia during the Mongol invasion must have been supplied by the mer- was a crushing blow to the urban demo-

chants. ... cratic institutions which had flourished

_ Owing to the free trade policies of in the Kievan period all over Russia Mangu-Temir and his successors, Rus- (and continued to flourish in Novgorod sian trade with the West also expanded and Pskov during the Mongol period). during the Mongol period. Novgorod Moreover 3 it was from the population of entertained a lively and profitable com- _ those cities which escaped the destrucmerce with the Hanseatic League. Mos- _ tion or were restored that the only deter-

cow and Tver traded with Novgorod mined opposition to Mongol rule we and Pskov as well as with Lithuania know of came during the first century. __ and Poland, and through them with Bo- While the princes and boyars succeeded hemia and Germany. Since woolen cloth in adapting themselves to the conquer-

was an outstanding item of import to ors’ requirements and establishing a Russia from the West, the Moscow mer- modus vivendi with them, the towns-

chants dealing with the West were people, especially the artisans, who

known as “the clothiers” (sukonniki). lived under the constant threat of conIn the earlier period, as we know, Nov- scription, seethed with indignation at gorod received cloth of fine quality from every fresh oppressive measure introYpres. In the 14th and 15th centuries duced by the new rulers. Because of clothing industries developed in Central _ this, the Mongols on their part were de- | Europe, especially in Saxony, Bohemia, termined to crush the opposition of the and Moravia. It was from Bohemia and cities and to eliminate the veche as a Moravia that most of Moscow’s im- political institution. For this task, as has ported cloth came in the 16th century, heen seen, they engaged the cooperation but there is no evidence of similar large- of the Russian princes, who were them-

scale exports from those countries to selves afraid of the revolutionary tend-

Russia in the 15th century. Locks manu- — encies of the veche in Rostov as well as

factured in Tver were exported from jn a number of other cities. East Russia to Bohemia in the 14th and The cooperation of the Mongols and

15th centuries. the princes prevented the general spread of city rebellions in the second half of

| IV the 13th century and quelled the spo-

Juridically speaking, Russia had no in- radiec and isolated revolts which flared

dependent government in the Mongol up from time to time in Rostov and period. The great khan of Mongolia and elsewhere. The authority of the veche China was considered suzerain of all was thus drastically curbed, and by the Russian lands, and as we know, at times mid-14th century it had ceased to funcactually interfered with Russian affairs. tion normally in most East Russian

For practical purposes, however, the cities and could be discounted as an elee

178 | The Mongol Impact on Russia ment of government. When in the 1370’s curbed by the combined efforts of khan

the East Russian princes began to resist and princes. The boyars must have the Mongols, at least one cause of fric- | known very well that in case of any viotion with the veche was eliminated. As lent conflict with them the prince could in the case of the arrest of Mamay’s en- be expected to appeal to the khan. When voys in Nizhni Novgorod in 1374, the the Golden Horde was strong the khan’s anti-Mongol activities of the veche of | patent was not a mere scrap of paper;

that city were approved by the local it was a mandate. Another check on the

prince. On the whole, however, both potential political aspirations of the princes and boyars continued to be sus- East Russian boyars in the Mongol picious of the riotous spirit of the veche. period was the attitude of the city While they asked the townspeople to co- people, especially the lower classes. In operate with them against the Mongols, spite of the decline of the veche as an they intended to keep the leadership in _ institution, the townspeople could not their own hands. Consequently the veche be discounted altogether as an element was all but eliminated as a permanent in Russian politics. And they could be branch of the government. As we have expected to object violently to the estabseen, the princes even succeeded in do- _ lishment of any kind of aristocratic coning away with the representation of the stitution. While repeatedly frustrated by

interests of commoners in their admin- the grand duke in their attempts to reistration by the tysiatsky; in 1375 that volt prematurely against the Mongols, office was abolished. It was not so easy the commoners did not oppose the to eradicate the veche, however. While princely power in principle, since the not allowed to function in normal times, grand duke as head of the armed forces it rose again as soon as the princes and __ was the only leader they could look to to

boyars failed in their leadership. The head a successful national revolution temporary seizure of power by the com- against the Mongols in the future. In moners of Moscow at the time of Tokh- contrast, the commoners were suspitamysh’s invasion is a typical example of cious of the boyars as a group and did the revival of the veche in time of crises not trust them. The antiboyar riots in even if that revival did not last long in Moscow in 1357 are an example of this.

each case. ... oS In any case, from the point of view of In spite of all their influence on the the commoners the prince was a lesser course of state affairs and in spite of the evil than the boyars, and the boyars growth of their landed estates, the Mus- _ realized that in any conflict between covite boyars did not succeed, during them and the prince the latter would be the Mongol period, in clearly defining supported not only by the khan but by

their political rights. What factors pre- the townspeople as well. .. .

vented their building up firm, constitu- Future events were to bring bitter distional guarantees for the functioning of —_ appointment to the East Russian boyars

their council? The existence of the su- in their reliance on their traditional preme Mongol power was certainly a freedom. What they thought was solid leading one. As the authority of the Rus- — rock beneath their feet had turned to

sian princes, including the grand duke sand by the close of the 15th century. of Moscow, derived from the khan’s That freedom of service which was an patent, the prince could always ask the _— aspect of the federative constitution of khan for protection against any internal Kievan Russia proved incompatible with opposition. The power of the veche was _ the interests of the growing Moscow

The Mongol Impact on Russia 179 monarchy. With the change in political fication by making the grand duke of atmosphere, violations by the grand Moscow his chief tax collector. On the

duke of the principle of freedom of basis of the actual story of Mongolservice became almost unavoidable. Russian relations told in the two preSome violations of this sort occurred in ceding chapters we know that this view the Mongol period. The first notable in- is erroneous or at least exaggerated. stance was the case of Ivan Veliaminov. The khans understood well the dangerWhen he left Moscow and went over to ous implications of giving too much the prince of Tver, in 1374, his estates power to a single Russian prince. Consewere confiscated, and later on, when he _ quently, in the first half of the 14th cenwas caught by the Muscovites, he was tury the khan sanctioned the division of executed. It may be argued that this was East Russia into four grand duchies and a moment of sharp political conflict and commissioned each of the four grand of national emergency, but still the vio- dukes to collect taxes within his realm.

lation of principle cannot be denied. It was only in 1392 that Khan TokhtaAnother similar episode occurred in mysh, being in a desperate situation 1433 when the Moscow boyar Ivan and needing the assistance of Vasili I of Vsevolozhsky went over to Grand Duke Moscow, authorized him to annex the Vasili II’s rival, Iuri of Galich. His Grand Duchy of Nizhni Novgorod, The estates too were confiscated. This was two other grand duchies, Tver and Riaagain a period of sharp conflict, of a zan, remained intact at that time. In civil war in which both sides disre- addition to keeping Russia politically garded not only treaties but moral pre- divided, the Tatars, whenever they were cepts as well. Yet as a result of such re- afraid of the growing power of some peated actions a tendency developed at Russian prince, tried to sow seeds of

the court of Moscow to deny the right discord between him and his potential of boyars to leave at will and under all allies. If a conflict followed, they were circumstances. Those boyars who tried in a position either to offer their mediato use their freedom in a time of crisis tion, and thus reassert their authority, were now considered deserters or trai- or to punish the prince of whom they

tors. The new notion gained ground were suspicious. The Russian princes rapidly, and by the early 16th century— were well aware of this crafty device,

when Moscow absorbed all the regional and in several of the interprincely principalities—the Moscow boyars found _ treaties of this period we find a clause

themselves bound to the grand duke’s by which the signatories bound them-

service. Besides, at the time of the selves not to listen if the Tatars at-

oprichnina, many of them lost their tempted to set one of them against the patrimonial estates and were granted other. But the Russians did not always

fiefs (pomestia) instead. ... have the good sense to carry out their

Vv good intentions. ...

The unification of East Russia was a Let us now examine the rise of the protracted process which continued, grand ducal power in the Grand Duchy with ups and downs, throughout the of Vladimir and Moscow, the one which Mongol period and was completed only succeeded in absorbing all the others. in the early 16th century during the From the point of view of Mongol law, reign of Vasili III. It has often been the authority of the grand duke of Mosasserted in the historical literature that cow, as well as that of the other Rusthe khan himself contributed to the uni- sian grand dukes and princes, was based

180 The Mongol Impact on Russia primarily on the khan’s patent. As we considered the psychological basis of the know, in the Kievan period only princes _ power of the house of Daniel (the Daniof the house of Riurik were entitled to _lovichi) of Moscow. While they first occupy the Russian princely thrones. applied it to the principality of Moscow,

The Mongols accepted the principle of | they soon extended it to the Grand the exclusive rights of the Riurikovichi Duchy of Vladimir as a whole.

(descendants of Riurik)—in those Rus- = As has been mentioned, from the sian lands which were not put under the practical point of view the grand duke’s

direct authority of the khan. Since the domains constituted one of the imporMongols themselves were ruled by the tant foundations of his power. The interGolden Kin, the Russian principle of a mingling of the grand duke’s manorial

single ruling house was close to their rights with his authority as a ruler has own concepts. It may be mentioned in led many historians and jurists, like this connection that when, in the 14th — Boris Chicherin, for example, to speak

_ century, the new dynasty of Gedymin of the complete victory of private law was recognized in West Russia the Mon- _ over public and the disappearance of all

gols agreed to deal with some of the notions of statehood in Muscovy of this Gedyminovichi as well. In this case, period. To prove his theory Chicherin however, the khan’s new vassals eman- refers to the testaments of the Moscow cipated themselves quickly from the princes. The theory may seem convincMongol power, and the “submission” of _ ing at first glance but is indeed an exam-

Jagailo to Mamay’s puppet khan and ple of oversimplification of historical then to Tokhtamysh was in essence an reality. One has to be cautious in apply-

alliance rather than vassalage. ing abstract legal patterns to the interThe recognition by the Mongols of _ pretation of medieval notions and termithe rights of the Riurik dynasty was a _ nology. Actually the prince’s authority

wise step which saved them from much was not entirely submerged in_ the trouble. It also made it easier for the sphere of his private interests. A clear Russians to accept Mongol suzerainty. _ expression of the gradual growth of the

The Riurikovichi continued to rule Rus- idea of the state may be found in the sia—to the extent that they were allowed _ preference given by each Moscow ruler to—but they now ruled on the basis of _ to his eldest son. Then as later there was

both their genealogical rights and the no rule of primogeniture in the provikhan’s investiture. The old principle of — sions on intestate inheritance in the assigning thrones by genealogical sen- Russian codes, and so the idea of majoiority, which had already declined in _ raé¢ did not influence the institutions of

the late Kievan period, now became the Russian private law. The landed even less valid, both because the khans estates, whether princely or boyar, were

often disregarded it in assigning the divided equally between all the sons, princely patents and because conditions _ with special provisions made for the

in Russia changed considerably. The maintenance of mother, widow, or

patrimonial principle of the transfer of | daughters. ,

power from father to son in each princi- This rule even in regard to state dopality now came to the fore; nowhere mains prevailed in most East Russian did it prove as vital as in the principal- _ principalities of the Mongol period, but

ity of Moscow and, after the virtual not in Moscow. Even in Moscow, to be merger of Moscow with Vladimir, inthe | sure, each prince was bound by family Grand Duchy of Vladimir and Moscow. — traditions to grant an apanage to each The patrimonial principle, then, may be _ of his sons, but, in contrast to the other

The Mongol Impact on Russia 181 principalities, he usually made the share duke and co-ruler late in 1448 or early of the eldest son, the heir to the throne, in 1449. Because of this and of the inlarger than those of the others. At first crease of his power in the second half the material advantage of the eldest son _ of his reign, Vasili I] had no hesitation was not very conspicuous. As a matter in “blessing” Ivan III with his “patriof principle, however, the disposition mony,” the grand duchy. The latter as-

was of great importance, as any suc- cended the inrone on the basis of that ceeding prince could easily raise the blessing, not bothering about confirmaratio in favor of his eldest son. Accord- tion from the khan. ing to the will of Dmitri Donskoy, who

left five sons, the share of the eldest in VI the payment of each 1,000 rubles of In the Kievan period the main branches Mongol tribute (which is an indication of princely administration were the of the revenue each received from his judiciary, the military, and the finanshare of lands) was 342 rubles (instead cial. The prince was the chief justice of the 200 rubles it would have been if and commander of the army, and his the shares had been equal). Dmitri’s agents collected the taxes and court fees. grandson, Vasili II, assigned 14 cities After the Mongol invasion the supreme to his eldest son, Ivan III, as against 12 direction of all administrative functions

which were divided among the four was assumed by the tsar, the Mongol other sons. Ivan III carried the same khan. The authority of the Russian principle even further, leaving his eldest princes shrank considerably. The son 66 cities and to the four others to- _ princes now had to obey the khan’s orgether only 30. The motive of these dis- ders, and their administrative compepositions was to secure the dominance tence in their own realms was strictly

of each succeeding ruler among his kin, limited; they could exercise it only if not yet complete unity of princely within the narrow sphere of affairs left government. As the arrangements were to their discretion by the Mongols. contrary to the spirit of Russian private As regards the judiciary, all the Ruslaw, we may see in them elements of the sian princes were now under the author-

state law. ity of the khan and of the Supreme

When the Golden Horde weakened, Court of the Mongols, and as we know the grand duke of Moscow felt himself a number of them were executed by or-

secure enough not only to bequeath der of the khan for real or alleged state shares of his dominions to his sons but crimes. The khan also settled most ma-

also to appoint the successor to the grand _jor litigation among the Russian princes. ducal throne itself. Dmitri Donskoy was _ Russians drafted into the Mongol army

the first to “bless” his eldest son Vasili were subject to Mongol military law.

J with the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. Moreover, all litigation between RusBut Vasili did not ascend the throne sians and Mongols was subject to trial

without receiving the khan’s patent. in the Mongol court. There was for

When Vasili I made his will he did not example the case of the descendants of dare to dispose of the grand duchy. As ___ Prince Boris of Rostov versus the de-

we know, his son Vasili II gained the scendants of Tsarevich Peter of the throne with great difficulty, against the Horde. Peter, as we know, became a opposition of his uncle Juri. After that Greek Orthodox, and so were his dehe twice lost and twice recovered it. To scendants. From the khan’s point of secure the rights of his eldest son, Ivan view, however, they remained Mongols III, Vasili IL proclaimed him grand and of the royal blood at that. So when

182 The Mongol Impact on Russia Boris’s descendants tried to seize the nov case. In Ivan III’s Sudebnik (Code

lands belonging to the monastery of Laws) of 1497 capital punishment founded by Peter, the latter’s grandson __ was ordered for the following categories

appealed to the khan. The Mongol court of crimes: sedition; theft of church upheld the rights of Peter’s descendants property; homicide; podmet, that is, in this case, which, it may be added, _ leaving things at another’s house in orwas a just settlement of the controversy. | der subsequently to accuse him of theft;

Although in this affair the interests of a and arson. An inveterate murderer and monastery were involved, it was tried as _—_— bbrigand known to society as such (vedo-

a civil suit. As a general rule, however, = myi likhoi chelovek) could also be exethe church was protected by the khan’s _ cuted if implicated in any serious crime.

yarlyk against any infringements upon It should be mentioned in this conits rights and privileges. The violators, nection that in the same period capital if they were Mongols, were subject to | punishment was introduced in the city the Mongol courts. If they happened to _— of. Pskov. In this case, however, it was

be Russians, the Russian princes were not Mongol but Western law which probably bound to punish them. If the served as a pattern. Owing to their geo-

prince failed to act, the church un- graphical position and lively trade with doubtedly could appeal to the khan. the German cities, both Novgorod and With his juridical prerogatives firm- | Pskov were much more open to Western

ly established at the higher level, the influences than Moscow. As a matter of khan did not interfere with litigation fact, the penal law of England, France, among the Russian boyars and common- and Germany in the late Middle Ages ers, allowing the prince in each given and early modern period was as harsh locality to continue his judicial func- or even harsher than Mongol criminal tions. Because of such policies, of all the law. Both capital and corporal punishbranches of princely administration the ment were prescribed for a variety of judiciary was the one least affected by crimes. In Germany decapitation and Mongol rule. And yet, as the Russians hanging were the usual forms of execubecame familiar with Mongol criminal tion of a criminal; and many other law and the Mongol courts, they proved — methods of inflicting death were in use,

ready to accept some of the patterns of such as burning at the stake, burying Mongol jurisprudence. Even Vladimir- alive, drowning, the wheel, quartering, sky-Budanov, who, on the whole, tends —_and piercing with a pole. In Pskov capi-

to minimize Mongol influence on Rus- tal punishment was ordered for four sia, admits that both capital punishment kinds of crimes that were considered _ (unknown to the Pravda Russkaia— most offensive: theft in the precincts of Russian Law code—of the Kievan the Pskov Kremlin, horse stealing, spyperiod) and corporal punishment (ap- ing, and arson. The form of execution plied only to slaves in the Kievan was not mentioned in the Pskov charter: period) entered Muscovite law under it was probably either decapitation or Mongol influence. According to the pro- hanging, depending on the nature of the

visions of the Dvina Land Charter of crime. In Novgorod in the same period 1397 issued by Grand Duke Vasili I of | drowning criminals in the Volkhov Moscow, each thief was to be branded; _ River seems to have been the preferred for the third theft the penalty was death form of execution.

by hanging. The death penalty by be- It was also during the Mongol period heading was also established for trai- and presumably under Tatar influence tors, as may be seen from the Veliami- _that torture became a regular part of

The Mongol Impact on Russia 183 Muscovite criminal procedure. The age. Under this system, which lasted inSudebnik of 1497 prescribes that the tact down to the early 1300's, the Russuspect be tortured without either preju- sian grand dukes and princes retained dice or connivance; the main object of | only fragments of their former authorthe torture apparently was to obtain ity in matters of military and financial both confession and information about administration. Each prince was allowed accomplices. The official in charge was to keep a small contingent of troops— instructed, however, not to let the victim his retinue—and to collect some minor make any slanderous accusations against _ local taxes as well as the manorial taxes.

innocent persons. It would not be amiss One hardly can speak of independent to note that torture was widely used in princely administration for this period. the West in this period. In the 14th cen- The situation changed when the grand tury it was recommended by the Roman dukes were commissioned to collect the Catholic Church in the trials of heretics. Mongol tribute, as well as the tamga, In the 15th century it was habitual both _—within the confines of their principaliin France and Germany to use torture at _ties, on their own responsibility, though the interrogation of criminals. In France _ at first under the supervision of a Mon-

both the secrecy of criminal procedure gol commissar. Presumably the grand and the use of torture were legalized by | dukes also supervised the conscription the ordinances of 1498 and 1539. In of soldiers for the khan’s army, and the Germany Emperor Charles V tried to post-horse service. The basic system of limit the use of torture in his Ordinance _ military and financial districts, the ?’my, on Criminal Law (Halsgerichtsordnung) _ was left intact, but now the grand duke’s

(1532) but failed to stop the abuses. tax agents (danshchiki) collected the — The Pskovians did not follow the new tribute instead of the Mongol baskaks. pattern in this respect; torture was not The conscription of craftsmen seems to

sanctioned by Pskovian law. have been discontinued. The grand While some influence of Mongol penal dukes encountered no difficulties in col- _

and trial law on Muscovite law can _ lecting taxes since during the sixty-odd hardly be denied, there is no positive years of immediate Mongol control the evidence of the Russians’ borrowing people were cowed into obedience and from the Mongols any outstanding fea- _well trained in the performance of their

ture of court organization. We might duties to the state. note though that a minor official of the While the princes were merely the local courts in northern Russia in the khan’s commissioners and were con16th and 17th centuries was known as __ stantly under the control of Mongol offi-

yaryga, which is obviously derived cials, the abandonment of the old sysfrom the Mongol jargu (dzargu, yar- tem yet had significant results. The

gu), “judge.” princes were again allowed to perform their administrative functions, even if

Vil they had to follow the Mongol pattern of In matters of taxation and army con- administration which they had no auscription the khan exercised full and thority to change. In fact they soon disdirect power in Russia for more than covered that the new system could be half a century. The post-horse service financially profitable to them, since (yam) established by the Mongols they after paying the quota of tribute reused for their own needs. The khan also quired for each ¢’ma they could turn reserved for himself the right of coin- whatever surplus there was into their

184 The Mongol Impact on Russia own treasuries. As the number of ¢#’my Suffice it to refer here to the role of the

of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir was Rostov princes in Mangu-Temir’s exgreater than that of any other grand _ pedition against the Alan mountaineers duchy, the Moscow rulers profited most in 1277-78 and the participation of the

from the situation. Moscow and Suzdal princes in TokhtaWith the revolt of Dmitri Donskoy = mysh’s expedition against Timur a cenagainst Mamay, and even more after tury later. Besides, scores of thousands the fall of Tokhtamysh, a new phase of Russians were drafted into the Mon-

opened in Mongol-Russian relations: gol army at regular intervals if not one of considerable autonomy of the yearly. Hardly any of those who were Russian lands. The grand dukes and taken to China and settled there ever princes continued to acknowledge them- _—ihad a chance to return to Russia, but selves the khan’s vassals and paid him _— some of those used by the khans of the tribute—not always regularly—but they | Golden Horde in South Russia, as for

took over the internal administration of | example by Tokhta against Nogay in their principalities almost without inter- 1298-99, might be expected to make ference from the khan. The princes now _ their way back home after the close of began to coin their own money, with — the campaign and to tell the Russian authe khan’s name on it, to be sure, in _thorities about their experiences. . . . addition to their own. The foundations The Russians familiarized themselves of the Mongol administr ative system = with the Mongol tactic of enveloping the were not changed, however, since the enemy on both flanks (the Vozha River grand dukes found them convenient and _ battle of 1378 is a good example of

efficient. So it was on the basis of the this). Furthermore, they introduced Mongol patterns that the grand ducal some Mongol armor and weapons into system of taxation and army organiza- _ their own army. It will be recalled that tion was developed in the late 14th to as early as 1246 Daniel of Galicia’s

16th centuries. . .. | troops were equipped after the Mongol All the moneys collected were kept in fashion. In their war against Riazan, in

the grand duke’s treasury (kazna) and 1361, the Muscovites used the lasso managed by the treasurer (kaznachei). quite successfully. The equipment of the The fact that both these Russian terms | Muscovite troops of the 16th century are borrowed from the Turkish is a _ 4lso shows definite Mongol influence.

clear indication that the institution itself The Russian army of the Kievan was created after the Mongol pattern.... Pet iod consisted of two main parts: the

Let us now consider the changes prince’s retinue (druzhina) and the city which occurred in the Russian army militia under the authority of the chiliorganization during the Mongol period. arch (tysiatsky). The rural population There can be no doubt that the Russians was not subject to mobilization and as —who first met the Mongols as enemies _a rule did not take any part in the cam-

and then became, for a long period, paigns. The Mongol invasion changed their subjects—acquired a thorough the whole picture. First of all, for the knowledge of the Mongol army system needs of their own armed forces, the and could not but be impressed with its Mongols established a rigid system of efficiency. It will be recalled that a num- = universal conscription, including in it

ber of Russian princes with their reti- the entire rural population. Second, by nues had to participate in various cam- destroying or depopulating the Russian paigns undertaken by Mongol khans. cities and curbing the authority of the

The Mongol Impact on Russia 185 veche, they shattered the foundations of the boyars of the 14th and loth centhe city militia system; the tysiatsky turies belonged to the old boyar clans of now had little to do as an army chief, the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. Among and as we know the office itself was them were the Buturlins, the Cheliad-

eventually abolished... . nins, the Kutuzovs (all three of these After the decline of the Golden Horde families claiming originally to be of the grand dukes of Moscow became able German descent), the Morozovs, the to use, whenever necessary, the system Veliaminovs (these were of Varangian of universal conscription established by ancestry), and the Vorontsovs. Quite a the Mongols. It was on the basis of the number of the Moscow boyar families

Mongol system that Dmitri Donskoy were of West Russian origin. To this succeeded in mobilizing the army with group belonged the Pleshcheevs and the which he defeated Mamay at Kulikovo Kvashnins. Besides the West Russians, Pole. His son Vasili I used general con- a number of Lithuanians and, later on, scription once more when he prepared Poles entered the service of the grand

to meet Tamerlane’s invasion. In the dukes of Moscow. It must be borne in 16th century conscription was used on mind that when our sources refer to several occasions. At that time it became families of “Polish and Lithuanian ori-

known as the posokha, since the re- gin,” they mean that they hailed from quired quota of recruits was assessed Poland and Lithuania, but their exact

per sokha.... ethnic origin is not always clear. Some of the boyars were Polonized West Rus| Vill sians. Others claimed to be of “Prussian”’ The changes which occurred in East 0rigin. As by the end of the 13th century Russia during the Mongol period in the Prussia, originally a Baltic (Lithuaposition of the social classes were not as nian) country, had been thor oughly Ger-

drastic as those in government and ad- manized, “Prussian” origin must in this ministration, but no less significant. It | case have meant German. To this group may be said that throughout the Mongol the Khvostovs, the Romanovs (originalperiod the foundations of the old social ly known as the Koshkins and then as order—the free society—were gradually the Zakharins) , and the Sheremetevs beand persistently chipped away without longed. The Golovins and the Khovrins at first affecting the facade. At the time Were of Greek descent. Last, but not when Ivan III announced Russia’s eman- _ least, some of the best boyar families of

cipation from the Mongol power and Moscow were of “Tatar” (Mongol or conquered Novgorod, the framework of Turkish) origin. Prominent among them the new structure was all but ready, and were the Veliaminov-Zernovs (not to be

the new order, that of a service-bound confused with the or iginal Veliamisociety, became clearly noticeable. This novs). The Saburovs and the Godunovs

is especially true of the position of Were branches of this family. The Arsethe old upper class of Russian society, nievs and Bakhmetevs established them-

the boyars; paradoxical as it may seem, selves in Russia in the late 14th and the process of their subordination to the mid-15th centuries respectively. monarch was completed sooner than the By 1450 the position of the boyars as

regimentation and enserfment of the a class was seriously undermined by

lower classes. the appearance of a new aristocratic Moscow boyardom consisted of varied group, that of the servitor princes and heterogeneous elements. Some of (sluzhilye kniazia), as well as by the

186 The Mongol Impact on Russia steady growth of the lower gentry (the the Cherkassky and the Imeretinsky

dvoriane) which centered around the princes....

grand duke’s dvor. It would not be amiss now to glance _

The formation of the class of the at the ethnic origins and composition of servitor princes was a protracted his- the Russian nobility as a whole (intorical process, and the class itself was | cluding boyars and princes) as it conas heterogeneous as that of the boyars. _ solidated itself in the 17th century. AcIn the course of the 14th and 15th cen- _ cording to N. P. Zagoskin’s computation,

turies a number of East Russian princes, 229 Russian noble families were of all descendants of Riurik, found it con- “West European” (including German) venient or necessary to cede or sell their origin; 223 of Polish and Lithuanian sovereign rights to the grand duke of origin; 156 of “Tatar” and other OrienMoscow. Among them were some of the __ tal origin. Against those families of alien

princes of the house of Rostov, as well ancestory, 168 families belonged to the as those of Nizhni Novgorod and Suz- house of Riurik; 42 were of unspecified dal. In addition, a number of the Riuri- “Russian” origin; and 97 families of kovichi whose principalities were situ- uncertain ancestry. Some of the families ated in the land of Severia (mostly in of so-called Polish-Lithuanian ancestry the upper Oka River basin) found them- must have been West Russian. Still, the selves in the no man’s land between families of Russian origin were obviousMuscovy and Lithuania and threatened _ly a minority. Zagoskin’s figures refer

by both these powers. Some of them to the later period. It must be borne in pledged their allegiance to the grand mind that the influx of “Tatar” families duke of Lithuania, but others, like the into the Russian nobility greatly innia, also went to Moscow. Among them _ creased after the reign of Vasili II. The were the Patrikeev princes (descendants majority of Russian noble families of of Gedymin’s son Narimunt). Lastly, as © West European and Polish origin settled

we know, some of the Juchid princes _in Russia only in the 17th century and entered Russian service during the reign § some of them even later. Therefore the of Vasili Il; these were known as the _ proportion of families of Russian origin tsarevichi or even as the tsars, if they in the composition of Moscow boyardom happened to have reigned in their own must have been higher in the Mongol name in Kazan or Siberia before com- _ period than later.... Obolenskys, for example, chose to enter

the service of the grand duke of Mos- IX cow. A number of Lithuanian princes, In the Kievan period the citizens of the descendants of Gedymin (the Gedymino- _ large towns were free from taxes; and vichi), being for various reasons dissat- they formed their own militia (tysiacha,

isfied with the state of affairs in Lithua- “thousand”) in which they served as ing to Moscow. In the 1500’s they ranked _— free citizens, not as conscript soldiers.

highest among the princes serving the Conscription and taxation introduced by

tsar of Moscow. In the course of the the Mongols, coupled with the curbing 16th and 17th centuries lesser Tatar | of the veche, basically changed the stanobility, such as the Kudashev and tus of the urban class in East Russia. Engalychev princes, following in the (Novgorod and Pskov, it will be rewake of the Juchids, found their way to _ called, succeeded in maintaining their Moscow; so did some members of the autonomy, and their citizens kept their

Circassian and Georgian nobility, like full political and individual rights

The Mongol Impact on Russia 187 throughout the Mongol period.) When they were known as the posadskie liudi East Russia emancipated herself from (“townspeople” in the specific sense of the Mongols, the grand duke of Moscow _ the tiaglo-bound middle and lower class-

did not revoke the Mongol system of es of the urban population). The scale taxation and conscription but used it for of compensation for offenses against the

the needs of his own government. That honor of the people of various classes system was now further expanded: in established in Ivan IV’s Sudebnik gives 1478 Novgorod was annexed to Mos- an adequate notion of the difference in cow, and in 1510 Pskov. The old free social and economic position of different institutions of the two cities were then urban groups. The fine for offending

abolished. apainst the honor of a gost’ was 50

With the disintegration of the polit- rubles; against the honor of a middle- — ical freedom of the East Russian cities, class burgher, 5 rubles; for offending the economic differentiation between the honor of a lower-class posadski 1 wealthy and poor citizens assumed new ruble was sufficient.

significance. The top layer of the Mus- In the 17th century, following the covite merchants, the gosti and sukon- crisis of the Time of Troubles, the Mosniki, became a privileged minority high cow government took steps to bind the above the bulk of the townspeople. In townspeople to their communes. In 1613 the course of the 16th century that top it ordered the posadskie who had fled —

layer was divided into three groups: from the capital during the troubles (1) the gosti, the richest wholesale mer- forcibly returned to Moscow; in 1619 a chants; (2) the gosti hundred (gostin- general ordinance was issued that all the

naia sotnia), a corporation of the less posadskie who had migrated earlier rich gosti; (3) and the sukonniki hun- should return to their respective towns dred (sukonnaia sotnia), the corpora- all over Russia. By the provisions of the tion of the sukonniki. All of them were Code of Laws (Ulozhenie) of 1649 the exempt from direct taxes as well as from commune was finally consolidated as a any compulsory labor services. For the closed group to which all its members privileges they enjoyed the merchants were permanently bound. Any member of these three groups had to assist the who left the commune without the govtsar in the financial administration of ernment’s permission was to be punthe tsardom and the collection of the ished by deportation to Siberia. In 1658

indirect taxes. the death penalty was established for Deprived in this way of their most moving from one posad to another. ...

valuable element, the tiaglo-bound mass

of the burghers was organized in two X

groups: the “middle” burghers (sered- In medieval Russia, as in the medieval nie), such as retail merchants and mas- West, the Christian church played a ter artisans; and the “junior” burghers leading role in the nation’s spiritual life. (molodshie), also known as the “black” Therefore, especially after the victory of people (chernye liudi), that is, the petty Islam in the Golden Horde, there was artisans and the half-skilled and un- little occasion for direct Mongol influ- — skilled workers. They formed the so- ence on Russia in the religious sphere. called “black hundred” (chernaia sot- Indirectly, however, the Mongol connia). Most of the middle and junior quest affected the course of development burghers lived outside the city proper, of the Russian church and the spiritual in the posad (town settlement). By 1550 culture in various ways. The first shock

188 The Mongol Impact on Russia of the Mongol invasion was as painful port to the embittered and exasperated to the church as to the other aspects of people, from princes to commoners. Russian life and culture. Many outstand- Connected with this was a more general ing clergymen, including the metropoli- mission—to complete the Christianiza-

tan himself, perished in the destroyed tion of the Russian people. In the Kiecities; many cathedrals, monasteries, van period Christianity became firmly and churches were burned or looted; established among the upper classes and hosts of parishioners were killed or en- the townspeople. Most of the monasslaved. The city of Kiev, the metropolis _teries founded in that period were loof the Russian church, was so devas- cated in the cities. In the rural districts tated that for many years it was unfit the Christian layer was rather thin, and to serve as the center of the church ad- the remnants of paganism were still unministration. Of the eparchies, Pereia- conquered. Only in the Mongol period slav suffered most and the bishopric was did the rural population of East Russia

closed. 7 become more thoroughly Christianized. It was only after the issuance of This was achieved both by strenuous

Mangu-Temir’s immunity charter to the _ efforts of the clergy and by the growth Russian clergy that the church found it- of religious feeling among the spiritual

self on firm ground once more and _ elite of the people themselves. Most of could gradually reorganize; as years the metropolitans of this period spent went by, it became even stronger in much time traveling throughout Russia some respects than before the Mongol trying to correct deficiencies in church onslaught. Indeed, ruled by Greek met- administration and to direct the activiropolitans or by Russian metropolitans ties of the bishops and priests. Several ordained in Byzantium, and protected new eparchies were organized, four of by the khan’s. charter, the church in them in East Russia, two in West RusRussia was in this period less dependent sia, and one in Saray. The number of on the princely power than in any other churches and monasteries grew steadily, period of Russian history. In fact the especially after 1350, both in the cities metropolitan on more than one occasion and the rural districts. According to served as arbiter in interprincely dis- Kliuchevsky, about thirty monasteries putes. This was also a period in which were founded in the first century of the the Russian church was able to build up Mongol period and five times as many a strong material basis for its activities. more in the second century. A character-

As the church lands were immune from _ istic trait of the new monastic movement

interference by state authorities, either was the initiative shown by individuals, Mongol or Russian, they attracted an in- young men of ardent religious spirit creasing number of peasant settlers, and who took monastic orders in order to the ratio of their production to the total go to “the wilderness”—deep into the agricultural ouput rose steadily. This woods—for hard work in primitive conwas especially true of the monastery ditions as well as for prayer and mediestates. A degree of prosperity achieved tation. The disasters of the Mongol inby the church toward the end of the first vasion and of the interprincely strife as century of Mongol domination greatly well as harsh conditions of life in genhelped in the performance of its spirit- eral were conducive to the development

ual activities. : of this mentality. ...

Among the tasks the church faced in Tn literature the spirit of the church

the Mongol period, the first was that of found expression first of all in the bishgiving spiritual advice and moral sup- ops’ sermons and in the lives of saints,

The Mongol Impact on Russia 189 as well as in the biographies of certain chronicle written between 1240 and Russian princes who, it was felt, de- 1260, known to us in part, was that of served to be canonized, so that their Rostov. Its editor was Bishop Cyril of biographies were written in the style of _ that city. As D. S. Likhachev has con-

the lives of saints. The underlying idea -vincingly shown, Cyril was helped by of most of these works was that the Princess Maria, daughter of Michael of Mongol yoke was a visitation of God for Chernigov and widow of Vasilko of the sins of the Russian people and that Rostov. Both her father and her husonly true Christianization could lead band were killed by the Mongols, and the Russians out of their plight. The she devoted herself to charities and litsermons of Bishop Serapion of Vladi- erary work. In 1305 a chronicle was

mir (1274-75) are typical of this atti- compiled in Tver. This was partly tude. He blamed for Russia’s sufferings copied in 1377 by the Suzdal monk primarily the princes who had sapped Laurentius (the writer of the so-called the nation’s strength by their constant [Laurentian Codex). In the 15th century quarrels. But he did not stop at that. He there appeared in Moscow historical reproved the common people for cling- works of a wider scope, like the Trinity _ ing to remnants of paganism as well as Chronicle (started under the direction for their superstitions, and urged every of Metropolitan Cyprian and completed Russian to repent and become Christian in 1409) and the even more ambitious in spirit and not in name only. Among digest of annals compiled under the edithe princes of the first century of Mon- torship of Metropolitan Photius around gol rule the lives of Grand Duke Iaro- 1418. The latter served as a basis for slav and his son Alexander Nevsky are further work which resulted in the great of special interest. laroslav’s biography digests of the 16th century—the Voskhas been preserved only in fragments. It resensk and the Nikon chronicles. Novwas conceived as a national tragedy in gorod, throughout the 14th century and the first act of which Iaroslav happened _down to her fall, was a center for the to be a leading actor. In the introduc- _ writing of her own historical annals. It tion the happy past of the Russian land should be noted that many of the Ruswas admiringly described. Probably it sian chroniclers, and especially the ediwas to be followed by a description of tors of the Nikon Chronicle, showed exthe catastrophe which befell Russia, but _cellent knowledge not only of Russian that part has been lost. The introduction _ events but of Tatar affairs as well.

has been preserved under a separate

title, the “Lay of Russia’s Ruin” (Slovo Xi

o pogibeli zemli russkoi). It is perhaps _In the Russian lay literature of the Mon-

the highest achievement of Russian lit- gol age, both written and oral, a twoerature of the early Mongol period. In fold attitude toward the Tatars can be the life of Alexander Nevsky the empha- noticed. On the one hand there was a sis is on the military valor he displayed _ feeling of repulsion, of opposition to the

in the defense of Greek Orthodoxy nation’s oppressors, on the other a psyagainst the Roman Catholic crusade. chological undercurrent of attraction to As in the Kievan period, the clergy of the poetry of steppe life. Recalling the

the Mongol age played an important longing of a number of 19th-century role in the compilation of the Russian Russian writers such as Pushkin, Lerchronicles. The work all but stopped montov, and Leo Tolstoy for the Caucaafter the Mongol invasion. The only sus and the picturesque life of the Cau-

190 The Mongol Impact on Russia casian mountaineers is helpful in under- _ settled in Russia must also have brought

standing this mentality. ! Tatar motifs into Russian folklore.

Owing to the tendency to repulsion, The enrichment of the Russian lanthe byliny of the pre-Mongol age were guage with words and terms borrowed revised to fit the new situation, and the from Mongol and Turkish or from Pername of the new enemy—the Tatars— sian and Arabic through Turkish was was substituted for that of the old (the still another aspect of the same process Cumans). Simultaneously new byliny of cultural osmosis. By 1450 the Tatar and historical legends and songs were (Turkish) language had become fashcreated dealing with the Mongol phase _jionable at the court of Grand Duke of Russia’s struggle against the steppe _ Vasili II of Moscow, which was strongpeoples. Batu’s destruction of Kiev and ly resented by many of his opponents. Nogay’s raids on Russia served as topics _— Vasili II was accused of excessive love

for contemporary Russian folklore. The of the Tatars “and their speech” (i rech

Tatar oppression of Tver and the revolt ikh). It was typical of the period that of the Tverians in 1327 not only were a number of Russian noblemen in the recorded in the chronicles but apparent- 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries assumed ly constituted the basis of a special his- | Tatar surnames. Thus a member of the torical tale. And of course, as has been Veliaminov family became known as mentioned, the battle of Kulikovo Pole §Aksak (which means “lame” in Turkbecame the subject of a variety of patri- ish) and his descendants as the Aksaotic stories, parts of which were used by _kovs. Similarly, one of the Shchepinthe chroniclers and which later were ree | Rostovsky princes was called Bakhteiar

corded in full in writing. Here we have (bakhiyar in Persian means “fortua case of merging of the oral and writ- _nate,” “rich”). He was the forefather ten forms of the old Russian literature. of the Bakhteiarov princes, a line which The “Zadonshchina,” whose topic be- became extinct in the 18th century.

longs to the same cycle, is obviously a A number of Turkish words entered

piece of written literature. the Russian language before the Mongol As to the element of attraction, the invasion, but the real influx started in poetry of steppe life and warfare was the Mongol age and continued in the already felt by the creators of byliny in 16th and 17th centuries. Among the the pre-Mongol age. This same psycho- terms borrowed from Mongol and logical process continued now. Even in Turkish (or through Turkish from Ara-

the patriotic tales of Kulikovo Pole the bic and Persian) in the sphere of adchivalry of the Tatar knight whose ministration and finance, such words as

challenge was accepted by the monk dengi (money), skazna (treasury), Peresvet was noted with obvious admi- tamozhnia (customshouse) may be ration. In the pre-Mongol Russian byliny mentioned here. Another group of borthere were undeniable close parallels to | rowings is connected with trade and

the Iranian and early Turkish heroic merchandise: bazar (bazaar), balagan songs. In the Mongol age Russian folk- (booth), bakaleia (groceries of certain

lore also was influenced by “Tatar” kinds), barysh (profit), kumach (red (Mongol and Turkish) poetic patterns cloth), and others. Among the borrowand themes. Presumably Russian sol- ings for clothing, headgear, and footdiers drafted into the Mongol armies _ wear are the following: armiak (peasant were the means of acquainting the Rus- _— overcoat), bashlyk (a kind of hood),

sians with Tatar heroic poetry. Tatars bashmak (shoe). Naturally enough, an

The Mongol Impact on Russia 19] important group of borrowings is that themselves seriously believed in the connected with horses, their color, and stories of the crownings of Vladimir the

their breeding; for instance argamak Saint and Vladimir Monomach. In any (thoroughbred steed), bulanyi (dun), case they did not put all their eggs in _ iabun (drove of horses). Many other the Byzantine basket, being well aware Russian words denoting household ob- of the historical connection between the

jects, food and drink, as well as fruit Tsardom of Moscow and the Golden and vegetables, metals, and precious Horde. And indeed it was but natural

stones also were borrowed from Turkish for the Muscovite ruler to take the title

or from other Oriental languages of his former suzerain. Moreover, when

through Turkish. the Russian counterattack started and A factor in Russian intellectual and the Russians conquered the khanates of spiritual development whose importance Kazan and Astrakhan (in 1552 and

is hard to evaluate is the role of the 1556 respectively), the Russian tsar

Tatars who settled in Russia and were could claim to have become heir to at converted to Christianity, and of their least two of the Golden Horde succesdescendants. The case of Tsarevich Peter sion states. The implications of the con-

of the Horde, founder of a monastery quest were emphasized by the Moscow in Rostov, has been already mentioned. government in its effort to obtain for its There were other similar instances. A ruler recognition of the title of tsar from

prominent 15th-century Russian reli- the king of Poland. A Russian note gious leader who also founded a monas- handed to the Polish and Lithuanian tery, St. Pafnuti of Borovsk, was grand- ambassadors in 1556 stated in addition son of a baskak. In the 16th century a to the Byzantine argument, along the boyar son of Tatar extraction, Bulgak lines of the two stories above, that beby name, was ordained priest and after sides the Russian land God gave Ivan

that there was always a priest in the IV the tsardoms of Kazan and Astrafamily, down to Father Sergius Bulga- khan, “and the throne of Kazan and kov, a well-known Russian theologian of | Astrakhan has been a tsar’s see from the

the 20th century. And there were other origins.” It may be added that a 17thoutstanding Russian intellectual leaders century Muscovite writer, Gregory Koof Tatar extraction like the historian toshikhin, who was thoroughly familiar N. M. Karamzin and the philosopher with his country’s institutions and tradiPeter Chaadaev. Judging from his name, tions, also considered the conquest of

Chaadaev must have been of Mongol Kazan and Astrakhan the historical ancestry, for Chaaday is a contraction foundation of the Tsardom of Moscow. of the Mongol name Jagatay (Chaga- An important aspect of the continuity

tay). Presumably Peter Chaadaev was a_ of Mongol traditions in the Muscovite descendant of Chingis-Khan’s son Jaga- monarchy was the Mongol influence of tay. It is both paradoxical and typical the etiquette of diplomatic negotiations. of the melting pot of Russian civiliza- Many a Western envoy to Muscovy com-

tion with its heterogeneous ethnic ele- plained of the stiff and ridiculous forments that the “Westernizer” Chaadaev malities of the diplomatic ritual. As a

was of Mongol extraction and the matter of fact, when we look back now “Slavophile” Aksakov family was of on those mutual offenses and claims and

Varangian ancestry (a branch of the counterclaims about etiquette by the

Veliaminovs).... Russian and Western diplomats of the XI 16th and 17th centuries, some of the notions of the Western envoys seem to us It is hard to tell whether the Muscovites as absurd as the Muscovite. At the root

192 The Mongol Impact on Russia of the misunderstandings lay the fact erners objected violently to these two that Westerners and Russians followed rules and tried every possible device to different bodies of rules, and that the circumvent them. Most, however, had to Russian ceremonial reflected the Mongol _ accept the inevitable.

pattern in many respects. The familiarity of the Muscovites The basic Muscovite concept of the with Mongol ways of diplomacy helped duties of a government toward foreign them greatly in their dealings with Oriambassadors and of the rights of ambas- _ental powers, especially with the succes-

sadors with respect to the government sion states of the Golden Horde. In a in the country of their destination dif- sense Russia herself was such a succesfered markedly from the Western con- sion state, and after the breakup of the cept. From the Mongol point of view— Golden Horde the ruler of Russia shared by the Muscovites—an ambassa- seemed to be entitled to present his dor was a guest of the ruler to whom he claims for leadership in the Mongol-Tawas accredited. That ruler had to pro- tar sphere. Since as we have seen the sovide him, and his suite, with free trans- _ called Golden Horde was actually known portation, lodgings, food and drink, and _as the White Horde, the tsar of Moscow,

to guard his safety. While the West- as successor of the khans of this horde, erners did not object to free lodgings was now called the “white tsar.” As late and food, they protested on many occa- _as the 18th and 19th centuries the Russions that Moscow’s care for their safe- sian emperor was still the white khan ty amounted to keeping them constantly (tsagan khan) to the Kalmyks and the under guard. On the other hand, the Buriats. The feeling among many TurkRussian ambassadors who had to travel ish and Mongol tribes that the Russian

in the West were indignant when they tsar was the successor of the Mongol had to pay—and sometimes exorbitant- _khans created a favorable situation psy-

ly—for their transportation and main- chologically for the extension of the tenance. In both Mongol and Muscovite __tsar’s rule over those tribes. Moscow diplomatic ceremonial much attention diplomats consciously or subconsciously was paid to mutual gifts. Not only did took advantage of the situation. In this the rulers exchange presents but ambas- sense it may be said, as Prince Nicholas

sadors were expected to offer appro- Trubetskoy did, that the Russians inpriate gifts to the ruler they visited. A herited their empire from Chingis-Khan. Muscovite rule, patterned on Mongol

etiquette, forbade any foreign envoy to XIil

be armed when received in audience by The emancipation of East Russia from the tsar. Many a Western ambassador re- Mongol rule was the result of a comsented being required to part with his bined effort of the Moscow grand dukes, sword before entering the audience hall, the church, the boyars, the gentry, and

but all had to comply with the rule. the commoners—in fact of the whole

When the foreign envoy entered Russia nation. The new monarchy which was he was met at the frontier by a special created in the tortuous process of emanofficial (pristav). Muscovite (as well as cipation was based on principles alien

Tatar) etiquette required that envoy to the Russians of the Kievan period. and pristav dismount simultaneously to All classes of East Russian society were

greet each other in the name of their now subordinated to the state. It might respective sovereigns. Then the pristav have been expected that once the goal of rode at the right of the ambassador. For emancipation was achieved the Musco-

reasons hard to understand, the West- vite regime would relax and at least

The Mongol Impact on Russia 193 some of the old liberties would be re- but on many occasions the Tatars would stored. Actually, as we know, the oppo- pierce them and pour into the country site happened. Regimentation of the so- between and behind them. Under the cial classes progressed unchecked and circumstances, the only way to solve the reached its peak about 1650, two cen- problem seemed to be to establish firm turies after the end of the Mongol rule. Russian control of the steppes, by either Why this seeming historical paradox? conquest or diplomacy. From the geoThe answer is obvious: the precarious __ political point of view, Ivan IV’s dash position of the Moscow monarchy on the down the Volga to Astrakhan was an

international scene and the constant important move since it cut the steppe danger of war. In the southeast and zone into two sectors, each of which south Muscovy was still threatened by could now be taken care of separately. the Tatars; in the west the struggle for But that was only the beginning of Ruspower between Moscow and Lithuania _ sia’s bid for sovereignty over the peoples

(after 1569, between Moscow and Po- of the steppes. The process continued land) continued to flare up at almost throughout the 17th and the 18th cenregular intervals; in the northwest, after _turies, ending, in the south, with the having annexed Novgorod, the Moscow annexation of the Crimea in 1783.

government had to take over the task The struggle in the west, while not previously performed by the Novgorod- continual and not as exasperating as the ians, that of containing the pressure of _ process of containing the Tatars, was on

the Livonian Knights and of Sweden in the whole no less costly since it rethe area of the Gulf of Finland and quired, in the periods of acute crises, Karelia. When Moscow defied the au- stronger and better-equipped armies and thority of the khan of the Golden Horde, more expenditure for armament plants. there still remained several Tatar suc- The situation was certainly not propicession states, and the Tatars continued tious for any relaxation of governmental to raid the southern and eastern prov- controls. On_ the contrary, new taxes inces of Muscovy almost yearly, looting were required and the taxation system and seizing thousands of captives. Thus was to be tightened rather than liberal-

the drain on Russian resources in- zed. The creation of the new army

creased rather than decreased after the based on the pomestie system raised the emancipation of the grand duke of Mos- _ problem of supplying agricultural labor

cow from Mongol rule. There were no to the pomestia, and this, as we have natural boundaries in the steppes be- seen, led to serfdom. As a result of all tween Muscovy and the Tatars, and the this, the regimentation of the social Moscow government had to keep the classes which started during the Mongol whole frontier constantly guarded. Both —_ period and was originally based on the

the Kasimov Tatars and the frontiers- Mongol principles of administration, men and Cossacks proved useful, but was carried further and completed by regular army troops had to be mobilized the Muscovite government. Autocracy every year as well. An elaborate system and serfdom were the price the Russian of fortified defense lines was built up, people had to pay for national survival.

THE FRONTIER EXCERPTS By B. H. Sumner The late B. H. Sumner, once Warden of All Souls College at Oxford, agrees with Russia’s greatest historian, Kliuchevsky, that colonization was perhaps the leading factor in the Russian historical experience. While he stresses the physical factors of Russian existence, he combines them skilfully with political and economic elements. There are some interesting comparisons with the frontier in America; for

more information on this subject, see the article by Roger Dow, “Prostor: A Geopolitical Study of Russia and the United States,” Russian Review, I, 3~17, and Donald Treadgold, “Russian Expansion in the Light of Turner’s Study of the American Frontier,” Agricultural History, XXVI, 147-52. For an interpretation of the military frontier see Valentine Bill, “The Circular Frontier of Muscovy,” Russian Review, 1X, 45-56. Robert Kerner’s The Urge to the Sea describes Russian movements along the river routes. For the expansion eastward see Clifford Foust, “Russia’s Expansion to the East through the 18th Century,” Journal of Economic History, December 1961; George Lantzeff, “Russia’s Eastward Expansion before the Mongol Conquest,” American Slavic and East European Review, V1, 1-10; and

George Lensen (ed.), Russia’s Eastward Expansion (paperback). For a general treatment of the role of geography see Vasily Kliuchevsky, A History of Russia, _ Vol. I; Philip Moseley, “Aspects of Russian Expansion,” American Slavic and East European Review, VII, 197-213; George Vernadsky, “The Expansion of Russia,” Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, XXXI, 391-425; and John

Morrison, “Geographic Factors and Fancies in Russian and Soviet Expansion,” in George Hoffman (ed.), Recent Soviet Trends. There are three historical atlases, all in paperback: George Goodall, The Soviet Union in Maps; Arthur Adams, et al, An Atlas of Russian and East European History; and Allen Chew, An Atlas

of Russian History. |

1. TYPES OF FRONTIER success, the Soviet Union has inherited The Soviet Union—four times the size of from the Russian empire two of its most

Europe, but with less than half its popu- pervasive features: it continues to be a lation; as large both in extent and num- From A Short Hisory of Russia, eovyzight bers as the whole of the North American 19 13. 1998, by B. nt oy or nen Repri Feb, continent—is the outcome of revolution permission of Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., on an immense scale and in all spher €S and Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd. The text of life. Despite the break with the past is drawn from pp. 1-3, 8-13, 16-28, 30-46, of and just because of the very extent of its the revised (1949) edition.

| 194,

The Frontier 195 land of many peoples and to be a land multi-national Russian and Muscovite of colonization. Throughout Russian empires. In summary outline, it is the history one dominating theme has been fringes that are compactly non-Russian:

the frontier; the theme of the struggle the Central Asian republics (except for the mastering of the natural re- Kazakhstan, now half-Russian), the sources of an untamed country, expanded Transcaucasian republics (except the oil

into a continent by the ever-shifting centre of Baku), and the new Baltic and movement of the Russian people and Moldavian republics. White Russia, their conquest of and intermingling with which is and always has been over-

other peoples... . whelmingly White Russian, and the The lands that are included in the Ukraine, which is in majority UkrainRussian 5.F.S.R. are made up of the ian, are different in that the two peoples core of Muscovy, stretching from the are very closely allied to the Great RusOka to the northern Dvina, welded into sians, with whom they form the eastern a state by about 1500, and of the Musco- branch of the Slavs. Elsewhere, the nuvite empire, the far-flung conquests made merous non-Russian peoples, mostly of roughly between 1550 and 1650. (There Finnish or Tatar origins, in the course

are important later additions, such as of the centuries have become absorbed St. Petersburg [1703], the North Cau- or increasingly outnumbered, as the uncasus steppes and the Caucasus Moun- resting sea of Russians has seeped in tains [1760-1860], the Amur region and around or flooded over them. and Vladivostok in the Far East [1860], The linguistic map of the Russian but they are relatively small.) Muscovy S.F.S.R., outside its central core of the in the century following 1550 had ex- old Muscovy, is a mosaic, but one col-

panded gigantically to the east and our, the Russian, vastly predominates. south-east before the great advance west- The non-Russians, where they are com-

wards at the expense of Poland and pact, form islands or, for the most part, Sweden, most of which was the work islets, and it is only in the Caucasus of Peter the Great and his successors. mountain regions and in the mixed forThe Muscovite empire, the heir of Tatar est and wooded steppe lands of the khanates, was, to a large extent, an Asi- middle Volga~Kama—Urals that they are

atic state before its transformation into both numerous and contiguous to each the Russian empire, turned towards the other. Hence it took the Russians the West. Thus, Smolensk, only two hun- first sixty years of the nineteenth cendred miles west of Moscow, and Kiev tury to reduce the Caucasian mountainwere not finally won until 1667, by eers—the equivalent of the North-West which time Kazan and Astrakhan had _ Frontier in India; and the great stretchbeen Muscovite for over a century, and es of the middle Volga—Kama—Urals were

for some twenty years there had been a_ the scene of two to three centuries of Muscovite post four thousand miles intermittent strugsle between the Rus-

away on the Pacific... . sian conquerors and colonists and FinConsider first the linguistic or na- nish-Tatar peoples, that was not closed tional frontiers, which have now been until the last of the large-scale Bashkir : crystallized in the Soviet administrative risings in the revolt of Pugachov (1773-

boundaries marking off the different 75)....

constituent republics and autonomous _ As with American so with Russian exnational areas, and which show only pansion, in the greater part of the north too clearly the Soviet inheritance of the and Siberia the outer edge of the ad-

196 The Frontier vancing wave was ‘the meeting point of | enough merged into river pirates or savagery and civilization,! though this mounted buccaneers. Of necessity the does not hold true to the same extent of | hunting grounds of the little companies the advance to the south. Russian like | of trappers were fluctuating and inde-

American development exhibits ‘not terminate, in a vast land with so few merely an advance along a single line, inhabitants, in dependence on wild-life but a return to primitive conditions on migrations and tales of what lay una continually advancing frontier ...so- tapped farther afield. The hard struggle cial development has been continually to make a living, cupidity, adventure, beginning over again on the frontier.’ _pride in skill with trap, net, and bow, In both, the advance of the settlers’ fron- with canoe and axe, later the organized tier was uneven, with tongues of settle- plans of Novgorod merchant-adventurment pushed forward and indentations _ ers and Volga princelings—combined to

in the wilderness, due to varieties of push the frontier ever onward to the east soil and forest, the course and character and north. To the south it was different.

of rivers and lakes, the lie of portages There the Tatar peoples of the steppes and routes and very latterly railways, were strong, and the Russian frontiersthe presence of salt or minerals, the lo- man, as we shall see, was for long cation of army posts or defence lines, | thrown back onto the defensive; but and the varying powers of resistance there eventually, in the sixteenth cenof non-Russians or Indians. Above all, tury, the most famous type of Russian both the Russian and the American ad- hunter-frontiersman was thrown up, the

vance has been that of the agriculturist Cossack. ,

against the forest nomad and the plains The lumberman, specialized as such nomad; the conquest of the grasslands on any scale only within the last three for the first time by the plough, in North _ centuries, fashioned a pioneer frontier

America during the last century at a of his own type. The miners’ frontier is ruinously rapid rate of soil exploitation, _ still more recent, hardly dating on a with erosion now a national problem of telling scale from before 1700, when the first order, in Russia at a serious but Peter the Great created a largely new less ruinous rate owing to the much iron and copper industry, mainly in the slower tempo of her development and Urals, and thrust out in more deterthe comparatively small use of machin- —_ mined search for gold and silver in Si-

ery on the land until the last dozen __beria. The lure of gold produced its own

years. variety of mining frontier with its own Far away back, before the Russian special history, but gold, even though

agriculturist came the Russian hunter- Soviet development has made the Union fisherman-beeman. Fur, game, fish, hon- the second largest producer in the world

ey, and wax provided essentials for after South Africa, has played a less imclothing, food, and light, as well as the portant role than the non-precious metwherewithal for tax payments, rarities | als. From Peter onwards the state, difor the rich and the staples of early __ rectly or indirectly, planted mining coloRussian exports. Hunter and trader were nies of serfs or deportees, who made

apt to be one and the same, and often Russia in the eighteenth century the

largest European producer of iron ore,

1 This and the following quotation are from and who at one and the same time tamed F. J. Turner, The F rontier in American History. the forest both to charcoal and to agriSubsequent quotations, unless otherwise stated, 1 dd th dee into th are from sources contemporaneous with that to cu ture and dr ove another we ge in o e

which they refer. life of the Bashkirs and Siberian tribes.

The Frontier 197 Iron in conjunction with coal pro- empire or the Soviet Union, a concepduced an even greater colonizing effect tion harnessed and adapted by some when in the later nineteenth century the contemporary historians.

large-scale working of the Donets coal (i) The zone of mixed forests, decidbasin and the Krivoi Rog iron-ore re- uous and conifer, spruce and Scots fir, gion caused the influx of Ukrainian and larch, birch and aspen, oak and lime, Great Russian peasants into new mining ash and elm, but (in Russia proper) no villages and new industrial centres, the beech or yew or holly; for the most part uprush of the great South Russian coal composed of the so-called podzol soils, and heavy industry which has been so_ grey sands and clays with a very low immensely extended during the last humus content, with much bog and lake; twenty years. Similarly elsewhere dur- a zone roughly forming a great triangle, ing the last seventy years workers of Lake Ladoga—Kazan-south of the Pripet coal, iron, copper, lead, oil, and under marshes. This became the core of Mus-

the Soviet régime of much else, have covy.

repeated under new forms mining fron- (ii) The zone of conifer forests tier conditions and have transformed stretching to the north of (i) to the the colonization map. The unrelenting tundra, the Arctic version of the steppes, pace of Soviet industrialization, above and to the east hundred mile after hunall in the Far North, the Urals, Kazakh- dred mile more than one-third the way stan, and the Kuznetsk basin of central round the globe to the Pacific Ocean.

Siberia, has revolutionized the miners’ (iii) The wooded steppe or meadowfrontier, which together with its depend- grass steppe zone, to the south of (i)

ent industrial giants has become the and (ii), to the south of the line of the

great melting-pot of the Soviet peoples.?_ spruce; the debatable, savannah-like stretches between forest and true steppe,

2. FOREST AND STEPPE mostly with a variety of rich black. Much the greater part of Russian his- earth soils; until the eighteenth century —

tory has been played out in five great far more wooded than now; the fazones, stretching from the south-west to vourite setting of Turgenev’s novels.

the north-east, similar in their prevail- (iv) The feather-grass steppe zone, ing low elevation and, in certain re- waving ostrich-grey-plumed grasslands spects, in climate, but differing widely before the coming of the plough a hunin humidity, soil, and geological struc- dred years ago; to the south of Kiev—

ture. Usually the zones overlap and Kharkov—Kuibyshev (Samara) the shade into each other without clearly Trans-Siberian; again composed of

marked limits. Except for the first, they black-earth soils; treeless save in the are not European and Asiatic zones, but valleys or deep-cut ravines; the land of

both together; hence the recent term the tall ‘embrace... of a green-yellow Eurasia as a geographical expression ocean, besprinkled with millions of for the unity of the bulk of the Russian spring flowers’ (Gogol, Taras Bulba, 2 Admirable illustrations of the Soviet mining 1834); like ‘the green, ocean-like exfrontier are provided by J. D. Littlepage and _ panse of prairie, stretching swell beyond

D. Bess, In Search of Soviet Gold (1939), the swell to the horizon’ (Parkman, The unvarnished account of the ten years’ experience Oregon Trail, 1846-47). of an American mining engineer in Soviet Asia;

and of the Soviet industrial frontier by John 3 For instance his unmatched Sketches of a Scott, Behind the Urals (1943), an excellent Sportsman (1852)—the title varies with each firsthand account of the early years of Mag- translation—one of the classic pictures of the

nitogorsk. Russian land and the Russian peasant.

198 The Frontier | (v) The wormwood steppe zone, nar- Kiev Russia. Apart from the long-dis-

row along the Black Sea, shading off tance transit trade, the Russians supeastwards into saline steppe and even- plied furs and wax and honey, hides tually sand or stone desert in Central and tallow, and slaves; they received Asia; the arid ranches and pampas of luxury goods and weapons, affecting dithe chestnut and yellow-grey soils, which rectly only the top layer of society. The

are still in the main what they have al- external contacts of Kiev Russia, parways been, the preserves of the pastoral ticularly with the Byzantine empire,

nomad. ... bringing Christianity, writing, and the

. arts, ultimately had the greatest conse-

(i) THE ZonE OF Mixep Forests quences, but the flourishing trade and

. . . Between 1000 and the Mongol con- _ the brilliance of a few centres like Kiev quest in the thirteenth century the most did not alter the main basis of the great

vital event in the history of the Rus- bulk of the population, agriculture and sians, apart from their conversion to forest life. Christianity, was their settling of the The prevailing method of cultivation lands between the Oka and the Volga, had been temporary cropping on the later to become the centre of Muscovy. ash of burnt-over forest or scrub or on This was achieved at the expense of Fin- the more open spaces of wild grassland. nish tribes in occupation of them, who The clearings, after a few years of conwere gradually conquered and assimi- tinuous cropping, were either abandoned

lated or driven farther afield, leaving to revert to waste or kept as rough the map still thickly studded with their pasture until their productivity might river and other place names. It was ac- be restored. Gradually the socketed axe

companied also by continued struggle replaced its less effective forebears. on the east with the Finnish Mordva and Gradually the plough-stick was superwith the strongly organized Moslem seded by the horsedrawn wooden ‘hook’ Bulgars, centred around the junction of plough, which by about 1000 had bethe Volga and the Kama. The southern come usual. It was eventually developed,

advance into the steppe, as will be by the sixteenth century, into the light shown later, failed to be maintained wheelless wooden plough, with coulter,

against the nomad peoples, and the mould-board, and iron share, which Mongol invasion of 1237-40 set the seal with various modifications remained on the victory of the steppe. For the until this century the prevailing type of next two centuries the Russians, broad- plough used by the peasantry throughly speaking, were confined to the for- out Russia outside the black-earth zone.

est. ... By the sixteenth century the scattered In the ninth century, while the Norse’ plots and rudimentary technique had

men were raiding and conquering in given way on the estates of the big

western Europe and the British Isles, landowners to relatively more intensive their Swedish Viking kinsmen, the Va- cultivation on a two- or three-field basis,

rangians, penetrated the Baltic-Black with some dunging and with nucleated Sea river routes and set themselves at villages; and after the Time of Troubles the head of Kiev Russia, a loose bundle (1604-13) development was rapid into of the Russian districts, whose tribal or- the open, three-field communal system, ganization was by then much decayed. with scattered individual strips, typical Commerce, which grew and flourished of medieval western Europe and henceuntil about 1200, contributed much to forward of Russia right down to the the rapid cultural and political rise of Revolution. Rye was the staple crop;

The Frontier 199 barley, oats, and some wheat were groups and then the Novgorod bands, grown; but the grain supply of the organized by rich merchant-landowners mixed forest zone was uncertain. The and led by tough, experienced boatmennorth-west was always dependent on im- _ pioneers, was above all fur—sable, mar-

ports and, as the population grew, the ten, fox; better and more numerous the whole of this zone, together with the farther north and east the ‘companies’

northern pine forests, has been classed pressed; beaver, squirrel, otter, of as the ‘consuming provinces’ for the last | much less worth, but invaluable for or-

two hundred years. dinary use (beaver still common right Around Novgorod and in the upper down to the seventeenth century all over Volga region flax and hemp were grown Russia, north of the true steppes). Fishfrom very early times and became, to- ing, sealing, and whaling in ‘the blue gether with the handicrafts based on sea-ocean’ drew men to stud the coast them, increasingly important. From the with little settlements, sending back to eighteenth century they formed one of faraway Novgorod walrus ivory, blubthe chief items of Russian exports and ber oil, and seal skins (admirable for the developed into a large-scale modern in- strongest ropes and thongs). These and,

dustry. Stock-raising, for draught ani- above all, fur, tar, pitch, and potash mals, hides, and tallow, was originally formed the staples of Novgorod’s exof more importance than in the recent ports through the Hanse merchants to centuries when Muscovy could draw on the western lands.

the steppes to the south. ... Along the White Sea shores and else-

where salt made a new frontier. From

(ii) THe Zone or ConiFer Forests the fifteenth century the industry exInto the zone of the solid conifer for- panded greatly, and there was a large ests, much sparser in any open land, export to the south. Thanks largely to poorer in soil, and yet more rigorous in salt two famous rival monasteries, climate, Russian colonization, ever since Solovetsky (founded 1436) and Byelo-

the eleventh century, thanks to the zero (founded 1397), developed into wealth of waterways thrust out long semi-governmental centres of industry tentacles, developing from trading- and of defence against the Swedes, while tribute forays and reaching out to the in the north-east towards the Urals the White Sea, the northern Dvina, and even Stroganov family emerged as the chief

the Urals. The thinly settled Finnish salt monopolists two generations and and Lapp tribes offered what resistance more before their ‘conquest of Siberia’

they could, and in some cases it was (1581)....

stubborn, but, just as to the south, there For the next two hundred years the was much assimilation, and it was only North, from the Volga and Lake Ladoga between the Volga and the upper Kama _ to the White Sea, grew greatly in prosthat some of these peoples lived on un-_ perity and importance and developed

russified, in dwindling numbers. There differently from the rest of Muscovy. was no marked dividing line between The English discovery of the White Sea the northern forests and lakes and the route to Muscovy, dating from Richard more southerly region, but climatic and Chancellor’s voyage in 1553, and the other natural conditions made agricul- failure of Ivan the Terrible in the next ture entirely subsidiary, save along the twenty-five years to batter his way to the

upper courses of the Dvina River. The Baltic in the face of the Poles and the lure that beckoned the adventurer Swedes transformed the northern Dvina

200 The Frontier into the gateway of Muscovy.‘ English are no dividing barrier; and until the and Dutch merchants vied for the Mus-_ eighteenth century the Russians _recovy and Persian trade, and the great mained almost.confined to the forest and route up the Dvina from Arkhangel tundra zones, except in the extreme west (founded 1585) to Vologda and thence of Siberia where the black-earth wooded

to Moscow became a main artery. steppe thrusts up its most northerly The customs books of the seventeenth wedge.... century and the efflorescence of archi- In any case it was the forest not the tecture in the northern towns bear vivid steppe that the Russians wanted. Fur witness to their prosperity. For instance, still was the magnet: the sable led them

the wealthy burghers of Yaroslavl, on and on, by the great river routes where the route to Moscow crossed the closely linked by portages—to Manga-

Volga, raised the most remarkable zeya (the Siberian variant of Potosi of group of churches of the century in the 1600), to the Yenisei (1607), to the Russian style; unique in their size, their Lena (1632), to the extreme north-east

elaborate brick and coloured-tile deco- and the Pacific itself (about 1640), ration, and the copiousness of their fres- | where the reindeer and dog tribes as yet coes, which owed much to Dutch illus- knew not the use of bronze or iron. The

trations of the Bible and other Western Russians met strong resistance only influences. It was not until Peter the around Lake Baikal from the Buddhist Great succeeded where Ivan the Terrible Mongolian Buryats, and a definitive had failed that the North declined: then counterstop only in the Amur basin. St. Petersburg and Riga promptly killed There for the first time they came up Arkhangel and the North sank into against the organized solidity of civi-

neglect. ... lized power, the Chinese empire under When the Western nations were the new Manchu Ch’ing dynasty, and

thrusting afield in the Americas and the __ for the first time encountered rival fire-

Indies, the Russians spanned the conti- arms. In the Amur region there were nent of Asia with a rapidity—some fifty twenty-five years of intrepid exploration

years—to rival even the Spaniards a and colonization by runaways and of incentury earlier; ever pressing on, ‘tothe termittent ferocity and battling with east of the sun, to the passage of the Chinese forces. Then in 1689 the first great Tsar Alexander, to the most high treaty between Russia and China was mountain Karkaraur, where dwell the concluded. The Amur was kept by China one-footed, one-armed folk.’ The con- and the savagely inhospitable Stanovoi quest of Siberia was the continuation of | mountains remained the frontier for a the Russian penetration of the unending hundred and seventy years. The boundnorthern forests east of the Urals, which —_ ary posts that were set up were to be in-

, scribed in five languages—Chinese, Rus4The English discovery of Russia (not only sian, Manchu, Mongol, and Latin: with of the North) and relations with her are vividly the Chinese negotiators there had been

portrayed in the accounts of mariners and gq Jesuit Father. China not only halted agents of the Muscovy Company, printed in the Russia; she also gave her what is now

Everyman edition of Hakluyt’s Voyages, vols. 1 . . . and 2 (especially Willoughby, Chancellor, Bur- national drink: fifty years earlier

, reached Russia.

rough, Jenkinson, Horsey, and Fletcher). (1638) the first tea via Siberia had

5 There are excellent photographs of the mid- Thi ‘shinol ‘d £ and late-seventeenth century churches of Yaro- is astonishingly rapid conquest o

slavl and other northern centres in D. R. Buxton, the Asiatic forest lands was due to six

Russian Medieval Architecture (1934). main reasons:

The Frontier 201 (1) The Russians did not have to The regulations were intricate and conadapt themselves to any considerable stantly varying. Evasion of them was extent to new physical or climatic con- equally constant. The natives hunted ditions. Their own Russian North was’ mainly with bows and arrows, the Russubstantially similar, and for centuries sians with traps and nets. The effect of

they had been adept at using water the Russian impact on the backward routes. (2) Their expeditions were only northern tribes was in general as disas-

a few hundred strong, but they had _ trous as the American impact on Red greatly superior weapons and imple- Indian life. On the one hand Moscow ments, particularly firearms, clumsy was prolific in instructions ‘not to drive though they were. Various types of Cos- them out of the Tsar’s favour’; on the sacks, however unruly they often were, other hand there was a flood of other

furnished an admirable spearhead of instructions, the gist of which was ‘to frontiersmen. (3) The peoples of north- take the fur tribute, according to the ern Asia were few in numbers, for the number of the people and their occupamost part dispersed in primitive, mutu- tions, as much as possible.’ There could ally hostile hunting tribes, and prepared be no shadow of doubt which profited

to some extent to serve with the Rus- most the authorities on the spot. One sians against each other. (4) The inex- particular effect of the fur tribute system haustible demand for furs in Muscovy was that, since converts did not pay it, and in Europe put a premium on rapid missionary activities by the Orthodox expansion farther and farther eastwards church were for long discountenanced

in search of better skins and more in Siberia. The Orthodox Church was plentiful supplies. (5) The Russian for the Russians.® , equivalents of the coureurs des bois of Much the greater part of the state fur French Canada. were possessed of in- revenue came from the annual tribute in

domitable hardihood, energy, and cour- furs from the natives, the yasak, a comage: love of gain was mated with spirit bination of Russian and previous Sibeof adventure, endurance and resource rian practice. In addition the state levied

with rapacity and cruelty. (6) Behind, a tax of a tenth on all furs acquired by and frequently at odds with, the inde- Russian hunters or traders, and it also pendent frontier pioneers the Muscovite exercised rights of pre-emption. There government plodded laboriously. Ex- was no state monopoly of the fur trade, pansion east of the Yenisei was mainly as there was for instance of silk and a result of local initiative, but there fol- caviare, until about 1700 attempts were lowed eventually the armed support of | made to make fur exports to China and

the faraway central authority, the me- other Asiatic countries a state monopthodical securing of stockaded posts on oly. In the middle of the seventeenth the river routes, the planting down of — century, when the fur trade was at its

an administration. ... height, the private trade was nearly To an even greater extent than in three times as large as the state fur rev-

French Canada the fur trade dominated enue. This private trade in Siberia was Siberia in the seventeenth century. Fur wholly in the hands of Russians; forwas an indispensable source of revenue and export for the Muscovite govern- 6 The conditions of Russian missionary work ment. Hence its policy aimed at control- i north-east Siberia in the nineteenth century line tightly the trade throuch the fur 2% inimitably described in Leskov’s deeply ng Hgnny on imaginative story On the Edge of the World tribute imposed upon non-Russians and (1876), translated (1922) in The Sentry and through strict limitation of private trade. Other Stories.

202 The Frontier eigners were rigidly debarred. Never- models, which concentrated on a new theless, the regulations governing the Pacific expansion of the fur and sealing yasak, the tax of a tenth, and pre-emp- frontier. Under a group of remarkable tion were all designed to secure the state merchant-adventurers and sea-captains,

first pick of the best furs, especially the Russian-American Company, somesables, and despite much corruption and what similar to the East India Company, smuggling the contribution of furs to spread a new brand of Russian imperialthe Muscovite revenue was very impor- ism across the Bering Strait into Alaska tant, in the best years perhaps over ten and down the North American coast. By

per cent of the total revenue. This fur 1820, with a Russian outpost almost as revenue, apart from other revenues from far south as San Francisco and with the Siberia, seems from the scanty figures Russians active in the Hawaii islands, it available to have brought in a large seemed almost possible that the North profit over and above the expense of Pacific might become a Russian lake administration. Probably about four- and North America be divided between fifths of the Siberian furs were exported the United States, Great Britain, and (in Europe mainly to Holland and the Russia. In the face of American and German lands from Arkhangel and _ British pressure, however, the Russian

Novgorod). | government withdrew to Alaska, found

Already by 1700 both the absolute _ this too costly, and eventually succeeded and the relative value of the fur trade in selling it to the United States in 1867.

had much declined, and the principal The Russians were too few on their state fur interest became concentrated icebound Pacific, and too far from it. on the Chinese market. In Europe the Their true line of expansion lay in the competition of North American furs rich and varied Amur basin, where they was telling heavily, and the heyday of had been halted ever since 1689. Thanks

Siberia as a fur El Dorado was past. to a masterful pro-consul, MuravyovThus in the eighteenth century the fur Amursky, and to the weakness of the trade lost its dominant position. West of | Chinese government during ‘the Taiping

the Yenisei the fur frontier had by then Rebellion,’ Russia acquired in 1860 all yielded place to that of the peasant set- the northern bank of the Amur and the tler and the miner. In 1700 there were coastline down to Vladivostok, a vast probably considerably over 330,000 new frontier for the Cossack and peas-

Russians in Siberia (compared with ant pioneer, the miner and the lumber250,000-300,000 Americans in the thir- man. Meanwhile Siberia proper had teen colonies). Half a century earlier an changed character. Her life no longer official estimate (1662), for what it is centred in the great northern forests, worth, had put them at 70,000. From but was intertwined with the black-earth the time of Peter the Great the state con- steppe lands to the south. centrated more on mining development, .

and organized exploration and exploita- (iii) THE STEPPES

tion of gold and silver were pushed’... The Russian challenge to the steppes, ahead, though the Siberian gold rushes radiating out from Kiev, itself on the did not occur until the nineteenth cen- frontier of the mixed forest and the

tury. wooded steppe, was epitomized in the In 1767 private trade with the non- grand-prince Svyatoslav (died 972),

Russians was allowed without restric- ‘stepping like a pard,’ warring from the tions. Thereafter for the first time trad- Danube and Constantinople to the Casing companies developed on western pian and the middle Volga, scheming a

The Frontier 203 Slav variant of a Dnieper—Black Sea— Russians were forced into subjection Danube steppe dominion. For another and back into the zone of the mixed century Russian expeditions sallied out forests. For two centuries frontier settlefrom Kiev, usually with success, to clear ment did not edge farther south than the

the river route to Byzantium or east- hazardous fringes of the woodland ward into the steppe. Thereafter they steppe between the Oka and the headproved less and less successful against waters of the Don....

the latest Turkish newcomers in the By about 1450, when the Ottomans

Black Sea steppes, the Polovtsy. were capturing Constantinople, the Sustained conquest was never Horde had split up into the three rival achieved by the Russians and settled khanates of Astrakhan, Kazan, and the colonization, with a few exceptions, fluc- Crimea, and a little later the Nogai tuated within a hundred and fifty miles horde, paramount in the open steppes or so east and south of Kiev. Relations east of the Volga, and the khanate of the

with the Polovtsy and other nomads Siberian Tatars to the east of the Urals. were frequently peaceable as well as hos- The accompanying dissensions enabled

tile: there was some intermarriage, the Ivan the Great to rid himself of tribute taking in of broken nomad tribes asfron- and any formality of dependency tier guards, and much trade: as the Rus- (1480). The stage was being set for the sians pushed on in the steppe, similar great Muscovite advance from the forest conditions bred something of a similar against the steppe, but the breakdown of way of life. In the end, in face of the the Golden Horde marked no diminuMongol peril Russians and Polovtsy at- tion, on the contrary an increase, in the

tempted combined resistance. frequency of Tatar raids, especially After 1125 the Russians were con- from the side of Kazan.

tinually on the defensive: the great The advance began down the Volga, trade-route to Byzantium had become not the Don, against the Kazan Tatars, very dangerous and the result of the who were relatively near and at the time first crusade (1095-99) was to divert a greater danger than the Crimean TaByzantine commercial interest from the _ tars, far away to the south and difficult North. There were too few Russians on _ to strike at. Kazan itself was not finally

the steppe frontier; those to the north captured until 1552 by Ivan the Tercombined less and less with the exposed _rible, when the khanate was annexed, southern outposts. It is possible that at after nearly a century of Muscovite efany rate the steppes west of the Dnieper _ forts to reduce it, in part by war in part

might have been permanently mastered by establishing Tatar adherents as by the Russians but for the internal dis- khans. The same inter-mixture of Rus-

sensions of the Russian principalities. sian and Tatar is exemplified in the The sacking of Kiev in 1169 by Andrew policy begun in the mid-fifteenth cenBogolyubsky, prince of Vladimir, far to tury of granting lands to renegade Tatar the north-east in the Oka-Volga Mesopo- princes and taking them into frontier tamia, in a sense symbolized the declin- service, a policy of assimilation which ing interest of the northern Slavs in the continued to be a main feature of Rus-

southern steppes. There was a grim sian relations with Tatars and other nemesis seventy years later when Batu’s _ eastern peoples.

war host reduced the Mesopotamia no The conquest of Kazan had been a less savagely than Kiev, and in fact long and costly undertaking, but it was

three years earlier (1237-38). followed by a rapid sweep right down

The Mongol conquest meant that the the Volga to its mouth and the easy

204. The Frontier

seizure of Astrakhan (1556). Hencefor- nists until about 1650. ward the rich ribbon of the Volga trade- Even a hundred and fifty years after route was in Muscovite hands, a wind- the conquest the Russian stockaded de-

ing waterway through the steppes, but fence lines that marked the limits of

not in itself the master-key of the secure colonization had not pushed steppes. A challenge from the Ottoman much farther south than about the lati-

empire, with its vassals the Crimean tude of Samara (Kuibyshev), and not Tatars, for a moment (1569) endan- so far south to the east of the Volga; gered the new-won conquest and opened roughly the southern limits of the the vista of the Volga as another Dan- wooded steppe. Beyond still lay ‘the ube. The challenge was not pressed; wild grounds.’ Then from the second the Tatars and the Ottomans were at quarter of the eighteenth century there odds; Lepanto followed (1571), and the —_- was adopted a sustained policy of reduc-

Crimean Tatars, though they raided and ing to ‘hereditary fear’ the Bashkirs burnt Moscow in that same year, dis- (themselves by now in part succumbing puted the Don steppes rather than the to settled life) and of developing new

Volga lands. _ mines and metal works in the Urals and Muscovy set about holding the great new defence lines which separated the trade-route by fortified frontier posts on Bashkirs from the Kazakhs and the Cen-

its banks between Nizhni-Novgorod tral Asian steppes. The disaster of the (Gorki) and Astrakhan, such as Samara revolt of Pugachov (1773-75), which (Kuibyshev), Saratov, and Tsaritsyn set alight the Urals and all the Volga (Stalingrad). The Volga never bred an _ below Nizhni-Novgorod (Gorki), proved

organized Cossack ‘host’ like that of the only temporary. From the end of the Don, but it remained until as late as century the rich black-earth steppes be1800 a happy hunting ground and _ tween the Volga and the Urals became refuge for Cossack bands, river pirates, opened for good to the agriculturist, in and a medley of vagrants from up river, _ the shape of the serf-owning landowner.”

combustible material that broke into Farther to the south, below Saratov, raging flames in the revolts of Stenka in the arid chestnut-soil steppe merging

Razin and Pugachov. Settled coloniza- into the saline and semi-desert stretches tion was still more retarded by the ha- of the lower Volga, agricultural colonibitual raids of the Nogai Tatars (a very zation could make little headway withloosely organized horde), of the much out developed dry farming or irrigation. more tightly organized Buddhist Mon- The most successful settlers here were golian Kalmuks (nomad incomers of the German peasants, first tempted with speearly seventeenth century), and of the cial privileges by Catherine the Great; Moslem nomad Bashkirs of the middle a solid block of over 400,000 at their Urals, who struggled against Russian maximum in 1914, who remained dissubjection right down to the end of the _ tinctively German though with few coneighteenth century. The lands of the nexions (at any rate until the last twenkhanate of the Kazan Tatars, the heirs ty years) either with Germany or with of the Volga Bulgars, were equally com- the leading German group in Russia, posite, including various Tatar-Finnish the Baltic German landowners. The First peoples in the mixed forest and border World War threatened them with wholesteppes of the middle Volga. They also 7 A vivid picture of colonization in this retook long to subj ect fully or to assim gion is given in Sergei Aksakov’s The Family late, and their main river valleys were Chronicle (paperback), one of the classics of not solidly occupied by Russian colo- Russian prose.

The Frontier 205 sale expulsion to the East. The Second booty—slaves and stock.

World War has seen the threat actually Four times within seventy years put into operation and the end of the (1521-91), riding up their three main Soviet autonomous republic of the Vol- trails crouched ‘like monkeys on grey-

ga Germans a year before the great hounds,’ they raided north of the Oka

battle for Stalingrad close by. into the heart of Muscovy and in 1571

To the west of the Volga, in the Don they burnt Moscow itself. After 1591 and lower Dnieper basins, there was the they never succeeded in crossing the

same dominant feature, the struggle Oka, and gradually their raids pene-

against the way of life of the nomads, in _ trated less and less far northwards. The this case primarily the Crimean Tatars. big musters headed by the khan in perBut here, in contrast, Muscovy was in son became rare. The habitual danger

competition with a Western organized was the swoop of small bands a few state, Poland, and with the power of the hundred strong, ‘running about the list Ottoman empire, of which the Crimea of the border as wild geese flie, invadwas from 1475 a tributary dependency. ing and retiring where they see advanHere again in contrast there was no rich _ tage.’ As late as 1676-79 the constable trade-route like the Volga to be seized at of Orel received one hundred and seven a leap by the Muscovite government. messages as to such ‘short and sudden

Leap there was, but it was due to the rodes.’ Still, under Peter the Great, free Cossacks speeding down the Don there were raids into the Kharkov and establishing their centre about 1600 region almost every year between 1710

along its lower reaches in semi-inde- and 1718, one of which years was rependence of Moscow. At the same time ported to yield the Tatars over 14,000 social conditions in Poland fomented a _ prisoners, a suspiciously high figure.

similar outflow of Ukrainian hunting The reasons why the Crimean Tatars pioneers into ‘the wild grounds,’ who for some three centuries proved such formed themselves into the Zaporo- difficult foes for Russians and Poles zhian (‘beyond the cataracts’) Cossack alike were their military specialization, ‘host’ on the lower Dnieper, very similar distance, the fact that behind them lay to that of the Don Cossacks, and an even _ the power of the Turks, and the fact that

pricklier thorn in the flesh of all who they acted now in conjunction with the

came in their path. Russians, now with the Poles, now with The Crimean khanate was a well-or- the Zaporozhian Cossacks against the ganized state of pastoral Tatars, based other. The Russian military equipment on the very mixed Crimea, where there only became superior to that of the Tawas agriculture and handicrafts and _ tars as their firearms increased in quanmuch commerce. Their numbers have tity and improved in quality, and even been much exaggerated, and it is im- so this superiority was usually of avail probable that in the seventeenth century only in the timbered country or in holdat any rate the khan could put into the ing forts and redoubts, not in the open field more than 30,000 horsemen at the treeless steppe; just as the American utmost, a number that was later much _cattle-ranchers in the Great Plains had reduced. The Tatars made up for their little advantage over the horse Indians lack of numbers by their mobility and until the coming of the six-shooter. tactics, in which they were at a great ad- The Crimea itself was six hundred vantage in that they aimed not at the and fifty miles direct from the Oka, and defeat of the enemy (they evaded battle far more in actual riding miles. The last

if they could), but at the capture of three hundred were across the feather-

206 The Frontier grass and wormwood steppes, in which elaborate, fourfold defence system, ini-

water and provisioning were acute dif- tially intended to prevent the Tatars ficulties. The Poles never attempted to crossing the Oka, but additionally prostrike at the heart. The Russians in the viding security for colonization. The mid-sixteenth century were inclined to system included the founding of fortifollow up their capture of Kazan and fied garrison centres settled by the govAstrakhan by a mortal blow at the ernment with military colonists, and in Crimea, but Ivan the Terrible decided the last twenty years of the century that the distances were too great and there was rapid progress in consolidat-

turned to the Baltic. ing the frontier. The advance of settleThe Russians did not pass from the ments was along the tributaries of the defensive to the offensive until the fron- Don or Oka, then navigable for small tier was far down on the edge of the boats, in the wooded valleys which prowooded steppe. Even then (1687, 1689) vided the essential timber and better they signally failed to cope with the means of defence than the swelling open supply problem in the great stretches of | country. During the next twenty years open steppe between the Donets and the (1600-1620), owing to the Time of

Crimea. Fifty years later (1736-38) Troubles, the frontier ‘went Cossack’ they were successful in reaching the and there was chaos. It was only after stronghold of the Tatars, who could put 1633 that the defence system was thorup little resistance beyond ‘scorched oughly reorganized and the planned adearth’ tactics and suffered fatal damage, | vance resumed, marked by the founding

even though the Russian commander of more garrison centres and the conlost half his army through sickness, The struction of the Byelgorod defence line successes in Catherine the Great’s first roughly along the northern limits of the Turkish war (1768-74) sealed the fate present Ukraine and thence north-eastof the khanate. It was a prey to internal wards to Voronezh, Tambov, and the

dissension and in 1783 the Crimea Volga at Simbirsk. ... yielded itself to Russian rule. Into the Muscovite frontier a new eleThe advance to the Black Sea, unlike ment swelled to a great scale after 1650

that to the Caspian, had been slow, but when the Ukrainians rose against the it was sure, for it was based on a con- Poles and turned to Moscow. The bulk tinual process of settled colonization at of the original Ukrainian immigrants the expense of the seasonal rhythm of formed five regiments, which took up

pastoral nomadism. From about 1500 land in the middle Donets region, the northern fringes of the wooded founded and garrisoned Kharkov and steppe belt were a debatable ground be- other towns with a new defence line in

tween Tatar bands and Russian fron- advance. They enjoyed special privitiersmen pushing southwards, followed leges, including the much-prized right slowly by the plough, into the virgin of free brewing and distilling, and until

black-earth lands that were acting as a far into the eighteenth century were magnet to the peasants of central Mus- allowed comparative autonomy in their

covy, more and more hard pressed by Slobodskaya Ukraine, free Ukraine, landowners and the state. But, unless joining on to the west with their comthey went Cossack, they could not patriots in the Little Russian provinces, escape from the state and they needed _ the so-called Left-bank Ukraine (i.e., on

its protection. the left bank of the Dnieper), which the In the course of the sixteenth century Poles were forced to admit as part of the Muscovite government built up an Muscovy in 1667. Behind the soldier-

The Frontier 207 settlers came other non-military farmers, themselves into serf-owning gentry, and traders, and artisans, mostly families of | Polish landlords retained their position

some means. Ukrainian colonization and their serfs when the Right-bank was much less dependent on the state Ukraine (ie., on the right bank of the than Great Russian. To the northward Dnieper) came under Russia by the of Kharkov, Ukrainians and Great Rus- second partition of Poland (1793).... sians for long kept apart, but from the By the middle of the nineteenth cenlate eighteenth century they merged to- tury New Russia had grown to 2,250,gether. To the south it was different; 000, by 1900 to well over 6,000,000 (if the solid Ukrainian colonization main- Bessarabia and the Don are included, tained itself and spread over the open the numbers would be nearly doubled). steppe; Great Russian penetration on a Wheat-growing had _ largely replaced large scale took place only with the in- _ stock-raising, based on a variegated exdustrial and mining development of the _ tensive system of cultivation, not on the

last sixty years. three-field system. The density of the The Ukrainian line of the seventeen- rural population was still sparse, two to thirties, from the Donets to the Dnieper _ three times less than the crowded blackon the borderland of the wooded and _— earth lands of the old Ukraine, but al-

the feather-grass steppes, was the last ready in 1900 it was fifty per cent of the big fortified lines. By then Slo- greater than the density of the whole of bodskaya Ukraine had not far short of lowa, cities included, in 1920; and Iowa 400,000 inhabitants: its military charac- 1s comparable in many respects in cliter as a frontier region was all-pervad- mate and soil conditions. By 1900 half ing. To the north frontier conditions the land was held in individual owner-

were largely a relic of the past; the ship, mostly by the gentry in great

lesser ‘men of service’ had become state estates, and only forty per cent in com-

peasants and were being swamped by munes. By then, too, the coal of the the gentry moving south with their serfs | Donets basin and the iron ore of Krivoi

and the three-course open fields in Rog had begun industrialization, and strips. Forty years later (1774) the wheat was somewhat less dominant. Russians were down to the Black Sea Thus New Russia, the land of the open and controlled the mouths of the Dnie- steppes, differed considerably from the per, the Don, and the Kuban. The Zapo- wooded steppe zone to the north, almost rozhian Cossacks were broken up and _ solely given over to agriculture, serftransplanted (1775), the Crimea passed dom, and the commune, solidly Great

into Russian hands (1783), and the Russian or Ukrainian.

Turks for the third time within fifty | years were soundly beaten (1787-92) 3. TYPES OF COLONIZATION and yielded the coastal steppes between During the past ten centuries of Rus-

the Dnieper and the Dniester. sian expansion there has been a conThe frontier was now the open Black stant tug or struggle between the comSea steppes, New Russia. Behind, the pulsory and the voluntary elements, befertile zone of the black-earth wooded tween the authorities—at times damsteppe, with its woods by then much ming back, at times forcing forward—

depleted, developed into the land par and the individual and the family—at excellence of serfdom and grain cultiva- times determinedly on the move, at tion, where Great Russian landowners times reluctantly conscribed. For long acquired vast estates, Ukrainian officers a certain degree of mobility, as has been followed their example and transformed noticed earlier, was encouraged or ne-

208 The Frontier cessitated by the nature of forest econ- ruly and marauding element, and they omy and by the prevailing agricultural played an anarchic and destructive role technique. In the early centuries the evi- in the Time of Troubles (1604-13). In dence is insufficient to decide whether 1600, in complete contrast with 1900, compulsion by the princes and their chief they represented to some extent the

retainers and by merchant-adventurers challenge of social revolution by the or the voluntary cooperation of freemen underdog and the untamed.

played the bigger role in colonization; On the frontier, however, as freebut it is undoubted that the special ad- _booter rivals to the nomads they might vantages, economic and military, that be a great asset, as Muscovy, though not the former offered were essential factors Poland, found. By 1600 the boldest in the settling of what became the core spirits had gone down river far away

of Muscovy. — , south into the feather-grass steppe and

For the two centuries after 1350 the had organized themselves in three sepamonasteries played an important part rate Cossack ‘hosts,’ on the middle and as centres of new settlement, especially lower Don, the middle Ural River, and

to the north of the Volga, but there- the lower Dnieper where the Zaporoafter they were not, except in the middle zhian (‘beyond the cataracts’) Cossacks Volga, conspicuous. Missionary activity played a somewhat similar role for the

in advance of occupation or conquest Ukrainians under Poland as the other was a rare exception, and later there Cossacks did for the Great Russians unwas nothing corresponding to the colo- der Muscovy.® All three ‘hosts’ were nizing work of the churches, for in- stoutly Orthodox, a fact of special im-

stance in New Zealand. ... portance in the struggle of the UkrainThe most striking type of free colo- ian Cossacks against Poland.

nization, dependent on .a combination Apart from these three spontaneous, of individual initiative and group spirit, independent ‘hosts,’ Cossacks were used

was the Cossacks, whose history, in by the government for courier and other particular that of the Don Cossacks, sup- military services, and in the eighteenth

plies an admirable sample of the Rus- century the state formed, more or less sian conquest of the steppe and of the on the model of the original ‘hosts,’ gradual extension of state power at the Cossack defence forces to guard and expense of local autonomy in accord- settle the frontier, in the North Cauca-

ance with the transformation of the sus, the southern Urals, Siberia, and

structure of frontier society. latest of all in the Far East. They enThe original Cossack was a ‘vagrant’? joyed special privileges, but unlike the

whether from Muscovy or the Polish Don, Ural, and Zaporozhian Cossacks

Ukraine, a steppe frontiersman; bee they were founded and always conhunter, beaver hunter, game hunter, trolled by the ministry of war. fisherman, pastoralist; half-going Ta- The Don Cossacks, recruited mainly

tar; pushing farther and farther afield from Great Russians, maintained themin the sixteenth century. He might de- selves for a hundred years, until 1671,

velop into a rancher; he might take in semi-independence of Moscow as a service as scout and light horseman

(the original meaning of the Tatar word 8 Gogol’s prose epic Taras Bulba (1834; kazak); he might turn bandit-freeboot- translated in various editions) on the Zapo-

. » gives the feel

er: usually he combined by turns all rozhian snk in 108, Seventeenth century, these occupations. The Cossacks were a of the steppe and the fighting spirit of the Cos-

liberty-loving and equalitarian but un- sacks with compelling power.

The Frontier 209 ‘host,’ organized on a military basis, fringe increased as more and more runbut democratically governed by an as- aways from the North trekked down; sembly and elected officers, with full for the Don clung to its tradition of becontrol of admission into their ranks. ing an asylum for all and sundry. For this first hundred years they were The divorce between the richer, old very nominal subjects of ‘the White established Cossack families of the low-

Tsar.’ They paid no taxes and had free er Don and the needy newcomers trading rights. ‘We fight,’ they declared, showed itself to be acute when the for‘for the House of the Immaculate Virgin mer stood against the two leaders of and the Miracle Workers of Moscow _ revolt, Stenka Razin and Bulavin (1670-

and for thee . . . Sovereign Tsar and 71 and 1707-8). Moscow suppressed Grand Prince of Great and Little and _ the risings with some assistance from White Russia, Autocrat and Sovereign the Cossack oligarchy. Henceforward and Possessor of many Hordes.’ In fact, (1671) the Don Cossacks were bound to like any other of his hordes they fought, the tsar by oath of allegiance. The right pillaged, and negotiated when and as_ of asylum was more and more effective-

they pleased, particularly with the ly challenged by the government. The Crimean Tatars and the Turks holding southward surge of colonization from the Don delta with their stone fortress Muscovy made it possible to deprive the of Azov. They then mustered probably ‘host’ of its middle Don lands (1708), about 10,000 fighting Cossacks; equally and Peter the Great went a long step formidable as river or sea corsairs and further in state control by abolishing

as land buccaneers. For long they de- the free election of the commander spised the plough as the badge of bond- (ataman) of the ‘host’ and directly ap-

age. Boasting ‘we serve for grass and pointing him himself (1723). water, not for land and estates,’ they Henceforward the atamans, holding lived by fishing, stock-breeding, trading, office for long periods but failing to be-

and hunting, above all for slaves and come hereditary, worked in closer and booty, raiding far afield in ‘the wild closer accord with St. Petersburg, and grounds,’ along the paynim shores of so did the senior officers, themselves the Black Sea, or, as they sang, ‘like after 1754 no longer elected but apyoung falcons ... on Mother Volga... pointed by the war ministry. Together | on the blue sea, the blue sea, on the they formed a governing oligarchy and

Caspian.’ the old assembly of the ‘host’ counted

But they depended as well on the an- for little. The privileges and more espenual grant made by Moscow, flour, mu- cially the duties of the Cossacks be-

nitions, and cloth. This was their came more closely defined: they figured Achilles’ heel. The distribution of the regularly in the Russian campaigns of

grant was made by the Cossacks them- the eighteenth century and began to be

selves, but the amount was fixed by used as an internal police force. AgriMoscow, and it paid the ‘host’ to keep culture had spread now that there was a itself small. Yet they were too few to plentiful supply of non-Cossack labour.

oust the Turks from Azov, save for a By the end of the century the officer brief spell, and they needed the succour class had become large landowners and of Muscovy. A democratic oligarchy they succeeded in securing admission began to harden; then an inner ring of into the ‘estate’ of the gentry, with the the senior officers grew well-off; outside, consequent legal right to own serfs. The the floating, unprivileged semi-Cossack frontier by now had moved south to the

210 The Frontier Kuban and the North Caucasus steppes.® bastion for the White armies.!° Death, For the next hundred years the Don emigration, and deportation thinned the

Territory formed ‘a province governed Cossack ranks; the victory of the Bolby special institutions,’ but in law and sheviks, and later collectivization, spelt — administration more and more assimi- disaster for many of them. Then in 1936 lated to the rest of Russia. It grew great- _ the Kremlin altered course, formed spe-

ly in population and wealth. By 1914 cial Cossack contingents in the Red the Don Cossacks supplied nearly 150,- Army, and harnessed the old fighting 000 cavalrymen, but as a whole they traditions of the Cossacks to the new formed by then well under half the total Soviet patriotism, with results that the population of about 4,000,000, though German army has only too bloody reathey owned three-fifths of the land. Di- son to know.

vided amongst themselves, they stood There remains to consider one last over against the great mass of incomers, sample of colonization and of the inter-

ex-serfs, independent farmers, labour- play of the compulsory and the voluners, and coal-miners. Rostov, founded in _ tary, of the state and the individual or

1761, which was non-Cossack, had independent group, as seen in‘ the grown to be a city of over a hundred modern development of Siberia. .. . thousand and the greatest centre of the Peter the Great, in search of minerals

south-east. and trade-routes to Central Asia, had Thus two centuries of colonization pushed out the frontier and established had transformed the frontier and radi- new chains of Cossack posts to check _ eally changed the structure of Cossack nomad pillaging. His successors consociety. The Cossacks had always differ- _ tinued his work, particularly in the exentiated sharply between themselves and treme west of Siberia, well-watered and

Russians: while continuing to cherish with good black-earth soils, but settlethe forms of their traditional customs ment was for long slow and sparse, a and privileges, they developed a new mixture of serfs ascribed to mines, Costradition of loyalty to the tsar, not only sacks, ‘men of service’ settled by the as against his enemies abroad, but as state, particularly for transport duties,

well against his enemies at home. The and independent peasants and runwatchwords of one of their songs in the aways, many of them sectarians fleeing 1905 Revolution summed up the attitude from religious persecution. Siberia of the Cossack right wing: ‘We don’t never knew the gentry and bonded serf-

need a constitution. We don’t want a dom to any extent, but the commune, republic. We won’t betray Russia. We passing from cooperative clearing of will defend the Tsar’s throne.’ And so the land through various stages of dethey did. But many of the poorer Cos- _ velopment, was general. Legally the land sacks and the non-Cossack people on the _—was in the first place state or imperial

Don swung to the left. Divisions were land: in fact most of the settlers simply deep, and in 1918 when it came to civil worked as much land as they needed

war the Don did not prove a reliable with nothing but first occupancy as

. ; their title, until with increasing pressure

® Life on this frontier a generation later is

brilliantly illustrated in parts of Lermontov’s ©" the natural resources the commune classic A Hero of Our Times (1840) and graph- 10 Sholokhov in his well-known novel Quiet ically described in Tolstoy's equally autobio- Flows the Don (1929) has painted on an imgraphical novel of the Terek line The Cossacks mense canvas the Don during the 1914 war

(1862) (various translations of both). and the first years of the Revolution.

The Frontier 211 gradually evolved various types of peri- in defiance of government regulations, odical redistribution and other forms of at times dwindled to a trickle, but in the economic control over the freedom of eighteen-eighties it swelled mightily and

action of individual families. Right the old methods of attempted governdown to the end of the nineteenth cen- mental restriction were palpably breaktury surveyed land grants remained the ing down. The great famine of 1891

exception. and the building of the Trans-Siberian, Almost throughout that century the begun in that same year, caused a giganofficial policy was to discourage or pre- tic outpouring. The railway, like the vent movement into Siberia, except for Canadian Pacific built a decade earlier, one period of enlightened state-aided turned a stream into a torrent. Despite migration of state peasants. Ascription ebbs and flows, despite the Russo-Japato the mines continued to be a regular _ nese war, the population of Siberia and feature, and a series of gold rushes, very the Far East doubled within twenty nominally controlled by the government, years. In 1800 there had been rather brought new developments. For the first over a million people; the 1897 census time now deportation bulked large in gave five and three-quarter millions; by Siberia. Between 1823 and 1881 nearly 1914 there were over ten millions, near-

700,000 persons were exiled or deported _ ly half as many again as in Canada, and

across the Urals, to hard labour mostly Siberian cooperatives were competing in mines or on construction work, to successfully on the English butter marprison camps, disciplinary battalions, or ket. This very rapid expansion was mere police supervision.1! Apart from mainly confined to Siberia proper, i.e., the criminal element, the very numerous between Lake Baikal and the Urals. political exiles, such as the Decembrists Eastwards of Lake Baikal the stream of and the Poles, contributed innovations colonists—whether by land or by sea

in agriculture and industry, as well as half round the globe from the Black to science and education. The share of | Sea ports—ran much lower, despite the the deportees in the making of Siberia inducements of the government. Meanhas, however, usually been exaggerated. while, here in the Far East, Chinese mi-

It was considerable only east of the gration on a scale even larger than that Yenisei, and on the whole the impor- into Siberia was transforming Mantance of deportation was probably less _ churia, the battle ground of Russian and than in the early history of Australia. A | Japanese imperialism.

very large number returned to Russia The Trans-Siberian and the mass after serving their time, and those that movement east forced the government: stayed were generally looked askance at to change its policy. A special coloniza-

by the born Siberians. tion department was set up (1896) What really made modern Siberia which attempted to organize migration

was the unappeasable land hunger of the and settlement. Regulations were poured

Russian peasantry and the coming of forth on surveying, cheap transport the railway. The flow of settlers, largely rates, tax and other exemptions, grants 11 Dostoevsky has written unforgettable de- in money and kind, and loans. Neverthe-

scriptions of his Siberian prison life in The less, perhaps half of the incomers came

House of the Dead (1857). The Letters of on their own, weary or suspicious of Lenin (translated and edited by E. Hill and the delays and complexities of bureaucD. Mudi, 1937) give a good picture of what in fact exile to a village in eastern Siberia (not racy. They came mostly from the over-

imprisonment) meant. crowded northern and central _black-

212 | The Frontier earth lands; usually in large groups, not proper and in the Far East. Magnitotoo badly off; preceded by ‘locators’ to gorsk, Novosibirsk, Stalinsk, MKomsodiscover suitable sites. Some settled in molsk, previously non-existent or dimin-

the old Siberian villages; most in new. utive, are known now the world over. By 1914 the best and most accessible Agricultural development has been far land was taken up, and the Russian less striking, save recently in the open peasant-farrfer was already pressing steppe. Even more than before 1914 5iominously on the grazing grounds of _ beria is mixed in composition, though the Kazakhs, since transformed by their as before predominantly Russian. De1916 rebellion and the effects of the portations on a very large scale and the

Soviet Revolution. ... insatiable demand for hands have Soviet Siberia, uniike the new Siberia dragged and drawn men and women

of 1890-1917, has grown above all from all parts of the Union. Soviet 5ithrough the new or vastly expanded beria—still sprawling, wasteful and mining and industrial frontiers born of — erratic, brutal and unsparing—has atthe five-year plans. The uprush of towns _ tracted as never before the energies and on an ulira-American scale has been the imagination of Soviet youth.

dominant feature, both in Siberia

THE PROBLEM OF OLD RUSSIAN CULTURE By Georges Florovsky; Nikolay Andreyev; James Billington The three contributions which follow are a sample of the debate on the chief cultural problems of the pre-Petrine period we have been examining in this volume. Professor Florovsky taught Eastern Church history at the Harvard Divinity School and is now at Princeton University. Mr. Andreyev is lecturer in Slavonic studies at Cambridge University. Mr. Billington is professor of Russian history at Princeton. A Soviet comment on the pieces below is Dmitry Likhachev, “Further Remarks on the Problem of Old Russian Culture,” Slavic Review, March, 1963. Large-scale interpretations of early Russian culture are available in Wladimir Weidle, Russia Absent and Present (paperback) ; Arthur Voyce, Moscow and the Roots of Russian Culture; James Billington, The Icon and the Axe; as well as George Fedotov, “The Religious Background of Russian Culture,” Church History, Vol. XII. On the large

subject of Byzantium and Russia see Dimitry Obolensky, “Russia’s Byzantine Heritage,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, Vol. 1. The church relationship is discussed in Moscow and East Rome by William Medlin. See also Francis Dvornik, “Byzantine Influence in Russia,” in The Root of Europe, edited by M. Huxley. The Soviet point of view on the subject is analyzed in a chapter on “Byzantine Cultural Influences,” in Cyril Black’s Rewriting Russian History (paperback). As for the individual topics mentioned below several studies might be suggested.

An analysis of the Russian pagan heritage will be found in George Vernadsky’s Origins of Russia, pp. 108-73. For folklore see Yuri Sokolov’s Russian Folklore. Kievan Russia’s urban tradition is described in the Soviet work The Towns of Ancient Rus by Mikhail Tikhomirov. There is a comprehensive study of The Art and Architecture of Russia by George Hamilton. Victor Lasareff, a prominent Soviet art historian, writes on Russian Icons from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (paperback). Anatole Mazour, “Curtains in the Past,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. XX, is a study of Muscovite self-isolation in the seventeenth century.

Old Russia stood in a very definite cul- with the Christian faith, an impressive tural succession. She was in no sense cultural dowry—a complex of cultural isolated in the cultural world. She entered the commonwealth of civilized abridged from the Slavic Review, XX, 1-42, nations when she was christened by the by permission of the editor. Footnotes have Byzantines. She received then, together _ been omitted.

213

214. The Problem of Old Russian Culture values, habits, and concerns. The Byzan- Byzantium and the West, or from the tine inheritance of ancient Kiev was East. Kievan Russia was able to respond conspicuous. The city itself was an im- conscientiously to the cultural challenge. portant cultural center, a rival of Con- The ground was already prepared. stantinople, an adornment of the empire. At, this point certain doubts may be It was not the only center: Novgorod reasonably raised. First of all, the promin any case must be mentioned. The ise was actually frustrated, even if the literary production of the Kievan period measure of this frustration and lack of was intense and diverse. Russian art success should not be exaggerated. Was was also taking shape. Behind the doc- this due only to adverse conditions— uments of the time we cannot fail to the Germano-Latin pressure on the Westdiscern cultural activity, cultural forces. ern Slavs, the defeat of Bulgaria by the We discern groups and individuals Greeks, the Mongolian conquest of Ruseagerly committed to various cultural sia? Or was there an inherent weakness, tasks. The movement of ideas has al- a constitutional disease, that arrested

ready begun. | the development both in Old Russia and

The Kievan achievement must be re- in the Balkans? The adversity of exgarded in a wider perspective. It was ternal conditions was bound to have an integral part of the incipient Slavic at least a psychological impact on the culture. V. Jagi¢ once suggested that whole cultural situation, but further in the tenth century there was a chance questions may be asked, and indeed that Slavic civilization might have de- have been asked, by modern scholars. veloped as a third cultural power, com- Was the Byzantine inheritance a healthy

peting with the Latin and the Greek. one? Was the task undertaken by the The Bulgarian literature of the Simeonic Slavs sound and reasonable? Was their age was already so rich and compre- attempt to create a new national culture hensive as to stand comparison with the a sound enterprise? Or was it doomed

Byzantine. Indeed, it was the same By- to failure by its inner inconsistency? zantine literature, but already indige- The questions were sharply put, and nized. This cultural promise was cur- answers were often negative. tailed and frustrated. The great cultural It was inevitable that in the beginimpetus was checked. Yet the promise ning the cultural elite should have been was real, and the actual achievement small, and the outreach of its activity was by no means negligible. Of course, _ rather limited. It was development at a this incipient Slavic civilization was normal pace. But was the Byzantine civideeply rooted in the Byzantine tradition, _ lization really “received” in Old Russia? just as Western culture was rooted in Golubinsky, for one, bluntly denied the

the traditions of the classical world. fact. St. Vladimir wanted to transplant But it was more than a repetition or an _ culture to his land, but his effort failed imitation. It was an indigenous response completely. Culture was brought in and

to the cultural challenge. And it was offered but not taken, and, as Golubinmainly from Bulgaria that a rich supply sky added, “almost immediately after of literary monuments was transferred its introduction it disappeared without to Kiev and other centers. Cultural taste leaving any trace.” Until Peter’s time and skill were formed. Cultural interests there was no civilization in Russia. were aroused. Kievan Russia was not There was no more than plain literacy,

isolated from the rest of the Slavic that is, the skill to read and to copy world, as it was not separated from texts. Literacy, not literature, was the

| The Problem of Old Russian Culture 215 upper limit of Old Russia, according to _late Professor George Fedotov suggested Golubinsky. “Literacy, not culture—in that the cause of Old Russian backwardthese words is summarized all our his- ness, and indeed the tragedy of Russian

tory for the vast period from Vladimir culture at large, was precisely the atto Peter the Great.” Before Peter, Rus- tempt at indigenization. He had serious sians were, on the whole, quite indif- doubts about the benefits of the use of ferent to culture and enlightenment— the Slavic vernacular. Having received prosveshchenie was Golubinsky’s own _ the Bible and a vast amount of various term. Those few contradictory instances _ religious writings in their own language,

which he had to acknowledge, Golubin- __ the Slavs had no incentive to learn sky would hastily dismiss as incompre- Greek, for translations once made were hensible riddles. No contemporary his- sufficient for immediate practical needs.

torian would dare to endorse these They were enclosed, therefore, within

sweeping eneralizations of Golubinsky. the narrow limits of an exclusively reBut under some other guise they are _ ligious literature. They were never initi-

still repeated. It must be noted that ated into the great classical tradition of Golubinsky in no sense held the Greeks _Hellenic antiquity. If only our ancestors

responsible for the Slavic failure. He had learned Greek, speculated Professor never contested the value of Byzantine Fedotov, they could have read Homer, civilization. He only felt that probably could have philosophized with Plato, the Byzantine offered too much at once, could have reached finally the very

and also expected too much from the’ springs of Greek inspiration. They newly baptized nations. The fault was would have possessed a golden key to with the Russians themselves. Some classical treasures. But this never hapothers, however, would shift the blame _pened., Instead they received but one to Byzantium. According to Jagi¢, the Book. While in Paris, a poor and dirty greatest misfortune of the Slavs was that city as it was in the twelfth century, they had to be reared in the school of the Schoolmen were already discussing senility: a young and vigorous nation high matters, in the golden and beauwas to be brought up on the decrepit _ tiful Kiev there were but monks engaged culture of a moribund world that had in writing chronicles and lives of saints. already lost its vitality and creative In other words, the weakness and backpower. Jagi¢ was quite enthusiastic wardness of Old Russia depended upon about the work of the Slavic Apostles. that narrow foundation, exclusively reHe had only praise for their endeavor ligious, on which its culture had been to stimulate indigenous culture among built. The charge is by no means new. the Slavs. But he had no appreciation The lack of classical tradition was often for Byzantine civilization. This attitude emphasized as one of the peculiar and was typical of his generation, and also distinctive features of Old Russian cul- __

of the next. The failure was then in- ture. Fedotov’s imaginary picture is evitable: one cannot build on a rotten pathetic, but is his argument fair and foundation. There was no genuine vi- sound? The West seems to have had tality in the Old Slavic civilization, the golden key of Latin. How many in because there no longer was living water the West, however, were using that key

in the Byzantine springs. Seemingly for the purpose of which Fedotov

there was a promise, but actually there speaks? And was the Latin known at

was no hope. that time sufficient for the task? ClasThe charge has been repeated recent- _ sical values were transmitted rather in-

ly in a new form. Quite recently the directly through Christian literature.

216 The Problem of Old Russian Culture Platonism was accessible through Au- literary production, and there were no gustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Origen, and outstanding personalities in this field. Gregory of Nyssa. It could be no less A closer scrutiny of extant sources, readily discovered in Byzantine ecclesi- however, corrects this first impression. astical sources. The Christian Hellenism Writers of that time, from the twelfth of Byzantium neither impresses nor at- century to the fifteenth, are aware of tracts Fedotov. He has a twisted picture problems with which they are wrestling of Byzantium: Byzantine Christianity -—the problems of the artistic craft:

appears to him to be a “religion of problems of style and representation, fear,” of phobos; human values were problems of psychological analysis. suppressed in it. Anyhow, Fedotov con- There were in Russia at that time not tended that Kievan Russia never ac- only scribes and nachetchiks,) but true cepted this grim version of Christianity writers. There were not only skillful and developed its own conception: hu- craftsmen but real masters in art. The

manitarian and kenotic. And, in fact, recent studies of D. S. Likhachev are that picture of Kievan Russia which very suggestive, especially his analysis Professor Fedotov himself has given us_ of the problem of man in the literature in his impressive book, The Russian and art of Old Russia. Behind the stylisReligious Mind, is bright and moving. tic devices used by the artists one can

Kievan Christianity, in his appraisal, detect their spiritual vision, and this has perennial value: “that of a standard, vision was the fruit of reasoning and a golden measure, a royal way,” in his contemplation. The new wave of the own phrase. Indeed, we are given to “South Slavic” impact did not mean understand that its attainments were just a transfer of new literary docuso high because the Russians did not ments, mainly translations, of spiritual follow either the Byzantines or the Bul- and hagiographical content. It was a garians, because they created their own wave of inspiration, a deep spiritual Christian vision and way. In any case, movement, stemming from the great it appears that Kievan Russia was vig- Hesychast tradition, revived at that time orous and creative—at least in one field. both in Byzantium and in the restored What is more significant, basic human _ Bulgarian kingdom. Both writers, chron-

values were firmly established, high iclers and hagiographers, and painters, ethical standards acknowledged, and _ including the iconographers, were fully

personal initiative disclosed and en- aware of the problem that they had to couraged. There was strong human im- wrestle with—the presentation of human

petus in the Kievan culture. One has_ personality. It may be true that their to assume, as was indeed Fedotov’s concept of personality and character own contention, that cultural growth was different from the modern view, and advance were impeded at a later and probably at this point their insight stage. The absence of the classical tra- was deeper. They did not depict fixed dition probably was not so tragic and characters; they saw men in process

fatal. obsessed and confronted with problems,

There is an increasing tendency in in the state of decision and indecision. modern historiography to idealize the One may speak almost of their “exisRussian beginnings. The Kievan period _ tentialist” approach to the problem of

is depicted as a kind of golden age, man. One may contend that psychology a golden legend of Russia. Dark times based on the concept of temptation, came later—after the Mongolian conquest. There was a visible decline in 1L.e., dogmatic interpreters of the Bible.

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 217 inner struggle with the passions, con- of Moscow was rich and comprehensive version and decision, was a deeper psy- enough to suggest the idea of system-

chology than that which would deal tization. The great national state, with the fixed character. In any case, aware and conscious of its vocation or it is more dynamic and less in danger _ destiny, needed a culture of great style. of falling into schematism of character- _ But this culture had to be built up as istic types. In the great Russian art of a system. It was an ambitious and atthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tractive task. The plan “to gather toone discovers not only a high level of — gether all books available in Russia,” artistic mastery but also deep insights which was undertaken under Metrointo the mystery of man. And this art _ politan Macary in the middle of the was not only produced at that time but _ sixteenth century, was probably a naive

appreciated. Obviously, there was both and simplistic expression of a deeper a demand for this high art and an _ conception. The plan itself was deeply understanding of it, in circles which rooted in the awakened consciousness

could not have been very narrow. It of national greatness. But the vision would not be an exaggeration to assume _—-was ‘intrinsically static, and there was

that the aesthetic culture of that time in it more than just a reflection of was refined and profound. It was still _ political ambition. There was a deeper a religious culture, but artistic methods urge for “establishment.” The overwere adequate to the problem of reveal- arching idea was that of order. The ing and interpreting the ultimate mys- danger to culture implied therein was teries of human existence in all its un- _— probably felt in certain quarters. It has _ truly and flexible complexity. The chal- _ been usual to emphasize the importance

lenge probably came from outside— of the conflict between the “‘possessors” from Byzantium once more—but the re- | and “nonpossessors” in the late decades sponse was spontaneous and creative. of the fifteenth and the early decades

There was more than dependence or of the sixteenth century. At one time imitation. There was real response. the sympathy of the historian was rather One may be tempted to regard pre- on the side of St. Nilus of Sora and cisely this “dark” period, the period of the Trans-Volga Elders. It seems that intensive political and internecine strife, now the sympathy has been shifted to as the climax of Old Russian culture. the other side. In any case, St. J oseph Indeed, Russian art definitely declined has won. And the idea of an established

in the fifteenth and especially in the order was his greatest commitment. sixteenth century and lost its originality Indeed, he himself never speculated on

and daring. The literary culture, how- the themes of culture. Nor, probably, ever, was preserved on a high level till did St. Nilus. But there is undoubtedly the Time of Troubles, and even later. deep truth in the suggestion that it was

The ideological content of literature in the tradition of St. Nilus that the

became more comprehensive in the six- only promise of cultural advance was teenth century. There was an enormous available. Cultures are never built as syssynthetic effort in various fields of cul- _ tems, by orders or on purpose. They are

ture at that time. Strangely enough, born out of the spirit of creative initiait seems that precisely that synthetic tive, out of intimate vision, out of spiriteffort, powerful and dynamic as it was, ual commitment, and are only mainwas the most conspicuous sign and tained in freedom. It may be contended symptom of decline, or at least of an that Moscow missed its opportunity for internal crisis. The cultural inheritance cultural progress when it yielded to the

918 The Problem of Old Russian Culture temptation of building its culture on the _ tion. Again, the character of the “Rus-

social order of the day—po sotsia’nomu sian soul” has been so diversely de-

zakazu, as it were... . scribed and defined as to require a The most disquieting question in the thorough re-examination. It has been history of Old Russian culture is this: usual to emphasize the irrational aspect What was the reason for what can be of Russian mentality and its constant described as its intellectual silence? lack of form. There is enough evidence

There was a great art, and there was to the contrary. With adequate reason also an intensive creative activity in it has been contended that the “Russian the political and social field, including soul” had always a strong feeling and ideological speculation. But surely noth- _ understanding for order and form, and

ing original and outstanding has been _ this specific insight was the root of its produced in the realm of ideas, theo- great aesthetic achievements. In its ex-

logical or secular. It was easier to treme expression it led to ritualism, to answer this question when it was as- _ the worship of external forms. Kliuchevsumed that Old Russia was simply prim- sky had much to say about the thrill of itive, slumbering and stagnant. But now _rite and habit when he attempted to ex-

we know that in many other respects plain the genesis of the great Russian Old Russia was able to attain a high Schism. And the same striving after level. Still one may be tempted by easy _ orderliness has created in Russia what

answers. It may be suggested, and actu- we call byt.2 Of course, it may be ally has been suggested more than once, claimed that underneath the byt there that the “Russian soul” was, by its inner was always chaos. Finally, we are left

constitution, rather speculative or in- with an antinomy, with an unresolved tuitive than inquisitive, and that there- paradox.

fore the language of art was the only In the total perspective of Russian congenial idiom of self-expression. It historical development the paradox is

may be suggested, on the other hand, even more spectacular. In the later _ that the “Russian soul” approached the __ period, after the Reform, Russians have

mystery of Christian faith by way of appeared to be probably one of the most charity and compassion and was there- _ intellectual nations in Europe, inwardly fore indifferent to the subtleties of theo- _ troubled by all “damned problems” of logical speculation. It does not help very _religion and metaphysics. Exercise in

much if we try to collect scattered data philosophy, of various shapes and indicating that a certain amount of shades, and commitment to theory and __ philosophical information was available speculation were the distinctive mark of to people of Old Russia. A solid amount the Russian mind in the last two cenof patristic writings was indeed in cir- _turies. This striking phenomenon was culation, but there is no proof that theo- _ usually explained by Western influence,

logical interest had been awakened. All direct and indirect. It was suggested easy formulas are but evasions. And the that dormant curiosity had been awak-

riddle remains. Moreover, all specula- ened by the challenge of Western tions that operate with the precarious thought. One should ask at this point concept of the “Russian soul” are utter- why this intellectual curiosity was not ly unsafe. Even if “national souls’ do awakened by the challenge of Byzantine

exist, they are made, shaped, and _ civilization, which was renowned and formed in history. For that reason they notorious for its unquenchable commitcannot serve as a principle of interpreta- 2T.ec., mode of life.

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 919 ment to speculation, in a measure offen- phrased it in the text: “The crisis of sive for the sober taste and mind of the —_ Byzantine culture in the Russian spirit.” West. Byzantium was not only dogmatic, The phrase was misunderstood by the

but ever searching and rather unquiet in critics and reviewers, or rather was not its heart. Indeed, Byzantium knew the understood at all. I am willing to assume mystery of harmony and cosmic order. full responsibility for the vagueness: I But it also knew the thrill of search and should have explained my thought in a the “clouds of unknowing.” But Byzan- more explicit way. What I wanted to say

tine challenge did not awaken the then I am bound to repeat now. The

alleged Russian soul. crisis consisted in that the Byzantine The tragedy of Old Russia, which led achievement had been accepted, but Byto its inner split and impasse, was not a —_zantine inquisitiveness had not. For that tragedy of primitivism or ignorance, as__ reason the achievement itself could not

has been contended more than once. It _ be kept alive.

was a tragedy of cultural aberration. The crisis became conspicuous in The charge of Golubinsky and of Fedo- Moscow in the seventeenth century, in

tov is valid to some extent, but they that great age of changes, shifts, and were unable to phrase it properly. One troubles in the Russian state and society. may suggest that Byzantium had offered It was an age of great cultural confu-

- too much at once—an enormous rich- sion. Certain elements of Byzantine ness of cultural material, which simply achievement were strongly challenged, could not be absorbed at once. The including the traditional “symphony” of

charm of perfection was tempting: state and church. Moscow was moving should not the whole harmony be trans- hesitantly toward an increasing secularplanted? The heritage was too heavy, ization of its political order. The impact and too perfect, and it was thrilling in of Western mentality was growing, first its harmony, in its accomplishment. Art in the form of the new Kievan learning,

also requires training, but in this case which itself was an unfortunate hybrid training is probably more formal—the of Polish and quasi-Byzantine factors. acquisition of technical skill. In the The spread of this pseudomorphic culrealm of the mind, training is indis- ture was felt at Moscow more as a shock solubly bound with the essence of the or offense than as a challenge, and protask. In this realm questions are no less voked only resistance along with blind important than answers, and unresolved imitation. There was a search, but it problems, the “perennial questions,” are was a search for ready solutions. Probthe real stimulus and token of mental ably it was a blind alley. And then came advance. Old Russia seems to have been the Reform. charmed by the perfection, complete- The ultimate tragedy was that the Reness, and harmony of Byzantine civili- form itself was promoted in the same zation, and paralyzed by this charm. old manner. There was again the thrill Once more it must be stressed that Rus- of accomplishment or achievement. The sian Byzantium was not just a servile spirit of the Reform was intrinsically repetition but a new and peculiar ver- utilitarian. There was again a charm— sion of Byzantine culture, in which one a charm of Western achievement, of can discern a true creative power. Some Western habits and forms. Curiosity years ago I inscribed the chapter of my was aroused, but was it a sound and book, The Ways of Russian Theology, sober intellectual curiosity? The new dealing with Old Russia: “The Crisis of civilization was accepted in its ready Russian Byzantinism,” and have re- form, into which the life of the nation

220 The Problem of Old Russian Culture could not be fitted. There was an effect THE HERITAcE OF PRE-CHRISTIAN of astonishment, but no real awakening. = RUSSIA

_ The new culture was much less organic ... It is noteworthy that this pre-Christhan the old one, and therefore even less_ tian Slavic Russia was known to the spontaneous and creative. It is instruc- Scandinavians as the “land of towns” _ tive that it was possible to present the and that the anonymous Bavarian Geogwhole history of Russian literature, in- rapher (866-90) also referred to the cluding its ideological content, as a large number of “towns.” Some inforstory of Western influence, as a story of mation about the characteristics of this consecutive waves of imported ideas civilization is provided by the Russian and forms. Was the cultural initiative Chronicles. Traces of pagan influence really awakened? One may have very are to be found in decorative folk art; grave doubts. It is not surprising that a in some cases motifs and patterns of the paradoxical resistance to culture as such most ancient origin have persisted into has been one of the vigorous trends in the twentieth century. Today, archaeothe new culture; though it was to some logical research has given us a picture extent provoked also by the thought of of the tastes of the early Slavs, examples

a Westerner, Rousseau, it was deeply of their handicrafts and of the kind and rooted in the psychology of “reformed” quantity of their material possessions. Russians. Was not the way of simplicity Unfortunately, the wooden architecture higher than the way of culture? Techni- of the time has not been preserved; the cal culture has indeed been transplanted. tragedy of all Old Russian architecture But did Reform promote any disinter- was its vulnerability to that scourge of ested concern for higher culture? Was medieval Russia—frequent and destrucit a real advance in comparison with the _ tive fires. It may be assumed, however, culture of Old Russia? During the whole _ that the architecture of that period with

modern period complaints were loudly its decorative carving, its gornitsy or voiced on this theme: there was no gen- upper rooms, its porches, and the variuine will for culture, although admira- ety of form shown in the roofing of tion and even respect for culture were buildings often attained real aesthetic

rather widespread. The root of the merit.

trouble was still the same: Culture was The text of the treaties signed with still regarded as an order, as an achieve- Byzantium by Oleg (911) and Igor ment, as a system. For that reason one (944) bears witness to the existence ofa could propagate the acceptance of for- distinctive social system, and it has been

eign forms; they were finished and suggested that they indicate certain as-

ready to hand. Indeed, there was some- pects of the Slavs’ “customary law.” As times much vigor and also much obsti- early as the seventh century Byzantine nacy in this endeavor of adaptation, and authors noted, not without surprise, that it could instill vitality into the products. _ the Slavs and Antes “are not governed The thrill of the modern Russian culture by one man but from ancient times have is in its scattered explosions—the deeds lived in democracy: they discuss to-

of individuals. But there was no general gether what is good or harmful for

culture. ... them.” Byzantines, accustomed to auto-

| ; cratic government, considered this “dis-

order and anarchy.” There can be no ANDREYEV: PAGAN AND CHRIS. doubt that the veche was already an

TIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD important institution in the social

RUSSIA structure of pre-Christian Russia and

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 221 had its roots in the distant past of the the skomorokhi. Obviously, too, as in

Slav peoples. oo Western countries, certain attributes of The most striking witness to the exist- the pagan deities were passed on to ence of civilization among the Russian Christian saints. Slavs is found in their religious beliefs, All these examples (which could be which were inspired by nature: they multiplied many times) are presented had a faith in magic powers that was here only as reminders of the very conclosely connected with the cult of “Moist siderable vigor and longevity of RusMother Earth.” Reflected most vividly sia’s pagan heritage. Christianity in in Russian folklore, these beliefs proved Russia was not transplanted into an unexceptionally tenacious and vigorous. cultured soil, into a wild desert, but into The Lay of the Host of Igor, in which a powerful community which, though the writer refers to the Russian people scattered and illiterate, had its own cuscollectively as the “grandson of Dazh- toms, art, and religion and which, in bog,” is rich in references to heathen some sectors, had long maintained condeities and is inspired throughout by an tacts with other civilizations. Although essentially pantheistic conception of the certain influential groups and even, perworld, of nature, and of poetry. Since haps, whole centers such as Tmutorokan this poem is perhaps the most brilliant had previously accepted Christianity, its expression of the persistence of the old subsequent introduction as the official pagan tradition, it is scarcely surprising _ religion of the state was conditioned by that the ecclesiastical copyists were not the predominantly political motives of

particularly concerned with preserving St. Vladimir.

it. The new official religion, if the KherThanks to the pertinacity of pagan son version of the conversion is to be

beliefs among the masses of the people, _ believed, was brought into Russia much

there arose the phenomenon of dvoe- like any other trophy of a successful verte (ditheism), whose existence is campaign. Paganism had a considerable confirmed by historians of all schools; hold on the population; a few years bethis belief is still alive in some places fore the conversion, Vladimir had attoday.? Kievan and Muscovite history is tempted to erect a pagan Pantheon in rich in examples of the perpetual strug- Kiev to strengthen the ideological unity gle waged by the Church to put down of the state. Not surprisingly, there was pagan survivals. It also seems probable _ considerable resistance to the new faith that, to a certain extent, ecclesiastical © —in some districts right up to the twelfth suppression of the popular Russian thea- _— century (the rising of the volkhvy [pa-

ter (the skomorokhi) was inspired by — gan priests] and other incidents). Nat-

° ° r 66 Fe

the same fear of the non-Christian urally, the-Grand Dukes and the Chris-

moods induced by these singers of dia. 8During the author’s archaeological and bolic songs,” these demonstrators . of archaeographic expeditions to Petserimaa in “unhallowed” customs and “satanic” Estonia in 1937 and 1938 on behalf of the rites. A recently discovered wall paint- Kondakov Institute in Prague, he witnessed

ing in Melyotovo dating from 1465 gutng cant iar ha shows a remarkable mage on the west devout focal women would bring “offerings” wall of the church representing Anti- of country produce (butter, eggs, and cream) christ in the guise of a wandering play- _ to lay before a wooden statue of St. Nicholas er: a unique apotheosis of the Church’s ae aly wellected by the anoake for the subse.

condemnation of that “devil’s brood,” the abbot. ,

222 The Problem of Old Russian Culture tianized upper stratum of the society of _ tendency reached its culmination in the

that time were anxious to transform seventeenth century when the Old Be-

“the Greek faith” into a national reli- lievers, in a kind of reprise of the gion as quickly as possible. Certain themes of the first expositor of Russian events of the reign of Yaroslav the Wise Grecophobia, Hilarion of Berestov, did

the appointment of a Russian as not grudge even their lives in the strugMetropolitan of Kiev; the cult of Vladi- gle against the enunciation of principle mir, who was pronounced “the equal of of the Patriarch Nikon: “I am Russian,

the apostles,” the true teacher of the but my faith is Greek.” In many ways newly-converted country, and a saint the violence of their opposition to this (Constantinople opposed his canoniza- principle was not so irrational as is tion for a long time)—prove that the _ usually believed. Russians did not wish to be “led” by the Indisputably, Byzantine influence Greeks but claimed the right to choose after the introduction of Christianity what suited them from the “Byzantine gave both form and content to Russian heritage.” Such traces of cultural indo- culture, but the pagan foundation acted cility are even apparent in the hagiogra- _as a counterbalance which prevented the phy of the period. Thus the first Russian _ full and unquestioning absorption of the

saints, Boris and Gleb, died not for the Byzantine heritage.

sake of Christ but in the name of obedi-

ence to their elder brother, laying the \gepreyan Cutture AND ITs DECLINE foundations, as it were, for the essentially Russian idea of nonresistance to Christianity was at first largely confined

evil. Their canonization also called to the towns; it was not by chance that forth opposition on the part of the during the first centuries most monasGreeks, who generally were not inclined _teries were founded either in or near to encourage religious nationalism towns. The spread of enlightenment was among newly converted peoples. It may carried out intensively throughout the be that it was in this early period of first hundred years after the conversion, Russia’s struggles for some autonomy in _ but it was directed chiefly at serving the

her ecclesiastical existence that there aims and purposes of the dynasty and first sprouted the seeds of Grecophobia, the Church itself. The process took a which was to become traditional in Old long time. It needed the Mongol invaRussia and was to combine curiously — sion, which laid waste to all the large with an ill-defined nostalgia for the old towns (the centers of the new learning) pagan world. This inherent resistance to except Novgorod and Galich, and the alByzantium was to manifest itself more most simultaneous encroachments of the

than once—though later, after the Teutonic knights on the Western borpeople had fully assimilated Christian- ders, which marked the beginning of the

ity, it was to take the form of the de- Drang nach Osten, before Christianity fense of the purity of Orthodox faith: (albeit still tinged with survivals of pain the vexing question of the appoint- ganism) became thoroughly assimilated ment of the metropolitans at Viadimir- by the masses of the people. The Church on-the-Klyazma; in the attitude Russia became the focus of all hope, not only assumed towards the Florentine Union; celestial but also terrestrial, and came in her reaction to the fall of Constan- to be identified with the spirit of Russia

tinople; and in the formulation of the itself. The alien world revealed to the famous theory of the Third Rome. This Russians at the time of the conversion—

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 223 a monotheistic, hierarchic world of con- scientific approach to the surrounding tradictory values and the consciousness _—_ world, and thoughtful criticism of estab-

of sin—at last took on a specifically na- _ lished ideas and practices were appear-

tional form and was accepted by the ing in the West, but they had no place people as their own. St. Sergius of Rado- _in the beleaguered Russia of that time. nezh, equally sensitive to all aspects of | Nevertheless, the first stirrings of a simihis complex heritage, embodies the su- _lar impulse are to be found in the reli-

premely harmonious national ideal of gious heresies of the fifteenth and sixthis period. He is at once monk and teenth centuries and in the various ut-

nature lover, gentle with his spiritual terances of individual freethinkers;

children and a lover of toil; he is a her- _ these tendencies were of course rigormit but is able to direct a monastic com- _— ously suppressed by the “Church Mili-

munity; he is the teacher and the in- tant,” which had entered into a marspiration of a whole pleiad of Russian riage of convenience with the lay auecclesiastical figures of the fourteenth thorities as represented by the Grand and fifteenth centuries; but he is also Dukes and later Tsars. As Professor the servant of the rising realm of Mus- _ Florovsky rightly points out, the very covy and takes his stand above the petti- extensive work on the propagation of ness of local interests. He is simple and knowledge undertaken by Metropolitan

wise, a man of action and a mystic. He Macary in the sixteenth century was is a bright light for the Church, for the __ really an attempt to canalize and organstate, and for the illiterate peasant. He is _—ize learning rather than a genuine work

very close in spirit to another great of creation: it was, in fact, purely “eduluminary of medieval Russia, the incom- cational,” and was devoted to the col-

parable genius of religious art, Andrei lecting and codifying of information Rublev. Both are distinguished by a har- _ rather than to original thought.

- monious combination of the purest This period, however, was not one of Christian outlook and a remarkably lov- complete stagnation in the world of ing regard for man—who is in fact the ideas. Strangely enough, the innovations object of the Christian message in gen- of the time found expression within the eral and of the Orthodox interpretation Church itself and, under the protection of Christianity in particular. These two of militant orthodoxy, in the spheres of

men stand out as supreme representa- church architecture and of religious tives of the cultural achievement of Old painting. The Muscovite period is Russia and are not unworthy to take marked by many completely new develtheir place among the best exemplars of opments in architecture. It is significant medieval Christendom. The over-all that even when foreign architects were

quickening of cultural activity in the called in (as, for example, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with- building of the Moscow Kremlin in the

out which these two figures could not fifteenth century), they did not reprohave flourished, appears to many his- duce Western models but apparently torians as the highest point achieved by worked under definite directions from the civilization of pre-Petrine Russia; their Muscovite patrons and in styles that certainly in the field of painting, the art corresponded to Russian aesthetic canof Andrei Rublev and of his school is ons. Buildings constructed between the recopnized both by his contemporaries fifteenth and seventeenth centuries—

and by modern historians of art as the stone cathedrals, palaces, the great culmination of this achievement... . houses of individual magnates, fortifiHumanism, the first stirrings of a cations, the walls and gateways of mon-

224. The Problem of Old Russian Culture asteries and wooden churches—are all “language,” at once more complex and distinguished by innovations in style more esoteric, adapted to the treatment and by excellent technical workmanship. of mystical and didactic themes.

In the Muscovite, as in the Kievan The first signs of disintegration in the period, architecture remained one of the sphere of icon painting do not appear highest creative achievements of Rus- until the seventeenth century, after the

sian civilization. Time of Troubles, when features of The impact of new ideas was ex- poorly understood naturalism begin to pressed in the sphere of icon painting penetrate the work of the craftsmen who by innovations in composition in the painted icons, in part as a result of the so-called mystico-didactic style, the in- influence of West European pictures. troduction of which was in part the di- The famous objections of Patriarch Nirect result of Western (Roman Catho- kon and of Protopop Avvakum were dilic) influence. Previously, religious art rected against this wave of naturalism. had been almost exclusively confined to Nevertheless, even the lofty icon paintsimple subjects: “portraits” of Christ, ing of Simeon Ushakov and other real

the Blessed Virgin, the apostles and masters of the seventeenth century is

saints, or scenes from the Gospels. But subject to the new tendencies towards in the fifteenth century artists began to the secularization of Russian culture. launch into “theological philosophiz- This process of secularization continued ing”; some compositions were so com- throughout the seventeenth century, plex that they required an explanatory gaining particular impetus from the becommentary and caused considerable ginning of the schism which foreshadintellectual fermentation. Artists devel- owed the end of that unity of outlook oped liturgical themes and created en- conditioned by the Orthodox Christian _ tirely original cycles of frescoes, new in interpretation of the world, which for content, in color distribution, and in the seven centuries had been so carefully actual technique of painting. In reply to nurtured by church and state. Seculara question about one of these icons the ization penetrated literature, education, leading authority of the period, Maxim and methods of recording history; the the Greek, replied that such icons “are reforms of Peter the Great were already not painted anywhere but in Russia.” ripening within a Russia that was grow-

Now he has been proved right: at the ing out of its medieval ideals. The end of the fifteenth century and during trenchancy of Nikon and, later, of Peter

the sixteenth century, Russian icon caused profound schisms where there painting was indeed uniquely innova- might have been evolution. As in Vladi-

tory in content and made interesting mir’s time, “revolutionary methods” and important advances in the technique were preferred to “evolution.” It is innecessary to deal with more complex teresting that the common people, in the and more detailed, frequently multifig- seventeenth as in the tenth century, reured, compositions. This is a new chap- mained either passively submissive or ter not only in the history of Russian actively hostile to the “reformers.” This religious art but also in the history of second cultural schism was still unhealed thought in Muscovite Russia, in which a_ at the time of the 1917 Revolution. new and more speculative frame of mind

struggles for expression in the new com- BILLINGTON: IMAGES ,

positions and techniques. These lead OF MUSCOVY away from the clarity and harmonious In his essay Professor Florovsky brings insight of Rublev, but they create a new a rare combination of sympathetic un-

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 225 derstanding and restless questioning to The distinctiveness of Moscow from the study of Russian culture. Cutting Kievan Russia is illustrated by the fact through a century of scholarly clichés that the city is not even mentioned in the about “Old Russia,” he finds inade- chronicles until the middle of the twelfth quate not only the cultural provincial- century, did not have its own permanent ism of erudite liberals like A. Pypin and prince until the: early fourteenth, and S. Soloviév, whose real interests lay in possessed none of the great monuments post-Petrine Russia, but also the simpli- of Byzantine architecture to be found in fied explanations of Old Russian cultu- nearby Vladimir or Suzdal. The politiral development presented by church his- cal accomplishments of its grand princes torians like Golubinsky and sympathetic were aided by their special links with students like Buslaev and Fedotov. Asin the Mongols, but its material and spirhis penetrating Ways of Russian Theol- itual culture was almost entirely the ogy, he quietly draws attention away product of the monastic revival that befrom easy answers to difficult but im- gan with the founding of the monastery portant questions. It would be presump- of the Holy Trinity in 1337 in the woods tuous for anyone—let alone a non-Slav northeast of Moscow. In one of the most far inferior in age and wisdom to Father remarkable missionary movements in Florovsky—to pretend to answer them, Christian history, faith and culture were

but one can at least gain valuable guid- soon taken 750 miles due east to the ance for a fresh appraisal of Old Rus- foothills of the Urals by Sergius’ discisia by facing up to four major tasks that ple, Stephen of Perm. By 1397, the year his discussion sets before us: (1) dis- after Stephen’s death, the movement had

tinguishing different periods and re- penetrated three hundred miles due gions within pre-Petrine Russian cul- north when another disciple, St. Cyril, ture, (2) accounting for its “intellectual founded his famous monastery on the silence,” (3) analyzing its inner struc- White Lake; and forty years later it car-

_ ture, and (4) appraising separately its ried yet another three hundred miles historical fate and its intrinsic worth. north with the founding of the great (1) Any consideration of Old Rus- Solovetsk Monastery on a bleak archisian culture invites one major division _pelago in the White Sea. In northeast —which is both chronological and re- Russia alone some eighty monasteries gional—between Kiev and Muscovy. were founded in the fourteenth century There is, to be sure, a bridge between (nearly as many as had existed up to them through Vladimir-Suzdal; but the that time in all of Russia); and some cosmopolitan, urban culture of the for- seventy more were added in the first mer centered on the Dnepr and and the half of the fifteenth. These cloisters resouthwestern steppe is clearly distinct mained the center of the culture that defrom the more monolithic and monas- _ veloped and spread on to the Pacific in tic culture of the latter centered on the —_a second wave of eastward expansion in Volga and the northeastern forests. The _the late sixteenth and early seventeenth

culture of Kievan Russia has been, as century. Professor Florovsky points out, exhaus- The monasteries were often military tively studied and somewhat idealized and economic as well as religious cenin recent years; but the impression has _ ters, and the culture that developed in been created of a kind of cultural vac- them reflected both the harsh material uum between the fall of Kiev and the conditions and the fundamentalist faith

rise of Petersburg. ... of a frontier people. Religion was essen-

226 — The Problem of Old Russian Culture tially practical. Even in Kievan times harsh frontier conditions of Muscovy. theology had been historical rather than Part also lies in the decisiveness and rational; and for Muscovy religion brutality of the Muscovite subjugation meant victory in battle, deliverance from of a third distinct cultural entity withthe plague. Men were—for practical in “Old” Russia: the politically sophisreasons—more literate than is often ticated culture of westward-looking Novthought, but they were less literary than gorod and Pskov (the golden age of many writers about “Old Russian litera- | which lies in the period between the de-

ture” would have one believe. They cline of Kiev and the full victory of worshiped with sounds, images, and in- | Moscow). But why the continued silence

cense rather than words and ideas. of the great monasteries and prosperous Thanks to God was expressed in such trading centers even in the later period, communal rites as the building of oby- when Novgorod and Pskov had been dennye tserkvi, wooden temples that absorbed and contacts with the West were fashioned out of the virgin forest were manifold? Why the Muscovite between sundown of one day and sun- preference for rhetoric rather than readown of the next, while the women sang son, the “‘solden-tongued” Chrysostom

hymns of praise and burned candles be- rather than the “cursed logic” of the fore icons. Indeed this culture expressed _ early Greeks? Why was the ordering of itself best in practical construction—of knowledge seen as the “swaggering” of wooden churches and buildings, which _ heretical “almanach mongers,” and thehave almost totally disappeared, and of _ ological disputation as irreverent “comegreat stone churches and monasteries, dies and masquerades before the portals

which still exist in various stages of neg- of our Lord”? ... lect throughout the USSR. The latter Perhaps the most important explanaare no less remarkable than the trans- tion for the intellectual silence lies in planted Byzantine splendors of early the nature of the Byzantine impact on Kiev and Novgorod and reflect the fruit- Russia; for Byzantium was no more a ful addition of wooden construction monolith than Old Russia, and its influforms and of foreign techniques: Ital- ence on the latter was concentrated in ian in the rebuilt Kremlin of the late two very distinct periods, and exercised fifteenth century, oriental in the six- in each case largely through the interteenth-century St. Basil’s Cathedral in mediacy of Balkan Slavs. The first wave Red Square, Persian and Dutch in the of South Slav influence (which brought great seventeenth-century cathedrals of Christianity and the main features of Yaroslavl. Some idea of the richness Byzantine culture to Kievan Russia) ocand variety of Muscovite architecture curred at a time when the great doc-

can be gained by looking at two of its trinal controversies of the Eastern last and greatest monuments: the mas- Church had been settled and its energies sive, yet simple and beautifully balanced newly engaged in the artistic creativity ensemble of the Kremlin in Great Ros- that followed the defeat of the iconotov; and the soaring and exotic lonely clasts. Thus, the almost fundamentalist wooden church of the Transfiguration at attachment to inherited forms and forKizhi, with its twenty-two ascending mulas and the bias toward an aesthetic

barrel vaults (bochki) and superim- rather than a philosophic culture—al-

posed, onion-shaped cupolas. ready noticeable in Kievan times—

, (2) Part of the answer to the “intel- merely reflect the exultation of new conlectual silence” of Old Russia lies in the verts over the general Byzantine “vic-

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 227 tory of Orthodoxy” and the return of _ tiered screen of icons often extending the icons. The second wave of South up to the ceiling: a pictorial encycloSlav influence brought a more specif- _ pedia of the Christian faith and a graph-

ically antirationalist bias, bearing the ic expression of a hierarchical and ritdecisive imprint of the antischolastic ualized religious society. Already in the Hesychast mysticism of fourteenth-cen- _ earliest surviving iconostasis (the three-

tury Byzantium. The Hesychast belief tiered screen painted in the late fourthat ascetic discipline, inner calm teenth century for the Archangel Cathe(hesychia), and unceasing prayers of dral in the Moscow Kremlin by several the spirit would prepare man for divine monastic artists including Rublev) one

illumination was the major spiritual sees a richness of color and grace of force behind the proliferation of monas- composition equal to anything in Chris-

teries and smaller spiritual communities tian art; and one sees how functions (skity) in fourteenth- and fifteenth-cen- once borne by mosaic and fresco art tury Muscovy. Hesychasm helped impart were being taken over by the icon in to the quickening spiritual life of Mus- the wooden world of Muscovy... . covy its suspicion of “Latin” definitions As an ensemble, the iconostasis proand sacramentalism; and the South Slav _— vided (like the elaborate chronicles and

‘chroniclers’ inclination towards apoca- _ genealogies of the Muscovite period) a

lypticism—in the face of the Turkish continuing record of sacred history, conquest of Serbia, Bulgaria, and then moving from the Old Testament patriConstantinople itself in the late four- archs and prophets in the highest row teenth and mid-fifteenth century—was to the local saints in the lowest. The cenechoed in the north in the early sixteenth tral panels moved down to man—as had

century at the time of the fall of Pskov, God himself—through the Virgin to and magnified in the seventeenth when Christ, who stood at the center of the the latinized Poles overran Muscovy it- main row of panels and immediately self. The nervous religiosity and pro- over the royal doors. Modeled on the phetic intensity of Muscovy provided pantokrator that had stared down in the raw energy and sense of destiny that lonely splendor from the central dome enabled Russia to become a great power of earlier, Byzantine cathedrals, the fig-

in the course of the struggle with Po- ure of “Christ enthroned” acquired on land in the seventeenth century; but the iconostasis a less severe expres: these qualities also left a fateful legacy sion and an entourage of holy figures of irrational, anarchistic, and even mas- deployed on either side and inclined to-

ochistic impulses. wards him in adoration. He now had a (3) There was a structure to the civ- gospel in his hand opened to the text: ilization of Muscovy; but it is to be “Come unto me, all ye that travail and sought not in the words of a Codex Jus- are heavy laden, and I will refresh tinianus or a Summa Theologica but in you... .” the forms of the iconostasis, the wall of (4) Far from diminishing the imporholy pictures that separated the altar tance of Old Russian culture (as Professanctuary from the rest of a Muscovite sor Florovsky’s article might be taken church. In Byzantium and Kievan Rus- to imply), consideration of its historisia icons had often adorned the central cal fate apart from its inner structure or “royal” doors leading through this makes it seem even more deserving of partition, even the low screen or ar- serious study. For this “old” culture— caded barrier itself. But it isin Muscovy its ritualized Orthodox worship, its anithat one first finds the ordered, many- mistic popular cosmology, and its heroic

228 The Problem of Old Russian Culture ora] epics—remained the dominant one and are cultivated and propagated in for most Russians down to at least the these societies. Yet, on the other hand, mid-nineteenth century. The ordinary different societies may share the same muzhik continued to view as something culture, and the continuous existence alien to him both the Swedo-Prussian and growth of a culture may be effected rule of the Petersburg bureaucracy and in a sequence or succession of different the patina of Polish and then French societies. Professor Billington seems to culture adopted by the ruling aristoc- ignore this crucial distinction. He tends racy. The continuing hold of Old Rus- to dissociate Moscow and Kiev. He goes

sian culture is demonstrated in three so far as to suggest that “Russian hisconcrete and far-reaching developments tory in many ways really begins with in post-Petrine Russia: (a) the virtual the rise of Moscow.” The Kievan period secession from participation in the po- then becomes a kind of isolated episode, litical and cultural life of the empire by unrelated to the later formation of Rusthe Old Believers (who regulated most sia, an archaic phenomenon. Indeed, the of the internal commerce and much of ancient Kievan state and Muscovy are the manufacturing of early modern Rus- two different “societies,” of different so-

sia); (6) the violent and recurring cial structures and in quite different peasant rebellions with their idealiza- situations, with different territorial tion of the past and belief in the return bases and different international setof a “true Tsar”; and (c) the revival tings. And yet there was still an obvious and expansion of the Hesychast tradi- and unbroken “succession” and unity: tion of monastic elders and inner piety Kievan inheritance was an integral part

in the late eighteenth and early nine- of the Muscovite cultural tradition,

teenth century... . , though it was, of course, reinterpreted FLOROVSKY: REPLY In spite of all regional shifts and

— and reassessed.

I am most grateful to my commentators changes, “Russian culture” was one and

for their candid remarks and sugges- continuous from the archaic Kievan tions. Indeed, the main purpose of my times to the most modern times of the original essay was precisely to pro- new Russian Empire. One cannot subvoke discussion. It was a query, not a_ tract historically the “Kievan inheritsummary and not a digest. Problems ance” from the general economy of that must be first sharply focused and care- complex and comprehensive bloc that fully identified before they can be taken we call “Russian culture.” And this conup profitably and eventually solved. On tinuity is not just an artifact of modern

many points raised in my paper I have _historiographical interpretation. This

no solution to offer. I am only asking continuity was reflected in the very questions. Yet it is important to ask process of cultural formation and can

proper questions. be traced on several levels. Probably the Now, in reply, I have to stress once most conspicuous instance is in the hismore the basic plurality in the histori- tory of Russian epics. The merry Prince

cal approach itself. “Societies” and Vladimir is the key figure in the Rus“cultures” cannot be unconditionally sian byliny, which assumed their final identified, although cultures have his- shape in the creative memory of the torical significance only in so far as Russian North. Ancient Kiev, as unhisthey are embodied in certain particular torically (that is, in the perspective of societies, which serve as their bearers, another development) as it may be pic-

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 229 tured in the byliny, is an integral and come. Indeed, the very reception of the pivotal part of the Russian total epic Byzantine Christian heritage was posmemory and tradition. Kiev was never sible only because the ground had been forgotten in the North. The other in- already well prepared. For that reason stance is the complex history of old the reception of the Byzantine heritage Russian letopisanie.* All later chronicles was more than imitation or just repeti-

and chronographs compiled in various tion; it was rather a creative response centers of the North—Vladimir, Nov- or recreation of imported cultural values gorod, Tver, or Moscow itself—usually and ideas. The fact remains, however, included the old Kievan material and that the only Russian culture we know, were permeated with a strong feeling that is, the culture that was embodied and conviction of uninterrupted cultural and reflected in literature and art, was

succession. ... built on a Byzantine foundation and was The whole problem of historic con- 8 direct continuation of the Byzantine tinuity between Kiev and Moscow must cultural endeavor and effort. Even The be investigated cautiously and judi- Lay of the Host of Igor reflected the pat-

ciously. It is an intricate and delicate terns of Byzantine rhetoric. Of course, problem. Actually, it is the crucial prob- foreign traditions were superbly indilem of pattern and scope of Russian his- _genized, and it is easy to detect manitory. Is Moscow a true and legitimate fold national motives. But the bases, and successor of ancient Kiev, or is ita new probably the driving power also, were beginning altogether and a separate for- mainly Byzantine. D. S. Likhachev, in mation? Or did ancient Kiev find its _ his recent general survey of The Culture organic continuation rather in the Gali- of the Russian People from the Tenth to cian kingdom of Daniel, and later inthe the Seventeenth Century, rightly stresses

Lithuanian state? This is a common- this point. Christianity was a religion place of Polish and Ukrainian historiog- with a highly developed literature, raphy, and for that reason it requires which Russian paganism lacked. Aca cautious re-examination. Now, apart cordingly, Russian literature stemmed from all political considerations, one is from the Christian Byzantine spring. able to discern a cultural unity of “all Dr. Andreyev identifies many national Russia” grounded in common faith and motives as “pagan,” and as such they in common national memories. Once had to remain alien to the total strucmore we have to emphasize the basic _ ture of the cultural whole. More impordifference between “culture” and “soci- tant was, of course, the national tension

ety.” Of course, Moscow society was a between the Greeks and the Slavs. I distinctive formation, very different would prefer complete caution at this from that of ancient Kiev, and the Mos- _ point. We should not read too much of

cow culture of the fourteenth and later later Grecophobia into the texts of the centuries was, in many respects, a new pre-Mongolian times. At that time, it development. In a wider perspective, seems, the spirit of political and canonihowever, Kiev and Moscow did belong cal independence did not yet control the

together, as also did Moscow and St. inner life of culture. Metropolitan

Petersburg. .. . Hilarion himself was deeply Byzantine Let us turn now to the problem of _ in his style and ethos, as were Cyril of Russian beginnings. Dr. Andreyev’s re- Turov and Clement of Smolensk. Inminder of the pre-Christian heritage of

Russia is certainly relevant and wel- 4T.e., chronicle writing.

230 The Problem of Old Russian Culture deed, Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria was as not pretend to have an adequate answer king and politician a staunch enemy of to this crucial question. But I do still Byzantium, and yet culturally he was feel that my provisional hypothesis of a profoundly Greek—an accomplished “charm of accomplishment” deserves Byzantine literate. The Slavs at that further exploration, especially because time were sensible enough to recognize __ it applies both to the Muscovite culture the universal value of that Christian cul- and to the westernizing endeavors of the ture which had been offered to them in _ eighteenth century, and even, probably, Greek garb and shape and in the context _to the various utilitarian and moralistic

of Byzantine political expansion: In- trends of the nineteenth century. I do deed, this universality was implied in not suggest, as has been done more than the initiative of SS. Cyril and Methodius once, that anti-intellectualism, or indifthemselves. The cultural Grecophobia in ference to abstract problems and specuRussia was a much later development, lation, is an essential characteristic of and its growth—in Muscovite times— the “Russian soul,” the alleged dame has hardly strengthened Russian cul- russe. I do not believe in the existence ture. Culture, in its deepest sense, can of any such “collective soul.” National

never simply emerge out of “national characters, if such do exist, are being spirit.” It is always initiated by “recep- made in history, and change. Yet, there.

tion,” by inheriting accumulated tradi- is still some continuity of basic attitions, by assessing the universal stock of tudes, although radical anti-intellectualhigher values. In this sense true culture ism developed in Russia under foreign

is itself universal and supranational. influence and at a comparatively late And even the formal strength of any date. In any case, the structure of the particular culture is first expressed in “Russian soul,” as can be observed in its

the scope and span of its synthetic cultural expressions, is rather antinomipower. True culture is always catholic, cal and cannot be reduced to any simple

in the Socratic sense of the word. ... formula. The “thrill of accomplishThe major riddle of Old Russian cule ment” has a utopian tenor; it implies ture was, of course, its “intellectual si- the expectation that the ideal may be lence,” or rather, dumbness. Professor adequately and definitively realized or Billington tends to explain it by external incarnated. The dynamism of search is factors, such as “the harsh frontier con- subdued to the static pattern of accomditions of Muscovy.” I would not claim plishment. to have a satisfactory answer to the rid- Professor Billington invokes also andle, but I would look for it in the inner other external factor: the brutal subju-

structure of the Muscovite spiritual gation of the westward-looking Novworld. The “harsh frontier conditions” gorod and Pskov. The annexation of did not prevent or impede the flowering these two republics was rather harsh of art, that is, the awakening and matur- and brutal—so much must be conceded. ing of the aesthetic insight. Why should _ But it is hardly historically fair to idealthey, by themselves, impede the intellec- ize the constitution and policy of these

tual awakening? In fact, there was two republics. Historically speaking, enough intellectual curiosity in Moscow one may contend that this annexation society, but there was no genuine intel- was a progressive endeavor and was juslectual drive. The lack was especially tified by the general logic of national conspicuous in the seventeenth century. development and integration. What is What was the reason? Once more, I do much more important, from the cultural

The Problem of Old Russian Culture 231 point of view, is that all basic achieve- crucial. question. Where was rooted the

ments of Novgorod and Pskov were bias toward an aesthetic rather than a actually included in the Moscow “gath- _ philosophical culture? In the Byzantine

ering of culture” in the sixteenth cen- _ heritage itself, or in the attitude of the tury, so that this Moscow synthesis was Russians? In Byzantium, in any case, almost entirely composed of Novgorod the period of iconoclasm and the one material. Whatever may be said about immediately after was characterized not the political aspect of the annexation, only by an activity in the realm of art

little if anything has been lost of the but also by a strong philosophical reNovgorod cultural heritage. And it is vival. Nor is it fair to overstress the still uncertain whether the westward ori- _anti-intellectual bias of the Hesychast

entation of the two northern republics movement, which stood rather in the was a real asset and a token of advance mainstream of the Greek intellectual tra-

and not an entanglement in antiquated dition. The Byzantine defense of holy social and economic policies of the Han- _icons was not primarily a vindication of

seatic League. art or ritual but basically a dogmatic Indeed, Professor Billington mentions endeavor—the defense of the crucial a number of other factors: the lack of and ultimate reality of Incarnation. This : classical heritage, the laxity of diocesan _ theological, that is, “intellectual,” aspect structure in the Church, the lack of a was gradually lost in the disproportioncommonly accepted body of canon law ate growth of ritual, as splendid as its and of any clear distinction between law _ artistic achievement and as moving as and morality. All these topics must be its emotional appeal might have been. discussed and examined in detail. Only, Now, St. Sergius himself did not care at it seems, they are rather symptoms than _all for splendid temples or for gorgeous factors. Did I play down the impact of | rites and robes, and it was just in the the lack of classical heritage? In fact, it spirit and the temper of St. John Chrysmust be shown in what manner this lack = ostom. But the thrill of splendor finally actually impeded intellectual growth in prevailed. It was not St. Sergius’ legacy Russia. I dare only to contend that there _ or tradition. And, in fact, “splendor” it-

was enough stimulating challenge in self rapidly degenerated into decoration that theological inheritance which was and ornamentation, on the Russian soil, received from Byzantium and appro- and not without a Novgorod impact. To priated in Russian culture. But the chal- sum up, it is difficult to explain historilenge was not responded to in the sphere cally both the general “unsuccess” of of intellect as it was responded to crea- Old Russian culture and, in particular, tively in the realm of art. This is what I its “intellectual silence,” simply by cerhave labeled “intellectual silence.” Was tain external circumstances and condithe reason for this phenomenon already tions, or by the deficiencies of the By-

given in the very nature of the Byzan- zantine inheritance. There were also tine impact on Russia—that is, in the some deeper internal causes. In spite of nature of the Byzantine inheritance it- its strength and richness, the Muscovite self—or was it rooted in the manner and __ culture failed to accomplish its purpose

character of the response? This is the and collapsed. , |

BLANK PAGE

CHRONOLOGY | 860-1240 PERIOD OF KIEV RUSSIA |

862 Traditional date of summoning Rurik the Varangian to rule in Novgorod

911 Treaty of Oleg with Byzantine Empire |

941 Expedition of Igor against Constantinople

957 Visit of Olga to Constantinople, where she is baptized 988 Baptism of Vladimir and conversion of Russia Kherson taken

1030 Iaroslav starts first school in Novgorod, with 300 sons of notables and priests 1037 Santa Sofia, Kiev, begun 1045-57 Building of Santa Sofia, Novgorod |

1054 Split between eastern and western churches 1054-73 Russkaia Pravda, law code, composed

1067 First serious raids of Polovtsy

1071 Pagan magicians provoke risings in Kiev and Novgorod, want to kill bishop

1095 First election of prince in Novgorod 11th century Birch-bark documents first appear

Novgorod streets paved with lumber (first Paris pavement, 1184)

Wooden water pipes laid in Novgorod :

1116 Primary Chronicle composed

1125-1200 Second version of Russkaia Pravda 1126 First election of posadnik in Novgorod

1147 First written mention of Moscow 1156 First elected bishop of Novgorod 1167 Sadko builds a church in Novgorod

|

1169 Sack of Kiev by Andrei Bogoliubsky, prince of Vladimir-Suzdal His seige of Novgorod fails Legend of the intervention of the icon of the Virgin XV

XVI Chronology 1185 Prince Igor Sviatoslavovich of Seversk marches against Polovtsians

1195 First Novgorod treaty with German towns and Gotland

1196 Princely agreement grants Novgorod right to select prince 1204 Capture of Constantinople by Fourth Crusade: Latin Empire until 1261 1215-36 Thirteen changes of prince in Novgorod — 1223 First Mongol invasion: Russians defeated on the Kalka

1227 Death of Genghis Khan

1237-42 Mongol conquest of Russia

1240-1480 MONGOL PERIOD 1240 Victory of Alexander Nevsky over Swedes on Neva

1242 Battle on the Ice: Nevsky’s victory over the German Order

1248 Pope Innocent IV sends two cardinals to Alexander Nevsky in Novgorod to persuade him to adopt the Catholic faith

1253 Founding of first Sarai as capital of the Golden Horde 1259 Uprising against Tartar taxes in Novgorod

1270 _ Novgorod treaty with Hansa 1275 Population of Russia about ten million 1294 First Russian icon which is dated and signed (Novgorod) 1300 Metropolitan of Kiev settles at Vladimir

1326 Final establishment of Metropolitan in Moscow 1337 Foundation of Trinity Monastery by St. Sergius 1348 Pskov secures independence of Novgorod

Swedish King Magnus marches against Novgorod

1362 Kiev taken by Grand Duke of Lithuania, Olgerd 1367-68 First stone fortifications of Moscow Kremlin 1371-75 Heresy of Strigol’niks (Shearers) in Novgorod 1378 Feofan the Greek paints first frescoes in Novgorod

1380 Victory of Dmitri Donskoi over the Tartars at Kulikovo

1882 Moscow burnt by Tokhtamysh

1390-1430 Active life of icon painter Andrei Rublev

1395 , Defeat of the Golden Horde by Timur the Lame (Tamerlane)

1430-66 Disintegration of Golden Horde

Formation of Khanates of Crimean Tartars, Kazan, and

Astrakhan

1436 Foundation of Solovetsky Monastery

1439 Council of Florence

Reunion of eastern and western churches

1441 Metropolitan Isidore deposed for accepting Council of Florence

Chronology XVli 1446 Church of Russia declared autocephalous 1453 Capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans 1471 Campaign of Ivan LI against Novgorod and its reduction Charter of the city of Novgorod

1472 Marriage of Ivan III with Zoe (Sophia), niece of last Byzantine Emperor

1475-78 Cathedral of Assumption in Kremlin built by Fieravanti 1476-78 Visit to Moscow of Ambrosio Contarini—first foreigner to write about Moscow

1478 Incorporation of Novgorod in Muscovy 1480 Unsuccessful campaign of Golden Horde against Ivan 1480 END OF MUSCOVITE DEPENDENCY ON MONGOLS

1481-1502 Active career of icon and fresco painter Dionysius 1485 - Cathedral of Annunciation built by Pskov architects

Antonion Solario and Marco Ruffo build Palace of Facets (modeled on Bologna) and lower stories of towers of

Kremlin (modeled on Milan)

1485-1516 Building of the new Kremlin in Moscow

1488 Uprising in Novgorod

1,000 leading families transferred to Moscow and replaced by Moscow residents

1494 End of Hansa in Novgorod

1497 Law code of Ivan III 1503 Church Council

Victory of the “Josephites” over the “no property”

group Heresy of Judaizers condemned

1505-9 Cathedral of Archangel Michael built by Alevisio Nuovi of Milan

1510 Incorporation of Pskov into Muscovy 1517-19 Printing of first books in Russian in Prague

1525 Maxim the Greek condemned by Church Council 1526-33 Two visits of Herberstein, envoy of Emperor Charles V, to Moscow

1529-60 Construction of churches at Diakovo, Ostrovo, and Kolomenskoe, and of the Cathedral of St. Basil the _ Blessed, ushering in a new era in Russian architecture

1547 CORONATION OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE Twenty-two Russian saints canonized Novgorod and Pskov icon painters ordered to Moscow after great fire

1550-1700 134 books translated into Russian 1551 Council of the Hundred Chapters (Stoglav)

1552 Capture of Kazan

Chronology

1553 Opening of the White Sea route by Chancellor 1555 Granting of charter to Russia Company (England)

— 1556 Capture of Astrakhan _

1558 Stroganovs granted land on Kama River

1558-83 Livonian war, against Poland and Sweden, for possession of Baltic

1560’s Edition of Domostroi (House-Orderer), a book of principles of family life

1564 First book printed in Moscow Kurbsky flees to Lithuania -

1565-72 Ivan the Terrible’s reign of terror: the oprichnina

1566 First Zemskii Sobor (Consultative Land Assembly) 1570 Ivan the Terrible’s pogrom in Novgorod: January 2 to February 13

1571 Crimean Tartars burn Moscow

1571-1600 Fortification of southern frontier

Beginning of Don, Zaporozhian, and Ural Cossacks

1580’s Boris Godunov sends eighteen Russians to study abroad —none return

1581 Yermak and the beginning of the conquest of Siberia

, Privilege of St. George’s Day (Iur’ ev Den’), November 96, abolished 1585 Foundation of Archangel 1587-98 Boris Godunov as “Lord Protector” 1588 Giles Fletcher in Moscow 1589 CREATION OF MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE 1590's Rostov becomes seat of Metropolitan

1601-3 Famine | Erection of Ivan Velikii tower

1604-13 , Time of Troubles 1606-7 Revolt of Bolotnikov 1610-12 Poles occupy Moscow

1611-17 Swedes occupy Novgorod 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as tsar by Zemskit Sobor

1618 Peace with Sweden

Loss of any outlet to Baltic

1634-38 Two visits of Adam Olearius to Moscow 1636 Patriarch orders all musical instruments burned 1648-49 Risings in Moscow and other towns Zemskit Sobor Code of Tsar Alexis

1649 Abolition of English trading privileges 1650’s Moscow population about 200,000

1650 , Patriarch forbids use of conical towers in church architecture and standardizes sacred “‘five-domed church”’

on a square plan

Chronology X1X 1652 Foreigners in Moscow required to live in Nemetskaza Sloboda (a suburb) and forbidden to mix with the pepulation

1653 Last full meeting of Zemskit Sobor | 1654 Church Council adopts Nikon’s reforms

1654 BEGINNING OF THE SCHISM Union of Ukraine with Muscovy Baroque influences on Moscow

1660’s Moscow linked with Amsterdam and Berlin by regular postal service.

1664 Grigorii Kotoshikhin flees to Sweden 1666 Church Council deposes Patriarch Nikon 1667 Cession to Muscovy of Kiev, Little Russia, and Smoens

1670-71 Revolt of Stenka Razin

1671 Avvakum writes. his Zife in prison

1672 Russian embassies sent to all major European states Plays begin to be given at Moscow court

1674 Synopsis—first textbook of Russian history—appears 1684 Sophia’s decree institutes formal persecution of Old Believers

1689 Peter the Great takes over the government Treaty of Nerchinsk with China

| BLANK PAGE |

CORRELATION = of READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Vols. I, II, and III with Representative Texts CiarKsON, JESSE D., A History of Russia, Random House, 1964

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

19 IT: 36, 37 2431 I:I: “I: 16 Trl 20 II: 35 2 21 II: 39-41 3-5 22 II: 38 5 I: 6, 10, 15 23 II: 42, 43 6 24 III: 44 7 I: 7-9 25 Ill: 45 8 . 26 III: 46 . 910 I: 11-13 27 T: 14,17 28 47 ll 29 III:III:48

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

12 II: 19 1831 30IIT: lil: 49-51 13 II: 55, 56 14 II: 20-22 32 IIT: 52-54 15 II: 16 3423-27 III: 33 57, 58

|

17 II:29, 28,31-34 30 3536III: 18 II: III:59-62 63-69 37 III: 70-72

DmytrysHyn, Basit, USSR: A Concise History, Scribners, 1965

1 5 Ill: 47, 48 43 III:, 46 : i III: 57-62

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

2 TIT: 44, 45 6 III: 49-56 9 III: 63-72

ELLISON, HERBERT J., History of Russia, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

] I:I:16 1314 IIT: 44-45 2 1-5 III: 46 34 I: I: 11-14, 6-10, 15 15 III: 47 17 16 Hil: 48 5) II: 18 : 17 67IT: III: 49-56 II:19-22 231819

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

89 II; 24-27 20 Ill: 57, 58 : II: 28-31 21 III: 59-62 10 Ii: 32-37 22 ll II: 38-41 23 III: 12 II: 42—43 24 III:63-70 71, 72 XX1

XX1l Correlation Tables

1 I:1,2 25 2 26 5 I: 3, 4 29 78 31 IT:32 25-27 I: 7-9

FLorinsky, MicHakEt T., Russia: A History and an Interpretation, 2 vols.,

Macmillan, 1953

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

3 IT: 1528 27II: Il: 24 23 4, I: 6 6 I: 5, 10 30

9. 33

10 I: 13 34 il I: 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 35 33 12 36 IT: 13 II: 18 3734, II: 36, 28-32 14 38 II: 37 15 39 II: 35 16 40 II: 38-4] 17 4) II: 18 IT: 19 42 II:43 42 21 II:| 20, 21 45 III:45 44 22 46 TIT: , 23 47 46 24 II: 4822 THI:

19 | 43 20 44

FLORINSKY, MICHAEL T.,. Russia: A Short History, Macmillan, 1964

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

1 I:I:1,2,16 — 15 II:34-42 28-33 2 3-5 16 II: I: 15 17 43 I: 10 18 II: 43 567I:I:, 7-9 6 19 III: 44, 45 | . 20 III: 46-48 21 III: 52-56 8 I: 13 22 lil: 49-51 9 I: 11, 12, 14, 17 23 10 II: II: 19 18 25 24 III: TI: 57, 58 1] 59-62 12 II: 20-22 26 27 III: 63-72 13 II: 23, 24 - 14 II: 25-27

Harcave, Smpney, Russia: A History, 6th ed., Lippincott, 1968

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

1 I: 16 17 II; 36, 37 2 I: 1-5, 15 18 II: 33 3 I: 6-10 19 II: 31

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

11-14, 17 20IT: II: 39-41 5674 I:II: II: 18 21 42 It: 19 : 22 II: 43 20-21 , 23 Ill: 44, 45 89 II:2422 III: 46 25 III: 47

Correlation Tables Xx1ll HarcaveE, Siwney, Russia: A History, 6th ed., Lippincott, 1968

10 26 III: 48 11 II: 23 27 IIT: 49-51 12 II: 25-27 24 2829 TIT: 13 If; III: 52-56 57, 58

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

14 HI: 59-62 15 II:30 28-30 31 HII: 63-72 16 II: 34, 38

Mazour, ANATOLE G., Russia: Tsarist and Communist, Van Nostrand, 1962

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

1 I:I:I:1,2 16 19 II: 37 23 20 If: 35, 38 15 21 II: 39-4] 45 I:I:7-9 3-5, 22 23 10 II: 25-28

7 25 ll 29 Ill: 46 |

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

689 II:I:I:18 6 24 11-14, 26 | 27 II: 17 42-43

10 28 III: 44, 45 12 IT: 19 30 III: 47, 48 13 II: 20-22 31 14 32 III: 49-5] 15 II: 23 33 IIT: 52-56 16 II: 24 34 17 II: IT;32-34, 29-3]363536IIT: 18 Ill: 57 58 | 37 II: 3859-62 III: 63-72

Pares, BERNARD, A History of Russia, Vintage Books, 1965

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

I3 I: 16 15 II: 22 2 I: 1,2 16 II: 23 I: 15 17 IT: 24 4. I: 3, 4 18 If: 25-27 567 I: I: 5,10 19 II: 28 7-9 20 II: 29-33 6 21 If: 34-37 89 I:I:22 IT: 11-13 23 II: 38 39-41

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

10 14,17 | 24 II: 42, 43 11I: 25 IIT: 44-48

12 Il: 19 18 27 26 III: lil: 49-56 13 Il: 57-72 14 II: 20, 21

XXIV Correlation Tables PUSHKAREV, SERGEI, The Emergence of Modern Russia, 1801-1917, Holt,

Rinehart, and Winston, 1963

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

1 IT: 23 7 II: 36, 37 2 8 II: 35, 39-41 3 II: 24-27: 9 | 4 10 IT: 38, 42 56 II:II: 29-3428 11 II: 43

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

27

Raucu, Geore Von, A History of Soviet Russia, 5th rev. ed., Praeger, 1967

Chapter Related Selections in , Chapter Related Selections in

1 Ill: 44-46 6 Ill: 52-56 4 II:10 47-51 9 IIT: 59-62 5) III: 63-72

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

3 8 III: 57, 58

2 23 3 I:1 24II: II:23 22 46 25 27 7 28 II; 25-27 |

Rrasanovsky, Nicuouas V., A History of Russia, Oxford University Press, 1963

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

1 T: 16 , 22 II; 20, 21

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. ——_—«OREADINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

2 I: 2 26 IT: 24

8 I: 15 29 II: 29, 31 9 I: 3,4 30 II: 34 10 31 II: 35, 39-42

14 35 17 38 III: 57-58

1] 32 II: 30, 36-38 12 33 II: 28, 32, 33,4543 13 I: 5, 10 34 III: 44, 15 I:37 7-9III: 36 III: 46-48 16 49-56

18 I: I: 11, 6, 13, 14 39 Hil: 59-62 19 12, 17 40 III: 63-66 20 Il: 18 4d WI: 67-71

21 II: 19 42 Til: 72

Correlation Tables XXV

2467 171412 II: 36, 37 16 IT: 39-41 9 19 II: 42

SETON-Watson, Hucu, The Russian Empire, 1801-1917, Oxford, 1967

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

]3 II: 18-22 li II: 29-31 . II: 23 13 IT: 32-34

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

5 II: 24 15 II: 35 8 Il: 25-27 18 II: 38

10 II: 28 20 II: 43

]6 |16 21

TREADGOLD, DonaLp W., Twentieth Century Russia, 2d ed., Rand McNally, 1964

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

34 18 IIT: 52-56 II: 35 19 5 II: 34, 39-41 20

2 II: 22-29, 31-33 17 Ill: 49-51

ll 26

10 Ill: 46 29 . 12 27 TIT: 59-62 14 29 Ill: 67-72 7 II: II: 38, 30, 42, 36, 43 37 23 22 Il: 57 89 IIT: 44, 45 24 III: 58

13 lil: 47, 48 28 Ill: 63-66

15

VERNADSKY, GEORGE, A History of Russia, 5th ed., Yale University Press, 1961

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

1,216 , 10 II:36-38 28-34 2314 I:I:I:I:3-5, 1] II: 35, 42-46 39-41 7-9 15 13 12 II,Ii: 111: 56 I:II:6,18-21 10-14, 15 17 14 Ill:52-56 47-51 Til:

78 II: 22, 23 17 16 Ill: lil: 57, 59-62 II: 25-27 58 9 II: 24 18 III: 63-72

XXV1 Correlation Tables Wren, MEtvin C., The Course of Russian History, 3d ed., Macmillan, 1968

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

I: 16 12 II: IT;34-38 28-33 : 2134 I: I: 1 13 I: 3, 2,54 14 15 II: Ill:39-43 44-46

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

I: 7-9 6, 10 16 Ill: 47, 64, 48,66, 52-56 65 I: 17 III: 49-51, 7 I: 11-17 18 III: 59-6267, 70 9 II:IT: 19-22 : 20III: III:63, 57,68, 58,69, 65, 72 71 10 23 21

8 II: 18 19

11] II; 24-27

- Press, 1958 ,

WatsH, Warren B., Russia and the Soviet Union, University of Michigan

Chapter Related Selections in Chapter Related Selections in

Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION Nos. READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

1 I:I:16 . 3, 164II:17 32-34, 36-37 23 1, II: 35 I:7, 2,5 18 II: 39-41 45 I: I: 15 19 II: 38, 42, 43 8, 9 20 Tlf: 44-45 67I: II: 6, 10-14, 1722 21 Ill: 46 18 89 II: II:20,1921,2322III: 47, 48 24 II]: 49-56

10 II: 23 25 11 II: 24 26 III: 57, 58 12 27 IH: 59-62 13 II: 25, 26, 27 28

‘ It: 28-31 29 Ill: 63-72

INDEX VOLUMETI

Adashev, Alexei, 87 (n. 1), 95, 96, 97, 101,114 Basil; see Vasili

Adrian, Patriarch, 147 Batu, 36, 190, 203

Agriculture, 15, 196, 198-99, 204, 207, 209-10, Bavarian Geographer, 220

212; in Mongol period, 178 Bekbulatovich, Simeon, 102

Alaska, 202 | Beloozero Charter, 14 Alexander II, 151 Belski, Prince Semen, 92 (nn. 13, 15) Alexander Nevski, 19, 30-31, 32, 36, 37, 40-41, | Birchbark writings, 52-56 42, 89, 114, 189 Black lands, 113 Alexis, Metropolitan, 120, 122, 125, 126, 127 Black people, 187 Alexis, Tsar, 128, 130, 132, 136-37, 139, 143, Bogolyubsky, Andrei, 71, 203

144, 146, 148, 156 (n. 5e) Bohemia, 177 Amber, 52 Bone objects, 57 America; see Frontier, compared with Ameri- _Boretskaya, Marfa, 31, 44, 46 can Boris and Gleb, Sts., 222 Anastasia, wife of Ivan IV, 97 “Boyar children,” 93 (n. 18), 157 (n. 5k), 174 Andrei of Staritsa, Prince, 92 (n. 14) Boyars, 93, 94, 96, 97, 156 (n. 5a), 174, 178; “Angel’s form,” 88, 91; see also Monasticism origin of class, 71, 185-86; political role of,

Anna, wife of St. Vladimir, 9-10 71, 174; landowning by, 72, 74, 76, 77, 84,

Archangel Cathedral (Moscow) , 227 99; freedom of service of, 178-79; see also Archeology, 220; in Novgorod, 47-59 Classes in Russia Architecture, 175, 200, 223-24, 226; see also Boyars’ Duma, 103

Art Budovnits, Isaac, 113, 116

Arkhangel (Arkhangelsk), 162, 200 Bulavin, Kondraty, 209

Army; of Ivan IV, 99, 102, 103, 193; of Ivan Bulgakov, Rev. Sergius, 191

IlI, 103; in Mongol period, 184-85; con- Bulgaria, 214 scription in, 185; of Kievan Russia, 184-85; Buslaev, F. I., 225 |

Red, 210 Buslaev, Vasili; see Vasili Buslaev

Art, 56-58, 214, 217, 220, 224; see also Archi- Byliny, 60, 228-29; of Sadko, 60-63; of Vasili

tecture; Rublev Buslaev, 63-68; and Mongols, 190; see also Artsikhovsky, A., 49, 50 Chronicles; Literature

: Asia, 23, 33, 200-202, 211; see also Russo- Byzantine Empire, Byzantium; see Constan-

Japanese War; Siberia tinople Assembly Code; see Code of Laws | Astrakhan, 87 (n. 2), 92 (n. 12), 177, 191,193, Cadets (Constitutional Democrats), 152

203, 206 Capitulare de Villis, 13

Autocracy, 89, 91; see also Tsar Casimiri, 37

Avvakum, Archpriest, 128-40, 144, 149, 224 Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom; see St. Sophia

Catherine II (the Great), 150, 204, 206;

Baikal, Lake, 135-36 Charter of the Gentry of, 79; and property Bakhrushin, Sergei, 112, 114, 115 rights, 79; “Greek Project” of, 146

Balkans, 214 Catholics, Roman, in Germany, 152 Baltic and Moldavian republics, 195 Census of 1646-47, 158 XXV1i

XXVili Index |

Central Asian republics, 195 Orthodox Church, ritual of

Chaadev, Peter, 19] Cumans; see Polovtsi Cherepnin, Lev V., 117 Cyril and Methodius, Sts., 230 , Chancellor, Richard, 165 (n. 5), 199 Cyril, St., 225

Chernozem; see Black land Cyril of Turov, 229 Cherry, Sir Francis, 166 (n. 17)

China, 200; treaty with Russia, 200 Danilovichi, 180 Chingis Khan; see Genghis Khan Decembrists, 211 Christianity, 7 (n. 6), 198, 221, 222, 223; con- Deportation, 187, 196, 211, 212; of Archpriest

version of Russia to, 10-11, 221, 222; in Avvakum, 132-34 Kievan Russia, 188, 216; see also Mona- )Pmitri, False, 142 steries; Monasticism; Orthodox Church; Dmitri, son of Ivan IV, 97 Paganism; various biographical entries Dmitri Donskoi, 35, 89, 126-27, 181, 185 Chronicles, 189, 228-29; Russian Primary Drama, 66 (n. 5), 221; see also Literature Chronicle, 1; Chronicle of Novgorod, 29, 31, Drang nach Osten, 222 33, 35, 189; Chronicle of Nestor; 31, 33,35; Druzhina (retinue), 71, 72, 184 Chronicle of Rostov, 189; Nikon Chronicles, Dubrovskii, Sergei, 110-17 passim

189; see also Byliny; Literature Duma, 77, 152; of Ivan IV, 100; Boyars’, 103

Church; see Orthodox Church Dvina Land, 33; Charter of, 14, 17, 21-22, 34,

Civil war (1918), 210 182; and Moscow, 22; and Novgorod, 22, 42

Classes in Russia, 18, 93 (nn. 17, 18), 94 Dvoeverie (ditheism), 221

(n. 19), 155-57 (nn 1-5), 159 (n. 19), 174- = Dvorianin (“service people”), 94 (n. 19), 156

75, 185-86; see also Boyars; Orthodox (n. 5g, J), 174, 186; see also Classes in

Church; Peasants; Serfdom; Slavery Russia ,

Clement of Smolensk, 229 Dyak (scribe), 93 (n. 17), 156 (n. 5h); see Code of Laws: of 1497 (Sudebnik), 14, 189, also Classes in Russia

Collins, Samuel, 170 (n. 31) . . . 194; of 1649 (Ulozhenie), 154-61, 174, 187

Colonization, 176, 195-97, 202, 203, 206-8; actinic Taian 70, 83; see also Non-Russian. Department of, 211; see also Frontier Com- EF ¢joga, 13 merce, 199, 211; with Western Europe, 13, Emancipation Act of 1861, 80, 151 162-72, 177, 199, 200; in Dvina Land, 21; Encyclopedia of Brokhaus and Efron, 149

with Asia, 23, 201, 202, 211; with Con- England, 162, 199 stantinople, 23 203; in Novgorod, 32, 199; Entertainers 66 (n. 5), 221 and landowning, 72; in Mongol period, 176— Epiphanius, ‘St. 118

77; see also Fur trade; River routes Eurasia, 197 Commune, 187, 210 | } Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 6

Constantinople, 8, 19, 23, 146, 202, 214, 215, ,cu0ter» George, 216, 210, 229

216, 217, 219; treaty with Oleg, ae 2-3,’ 220; © “NO@iSms in Lonstantinopic, in Mievan Russia, 71, 72, 74-75, 83-84; in(73Islam, 73; money economy of, 15; and feudalism, 71; in M usc ovit e state 78 ’ ad and Kievan Russia, 198; treaty with Igor, Feudalism, Russi n. 69-85 sm: definiti 220; fall of, 222, 227; and Russian history, ~“\r 9.84. passim; cesnen

onsuming 19985Russi . . . , y provinces, 78, 81, 83, 84,

Cc 222, 226, 231; iconoclasm in, 231 Feudalism, Western, 80; influence in Kievan Conversion of Russia; see under Christianit ussia, 71, 74; compared with Russian, 76, On 8-8 3, 143, 146, 148, 193, 196, 201, Finnish-Tatar peoples, 195, 199, 204; see also Council: of the Hundred Chapters, 96 (n. 27), rime ngo'ss _ on ussian peoples; Tatars

100, 103; of February 1549, 96 (n. 27); Pictiny 100. Chosen, 96 (n. 28); Church, of 1666, 128, Fletcher, Giles, 166 (n. 15), 117 139, 144, 145; Church, of 1551, 145; Church, Florovsky, Rev. Georges, 213, 223, 224-25 of 1682, 145 Folklore, 221 Counterrevolution, 153 (n.) “Forbidden years” (zapovednye gody), 78

“Court Law for the P eople” (Zakon Sudnyi Foreigners in Russia, 162-72

Liudem), 13 Forest; see Zones, geographic

Crimea, the, 178, 193, 205-6; see also Tatars Freemen, 72, 77, 83, 84; see also Classes in

Cross, sign of the, 131, 139, 144; see also Russia

Index XX1X Frontier, 200, 207, 226, 230; military, 193, Industrialization, 197, 199, 207 200-201, 203-4, 205-7, 211; compared with Intelligentsia, 148, 149, 151, 152

American, 195-96, 201, 205, 212; linguistic Iron, 51-52 and national, 195; lumbermen’s, 196; Islam, 73, 187; see also Moslems

miner’s, 196-97, 202, 204, 211, 212; hunter’s, Ivan I (Kalita), 34, 35, 119 |

196, 201; settler’s, 196, 202, 204-5, 210, 211; Ivan III (the Great), 34, 89, 103, 142, 146, salt, 199; Asian, 200, 211; see also Coloniza- 181; conquers Novgorod, 20, 185

tion; Siberia Ivan IV (Grozny), 77, 98-109, 142, 155, 174,

Fundamental Chronicle; see Chronicle of 191, 193, 199, 200, 203; becomes Tsar, 77,

Nestor 94; persecutions of, 87, 88, 94 (n. 20); war

Fur tax, 201-2 with Lithuania, 90 (n. 8), 92 (n. 15); famFur trade, 21, 199, 200, 201, 202 ily of, 91, 92, 93; childhood of, 93, 94; his-

Fur tribute (yasak), 201 torians’ appraisal of, 98, 109, 110-17; char-

, acter of, 99, 109; army of, 99, 102, 103, 193;

Garrard, William, 165 (n. 4) literary attacks on, 105; Synodics of banish-

Gediminovichi, 180, 186 ment of, 107; foreign policy of, 111; cult of,

Gedimir, 37 113, 116, 117; see also Oprichnina Genghis Khan, 72 Iziaslav, 18, 71 German Crusaders; see Teutonic Knights

Germans, 7, 19; in Russia, 13, 32, 36, 37, 40, Jagic, V., 214, 215 41, 54, 204-5; see also Hanseatic League; Jeremiah, Ecumenical Patriarch, 146

Teutonic Knights Jinghis-Khan; see Genghis Khan Glinskaia, Anna, 94, 95 Judicial duel, 13, 17 Germany, 177; Roman Catholics in, 152 Judaizers, 142

Glinskaia, Helena, 91, 92 (n. 14), 142

Glinksi, Prince Michael, 142 Kabala slavery; see Slavery and usury Godunov, Boris, 142; see also Time of Troubles Karamzin, N. M., 21, 22, 113, 191 Golden Horde, 30, 70, 73, 84, 175-79, 184, 185, Karelia, 56 187, 191, 192; decline of, 76, 181; see also Kazan, 87 (n. 2), 100, 191, 203, 204

Mongol Empire; Mongols Kazimir IV, 20

Golubinski E. E., 215, 219, 225 Khazars, 70 ,

Gosti, Muscovite, 163 (n. 2) Khmelmitsky, Bogdan, 145; see also Cossacks

Great Russia, 77, 195 Kiev, 2, 4, 35, 38, 39, 60, 175, 214, 222; riots Grecophobia, 222, 229 in, 18; and Novgorod, 19, 34, 36; and Mon-

“Greek Project” of Catherine II, 146 gol invasion, 188, 190 Greeks; see Constantinople Kievan Russia, 71, 81, 83, 84, 202, 203, 214-16,

Grekov, Boris D., 115, 116 225; commerce in, 18, 198; classes in, 18, 174, 186; usury in, 19; monetary system in, Hagia Sophia; see St. Sophia 23-24, 32-33; known as “Rus,” 35, 36;

Hansa towns, 162 feudalism in, 71, 72, 73, 74-75, 83; estates

Hanseatic League, 13, 19, 32, 36, 37, 38, 177, in, 72; slavery in, 72; administration of, 74; 199, 231; see also Commerce; Germans in and Lithuania, 74; and Mongols, 173, 177,

Russia 178, 181-82; army of, 184; Christianity in,

Heberstein, Baron Sigismund von, 174 188-89; and Constantinople, 198; church in, Hesychast tradition, 216, 227, 228, 231 221-22; continuity with Muscovite state, 229 Heywood, Sir Rowland, 166 (n. 13) Kliuchevsky, V. O., 104, 109, 113, 188, 194, 218

Hilarion, Metropolitan, 229 Kremlin: of Moscow, 223, 226, 227; of Great

Hilarion of Berestov, 222 Rostov, 226

Historians, Marxist, 110-17 Kublai Khan, 73

Huguenots, 152 Kulikovo, Battle of, 118, 126-27, 185-90; see Humanism, 223 also Dmitri Donskoi

Iconoclasm, 231 || Kurbski, 115Prince Andrei, 86, 89, 100, 101, 112, Iconostasis, 227; see also Art

Igor: attacks Dereva, 4; death of, 4; treaty Labor Group, 152

with Constantinople, 220 Land cadastres, 157 (n. 6), 158

Hovaiskii, Dmitrii, 112 Latinism, 37, 44, 215 Indentured labor, 72, 73, 77; see also Peasants; Latin language, 74, 215 Serfdom; Slavery Law: in treaty between Oleg and Constanti-

XXX Index nople, 3-4; Frankish, 12; Byzantine, 13; Monasteries, 108, 189, 208, 222, 226; Holy and usury, 14-15; Mongol, 72, 181-82; in Trinity, 120, 121-22, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, Novgorod and Pskov, 182, 183; and torture, 225; Bielozero, 199; Solovetski, 199, 225; 182, 183; see also Code of Laws; Law, Rus- Pskov-Petseri, 221 (n. 3); see also Orthodox

sian; Legal history; Legislation Church, landowning by; Sergius of Ra-

Law courts: medieval, procedure in, 15-17; donezh, St.

church, 15; and state, 15; witnesses in, 16; | Monasticism, 32, 120, 121~22, 225; see also

and svod, 16; in Novgorod charter, 25-27 Sergius of Radonezh, St.

Law, Russian: Byzantine and German influence Monetary system: in Kievan Russia, 23-24, _ on, 13-14, 17; penal, in medieval Russia, 17; 32-33 Mongol influence on, 17, 182; compared Mongol Empire: dissolution of, 73; adminiswith Western Europe, 182; “customary law,” tration of, 73, 75, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182,

220; see also Pravda 183-84; trade in, 174; see also Golden Horde

Lay of the Host of Igor, 221, 229; see also Mongol yoke, 84, 173, 187-88

Chronicles; Literature “Lay of Russia’s Mongols, 30, 32, 35, 81, 225; influence in

Ruin,” 189 Russia, 17, 72, 75, 76-77, 84, 173-78, 182,

Lee, Sir Richard, 166 (n. 16) 185; and Novgorod, 36-37, 39, 40, 41-42, in study of Russian history, 14 203-6; law of, 73, 181-82; issue yarlyk

Legal history, 12-14, 18; pre-Muscovite, 14; 175-76, 186-87; khanates of, 73, 87 (n. 2),

Legislation, illustrates medieval Russia, 14 (patents) to Russians, 75, 84, 178, 179-80,

Lepanto, Battle of, 204 181; invasion of, 175, 188, 189, 198, 203,

Lex Russica; see Pravda Russkaia 222: and Kievan Russia, 177-78, 181-82;

Lex Salica, 12 and Muscovite state, 179-80, 192; conscripLiatski, Prince Ivan, 92 (n. 13) tion by, 183; tribute paid to, 183-84; and Likhachev, Dmitrii S., 116, 216, 229 Pskov, 186; and church, 187-88, 189; and

Literature, 60, 118, 148, 149-50, 214, 216, 217, byliny, 190; see also Golden Horde; Tatars 221, 229; in Mongol period, 188-90; see also Monopoly, state: of spirits, 67 (n. 6); of ca-

Byliny; Chronicles; Intelligentsia viar, 201; of silk, 201

Lithuania, 20, 85, 107, 146, 185, 193; and Morozov, B. I., 143

Novgorod, 37, 44; administration of, 73-74, Morozov, Michael, 106

75; and western Russia, 73, 74, 81; union Moscow, 40, 94 (n. 21), 95, 107, 176, 178, with Poland, 75; and Ivan IV, (n. 8), 92 200, 204, 205, 225

~ (n. 15) Moslems, 89 (n. 6), 151; see also Islam;

Little Russia; see Ukraine Mongols; Tatars Livonia, 103, 193 Moulin, Carl de, 168 (n. 23)

Livonian Order, 19 Mstivslav, 31

Livonian War, 87 (n. 2), 90 (n. 8), 99, 109, Mstislav Gyurgevits, 39

114, 142; see also Ivan IV Muravyov-Amursky, Count N. Nicolovich, 202 Lomonosov, Michael V., 148 Muscovite Land Assembly, 146 Lublin, union with Poland, 75 -Muscovite state, 81, 107, 109, 177, 205, 206,

, 209, 223, 224; Code of Laws of, 14; and

Macarius, Metropolitan, 114-15, 217, 223 Novgorod, 20, 31, 33, 35, 36, 42-43, 45, 46,

Macarius, Patriarch, 141 77, 187, 193; and Dvina Land, 22; expan-

Magdeburg law, 14 sion of, 14, 34, 75-76, 119, 145, 146, 147, Mamai, 126, 185 179-80, 186, 193, 195, 203-5; and Tver, 76; Manchuria, 211 Duma of, 77; unification of, 77, 155 (n. 4); Mangu-Temir, 177 feudalism in, 78; and Poland, 104, 146, 193,

Manuel Comnenus, 71 227; church in, 142; and Western Europe, Marcuszoon de Vogelaar, Marcus, 168 (n. 21) 143, 162-72, 191-92; classes in, 163 (n. 2), Maxim the Greek, 224 174-75, 187; and Mongols, 179, 191-92; Melnikos, N., 150 primogeniture in, 181; and Lithuania, . 193; Memoirs of Muscovy, 104, 106-7; see also Tatars attack, 193, 205; culture of, 217, 219, Schlichting; Staden 225, 227, 230, 231; continuity with Kievan “Metpbpolitan’ Justice” (Pravosudie Mitro- Russia, 229

polichie) , 13 Muscovy Company, 200 (n. 4); see also For-

Michael Romanov, Tsar: see Romanov, Michael eigners in Russia Mining, 196-97, 202, 204, 211, 212; in Mongol Myatlev, N., 104 period, 176

Mohammedans; see Moslems Narva, 162

Index XXX1 National Assembly; see Zemski Sobor slavery, 72; landowning by, 72, 76, 84, 108,

Neronov, Ivan, 142, 143, 144 155, 182; schism within, 141-45 passim, 149, Nestor, Chronicle of, 31, 33, 35 152, 224; in Muscovite state, 142; Ukrain-

Netherlands, 162, 200 ians in, 148; and Mongols, 187-88; misNew Russia, 207 | sionary activities of, 201, 208, 225-26; and Nicholas [, 151 Cossacks, 208; in Kievan Russia, 22]—22

Nicholas II, 152 Ottoman Empire, 203, 205

Nifont, Archbishop, 38-39

Nikon, Patriarch, 128-32 passim, 137-46 pas- Pacific Ocean, 202

sim, 222, 224; see also Old Believers Pafnuti of Borovsk, St., 191

Nikon Chronicles, 189 Paganism, 7, 11, 188, 221, 229; see also ChrisNon-Russian peoples, 71, 92, 133 (n. 7), 192, tianity; Witchcraft 196, 200, 201, 202; assimilation of, 148, 149, Paris, Schools of, 215

195, 199, 203, 204 Pashuto, Vladimir T., 116

North America, Russians in, 202 Paul of Aleppo, 141

North Russia, 175, 199-200; democratic tradi- Peasant revolts, 228; see also Bulavin; Puga-

tions of, 152; see also Kiev; Novgorod; chev; Razin

Pskov Peasants, 73, 82, 84, 85, 155, 206, 207, 210;

Novgorod; 14, 29, 175, 196, 199, 214, 222, 226, emancipation of, 80, 151; fugitive, in Uloz-

230, 231; Charter of, 14-21 passim, 25-27, henie of 1649, 155-61; see also Classes in 30; and Kiev, 19, 34, 36, 50; empire of, Russia; Serfdom; Slavery 19-20, 29-30, 33, 34, 35; administration of, Peresvetov, Ivan, 99, 100, LOI, 116

20, 30, 31, 34, 38; church in, 20, 31, 32, 38; Peter I (the Great), 109, 145, 146, 196, 200, democracy in, 20, 30, 33, 47-48; and Musco- 205, 209, 210, 224: and property rights, 80; vite state, 20, 31, 33, 35, 36, 42-43, 45, 46, Westernization by, 147, 148 77, 187, 193; treaty with Kazimir IV, 20; Peter of the Horde, Tsarevich, 181 veche of, 20, 21, 22, 30, 33, 38, 39, 40, 43, Pl..taret, Metropolitan, 152 55; and Dvina Land, 21-22, 42: and Pskov, Philaret, Patriarch, 143 21, 45; Chronicle of, 29, 31, 33, 35, 48, 189; Philippovsti (Self-burners) , 149 districts of, 30, 32; commerce in, 32, 50, Pius V, Pope, 104

51, 55, 177, 199; and Asia, 33, 34; and Platonov, S. F., 109 Scandinavians, 35-36, 42, 56; and Mongols, Pobedonostsev, K., 152

36-37, 39, 40, 41-42, 175, 176, 186; and Poetry, epic, 60; see also Literature Germans, 37, 40; and Lithuania, 37, 44; Pogodin, 113 famine in, 39-40; riots in, 43-44; archeology Pokrovski, Mikhail, 112 in, 47-59; artisans of, 51-52, 54; education Pokrovskii, Serafim A., 115, 116 in, 52, 54; boyars in, 54-55; feudalism in, Poland, 103, 177, 185, 191, 205-8 passim, 227;

55; and Karelia, 56; centralization of, 114; union of Lublin and Lithuania with, 75;

law in, 182 , administration of, 100; and Muscovite state, 104, 146, 193, 227 Octobrists, 152 Polotski, Simon, 146, 147, 148 Oka-Volga Mesopotamia, 203 : Polovtsi, 52, 203; see also Turks

Old Believers, 128, 131 (n. 1), 144, 148-53 Pomestie (land grant), pomeshchik; 73-85 passim, 222, 228: see also Avvakum, Arch- passim, 115, 155 (n. 5), 157, 159 (n. 21), priest; Nikon, Patriarch; Orthodox Church; 160, 161, 174, 179, 193; see also Votchina

Self-burners; Zealots of Piety Pravda, Expanded Version, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19

Oleg, 4 (n. 3), 34, 36; attacks and makes Pravda of Yaroslav’s sons, 12-19 passim —

treaty with Constantinople, 2-3, 220 Pravda Russkaia, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22-23, | Olga, wife of Igor, 4 (n. 3), 34; revenges 24-25, 84, 182; murder in, 24; slavery in, 25

6 | Prikazi, 114

Igor’s death, 5; baptized at Constantinople, Pravda, Short Version, 13, 17

Ontsiforovitch family, 54, 55 Prochiron, 13 | Oprichnina, 78, 99-103 passim, 107, 109, 111-15 Prussia, 185 passim, 142, 174, 179; see also Ivan IV Pskov, 13, 38, 162, 175, 177, 182, 226, 231; Order of St. Mary; see Teutonic Knights Charter of, 14-21 passim; and Novgorod, 21, Orthodox Church, Greek, in Russia, 11, 222, 45; church in, 21; law in, 182, 183; and 223, 231; ritual of, 9, 144, 146, 226, 231; Mongols, 186 and usury, 15; law courts of, 16; in Nov- Pugachev, Emilian, 114, 195, 204

gorod, 20, 31, 32, 38; in Pskov, 21; and Pypin, 225 .

XXX11 Index | ,

Razin, Stenka, 154, 204, 209 Slavery, 79-80, 84, 174; in treaty between Oleg

Real estate (nedvizhimoe imenie) , 79 and Constantinople, 3-4; and usury, 18, 77,

Red Army; see Army, Red , 84; in Pravda Russkaia, 25; and church, Reform, 219-20; see also Alexander II 72; in Kievan Russia, 72; merged with Revolution of 1905, 210 serfdom, 79-80; see also Peasants; Serfdom

Riga, 37, 103 Smirnov, Ivan I., 112-16 passim River routes, 19, 198, 199, 203, 204, 206 Smith, Sir Thomas, 166 (n. 14)

Romanov family: origins of, 185 Smolensk, treaty of 1229, 13, 19 Romanov, Michael, Tsar, 143 Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), 152

Rostov, 11919 Soils; see Zones, Rotislav, Soloviev, S., geographic 225

Rtischev, Fedor, 136, 137, 143 Sophia Palaeologa, 142

Rublev, Andrei, 223, 224, 227; see also Art Sophiiski Sobor; see St. Sophia

Rurik, 35 South Slavs, 227

Rurikovichi (Rurikides) , 71, 180, 186 _ Soviet Union, 194, 195, 196 Russia: and Western Europe, 101, 162-63, 182; | Staden, Heinrich von, 104-7 passim and Constantinople, 216; church and state Stalin, Joseph (Iosif V. Dzugashvili) , 103

in, 223; see also Kievan Russia; Soviet Starina; see Byliny

Union; Westernization Staritski, Prince Vladimir, 97

Russian-American Company, 202 Stephen of Perm, 225

Russian Customary Law, 17 , Steppe; see Zones, geographic

Russian Empire, 146-53 passim Stoglav; see Council, church, of 1551 Russian language, 190-91, 215 Stoglavi Sobor; see Council of the Hundred

| kaia , Stone work, 58 Russian Primary Chronicle, 1 Suvorov, 114 Russian law; see Law, Russian; Pravda Russ- Chapters

“Russian soul,” 218, 219, 230 Suzdal, 174, 175, 225 Russo-Japanese War, 151, 211 Sviatopolk, 38 Svod (confrontment) , 16

Sachsenspiegel, 13 Svyatoslav, 4, 6, 30, 202

Sadikov, P. A., 113 Sylvester, Archpriest, 87 (n. 1), 95-96, 97, 101

Sadko, 60; bylina of, 60-63; see also Literature Tatars, 36, 37, 92 (n. 12), 119, 126-27, 149, St. George, Cathedral of (Youriev-Polski) , 57 179, 195, 196, 203, 205, 209; in literature,

St. Sophia, Cathedral of (Novgorod), 20, 30, 189-90; influence in Russia, 191; attack

31, 32, 38, 40, 41 Moscow, 193, 205; see also Finnish-Tatar Salt, 176, 199 peoples; Mongols Samarkand, 50 Teutonic Knights, 19, 30, 37, 222; see also Scandinavians, 3 (n. 2), 30, 35-36, 42, 198, Germans in Russia

199, 220; see also Varangians Theater, 66 (n. 5), 221 Schlichting, Albert, 104, 105 “Third Rome,” 144, 147, 222

- Schmidt, Sigurd O., 114 Tiaglo (tax-bearing capacity), 175, 187 Scribes, public, 157 Time of Troubles, 113, 142, 143, 145, 162, 187, Self-burners, 149 198, 206, 217, 224 Serapion, Bishop, 189 Townspeople (posadskie liudi), 175, 186, 187;

ery Gps .

Serfdom, 75, 78, 80, 83-84, 111, 114, 149, 196, see also Freemen 204, 207, 209, 210; origins of, 76, 174; Transcaucasian republics, 195 abolished, 80, 151; see also Peasants; Slav- Transfiguration, Church of the (Kizhi) , 226

Sergius of Radonezh, St., 118-27, 223, 231 Taleike Leben oe Servitor princes (sluzhily e kniazia), 185-86; Tsar, 147, 174; centralization of power by, 77,

see also in Russia 80.Ys85. 103IV title ‘tle of, of. 17, 77,285 94 S.F.S.R; seeClasses Soviet Union | 7 Bo, ivan BV Ivan assumes Shibanov, Vaska, 90 (n. 10) see also Autocracy . Shuiski, Prince Andrei, 94 __ Tsargrad; see Constantinople Shuiski, Prince Ivan, 93, 94 | Turkey, 145 Shuiski, Tsar Vasili, 93 Turkish language, 191

Siberia, 23, 33, 34, 132, 195, 200, 201, 202, 210, Turks, 203, 205, 206, 209, 227

211, 212 Tver, 35, 36, 40, 176, 177, 179; and Muscovite

Skiti, 227; see also Monasteries state, 76

Index XXXII Ukraine, 145, 146, 195, 206-7; incorporation Volost; see Commune by Muscovite state, 145, 146; intelligentsia Votchina (patrimonial estate), votchinniki,

of, 148 76-85 passim, 155 (n. 4), 157, 158, 159, 161;

Ukrainian Cossack Assembly, 146 see also Pomestie

Ulozhenie; see Code of Laws Vsevolod, 38 Union of Florence, 222

Ushakov, Simeon, 224 W eichbild, 14

Usury: in Russian and Western European law, Western Europe, 142-43, 191-92; compared 14-15; and church, 15; in Kievan Russia, with Russia, 101, 182; commerce with Rus-

18-19; and slavery, 19, 77, 84 sia, 13, 177, 199-200

Westernization, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 219-20;

Varangians, 35, 36, 38, 70, 71, 198; see also see also Peter I Kievan Russia; Rurik; Scandinavians White Clergy, 143 Vasili, Cathedral of the Blessed (Moscow), 226 White Horde; see Golden Horde

Vasili I, 22, 34, 89, 179, 181, 182, 185 White Russia, 195; incorporation by Musco-

Vasili IT (the Dark), 20, 181, 186, 190 vite State, 146 :

, Vasili III, 142, 174, 179 Wipper, Robert, 98, 112, 115

Vasili Buslaev, 60; byliny of, 63-68; see also Witchcraft, 101; see also Paganism

Literature Wooden objects, 52, 56-57

Veche (city assembly), 19, 174, 177-78, 186,

220-21; see also under Novgorod Yaroslav the Wise, 12, 17, 30, 31, 38, 40, 49,

Vesselovski, S. B., 107, 108 71, 189, 222; conquers Kiev, 38; see also

Vitovt, 37 Pravda Russkaia Vladimir, Grand Duchy of, 75, 225 Yaroslavl, 89 (n. 7)

Viadimir, St., 7 (n. 6), 17, 34, 71, 89, 191, 214; conversion of, 8-11, 222; conquers Zealots of Piety, 143, 144; see also Old Be-

Kherson, 9 lievers

Viadimir Monomach, 18-19, 89, 191; Statute | Zemshchina, 102

of, 14, 18, 19 Zemski Sobor, 103, 104, 114, 152

Vladimir (son of Yaroslav), 31 Zimin, Aleksandr A., 115, 116

Vladimirko of Galicia, 71 Zoe Palaeologa; see Sophia Palaeologa Viadimir-Suzdal, 57; see also Suzdal Zones, geographic, 197-98, 199, 202, 207, 211; Volinski, Bishop Athanasius, 122 see also Black lands

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