Central and Local Administration in Wartime: The Participation of the Great Perm in the Formation of the People’s Army Against the Tushins in Late 1608 – Early 1609
Authors:   Volgograd State University, Rybalko Natalia 
Published: November 2021

Introduction. The process of forming zemstvo militias in defense of Tsar V.I. Shuisky and the whole country in the Moscow state began in late 1608 – early 1609 at the height of the confrontation between the Moscow and Tushino political regimes. The article examines the role of the government of V.I. Shuisky in governing the state, in particular, Perm the Great, and the participation of this remote region in military affairs. Researchers have merely addressed this aspect and come to opposite judgments. Methods and materials. We have a large complex of zemstvo correspondence at our disposal, preserved in the archives of the Solikamsk district court. Many documents were published as early as the 19th century but their detailed analysis was not carried out. Clarification of the dating and reconstruction of information both about the documents that have come down to us and the documents only mentioned, the introduction of unpublished acts into circulation allows us to restore the true picture of events. A fund-by-fund study was carried out by the method of mutual correspondence of documents. Analysis. In the course of the research, it was revealed that the first of the initiative documents that reached the Great Perm about the support of Tsar V.I. Shuisky in military affairs were formal replies from Galich and Vologda. Perm clerks F.P. Akinfov and N. Romanov received them on December 15, 1608, and they were read by the whole world. Active gatherings of military men in Perm the Great began only after January 1, 1609, when a list with a sovereign letter was brought to the Galicians. At that time the territory of Perm the Great consisted of 3 counties: Cherdyn, Solikamsk, Kaigorod. By January 10, 1609, the first gathering ended and 20 military men of Soli Kamskaya left on the way to Moscow. In Kaigorodok they were robbed, carts and weapons were taken away, the headman and worldly people did not give new carts in the ship’s hut, as a result they could not continue their journey, and there was a delay. In February, together with 20 Kaigorod military men, they moved on. On March 1, 1609, 50 Cherdynians left Perm the Great. The war men of Perm the Great came to Vologda at the end of March 1609 and were assigned to further service in the militia. Results. The article shows that the complete blockade of Moscow in the fall of 1608 did not materialize. However, regular communication between Moscow and the cities of Pomorie was disrupted. For the period from January 1 to mid-April 1609 in Perm the Great on behalf of Tsar V.I. Shuisky received 5 decree letters from the Novgorod discharge order on the issue of collecting military men and sending them to Moscow to fight the Tushin people, and 3 executive orders from the Novgorod quarter order on the sovereign’s treasury and sending bread to Siberian cities for salaries to service people. These documents were direct orders of the supreme power and were perceived by the order people in Perm the Great as a guide to action. In addition to them, the zemstvo correspondence with the nearest cities made it possible to find out news about the military events taking place in the country. The clerk Fedor Petrovich Akinfov and the clerk Naum Romanov tried to carry out the orders of the tsar, but they did not always manage to do this as quickly as was expected of them. There is no reason to consider the resulting delay in the dispatch of the Perm military men as unwillingness of the orderly people appointed from Moscow for 2–3 years to participate in the support of Tsar V. Shuisky and the Zemstvo movement. The delay is more likely due to the lack of clear administrative management at the local level: if in Soli Kamskoy they quickly responded to the request and sent 20 military men, then in Kaigorodok they began to put up obstacles not only in the form of robbery, but also at the level of mundane self-government, not obeying the regional leadership.