Eurasian Studies 201 Handouts: The Time of Troubles (1598-1613) The Time of Troubles (1598-1613) Causes: Ivan the Terrible(1533-1584) kills off most of the house of Rurik and most ancient boyar families. When he murders his only healthy adult son and heir during a fit of rage in 1582, two years before his own death, he can be succeeded as tsar by the sole remaining royal candidate: his retarded son Fedor I, who rules until 1598. The vacuum caused by the destruction of the old aristocracy cannot be filled quickly with any native Russian authority. Also, the peasantry has been left destitute by Ivan's murderous oprichnina (1565-72), constantpillaging and slaving traids from the unguarded south by the Crimean Tatars, and heavy taxes needed to pay for Ivan's disastrous Livonian war (1558-82) with Sweden and Poland, which he loses, along with Russia's outlet to the Baltic Sea. The stage was set for a complete social breakdown.

Chronology: 1584 - Death of Ivan the Terrible from natural causes. 1584 - The retarded Fedor I becomes tsar, with Boris Godunov as Regent. During Fedor's reign, the peasants' rights to move from place to place are severely restricted to prevent total depopulation of areas in central Russia severely affected by Ivan's terror. 1591 - Mysterious knifing to death of Ivan's youngest (nine-year old) son, Dmitry, in the town of Uglich. Later, Boris gets the blame, but nothing is ever proven. 1598 - Fedor dies of natural causes. The House of Rurik goes extinct. Godunov elected tsar. 1601-03 - Terrible famine (due to bad weather), epidemics of bubonic plague and a new virulent type of smallpox. Peasant rebellions in the south under Khlopko. 1603 - Defrocked monk Gregory Otrepyev declares himself to be Tsarevich (heir to the tsar) Dmitry. He is supported by Dmitry's mother, Martha, as well as by many Cossacks, peasants and Poles.

This First False Dmitry marches on Moscow. 1605 - Godunov suddenly dies (of natural causes). His wife, as well as his son and heir Fedor II, are brutally murdered by a Moscow crowed within six months. 1606 - Fiasco reign of False Dmitry I in Moscow. He marries a Polish Catholic woman, Marina Mniszek, flaunts all Russian Orthodox traditions, and is soon deposed and murdered by the Moscow boyars. 1606-10 - Reign in Moscow of Vasily Shuisky, the "Boyar Tsar" elected by the Boyar Duma to prevent total anarchy. Shuisky's reign is marred by almost every catastrophe imaginable. Famines, plagues and foreign invasions continue, plus several major challenges to Shuisky's royal authority. 1606-07 - Peasant rebellion in the south by Ivan Bolotnikov, who advocates slaughtering all the upper classes and redistributing their land to the peasants. He is captured, exiled, then assassinated. 1607- Rebellion by a peasant claiming to be Peter, the son of Fedor I (who died childless).

This imposter (a "False Peter"?), whoever he was, was soon captured and hanged. 1608- The Second False Dmitry, a Polish imposter nickamed "The Brigand," declares himself and invades Russia supported by many Polish soldiers. He sets up "court" in a town near Moscow called Tushino. Although everyone knows he is a phony, the real Dmitry's mother declares him too to be her son; and Maria Mniszek, the wife of ill-fated False Dmitry I, marries him and bears him a son, known as "The Little Brigand". False Dmitry II is eventually murdered by a disgruntled follower. 1610 -Shuisky is deposed by the Poles, who occupy Moscow and much of the country, attempting to place the son of the Polish king on the Russian throne. 1610-12 - Spontaneous war of national resistance agains t the Poles. Two commoners, Minin and Pozharsky, organize an army that drives the Poles from the Kremlin. 1613 - The Zemsky Sobor (rural council) elects Mikhail Romanov as tsar.

Everything reverts to the way it had been before all of the turmoil. The Romanov dynasty endures until 1917. Winners and losers: Russian nationalism wins out over Polish nationalism, Russian Orthodoxy over Catholicism, the landed aristocracy over the peasants, authority over chaos, serfdom over freedom, the Russian northeast over the Lithuanian and Cossack borderlands in the southwest. Russia must prepare for new “Times of Troubles” says military analyst — RT Russian politics Trends Russia-NATO relations Tags Meeting , Military , NATO , UN , Russia , Politics , Modernization , USA , Robert Bridge Makhmud Gareyev, Military Sciences Academy President General of the Army, said in a report that Russia must prepare for a two-pronged squeeze, one from the East, the other from the West. "Our country will come under huge geopolitical pressure in the coming years, primarily from the United States and China,” Gareyev said in a report at an Academy meeting, “and we need to do all we can…to prevent a collision course with the U.S. and China." Gareyev recommends defusing the potentially explosive situation with a kid gloves diplomacy.

The Russian political elite must “do all we can, using political-diplomatic means in the first place,” to nip the threat in the bud, he advises. Gareyev then discussed the “global nature” that modern warfare is taking, especially when it is considered that American forces are on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now helping to control the skies over Libya, which is presently experiencing a UN-sanctioned battle between pro-Gaddafi loyalists and anti-government militants. Meanwhile, China is steadily enhancing its military in leaps and bounds. This fact was underscored in January when Beijing timed a test flight of its secret J-20 stealth bomber with a visit by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Ouch. One observer said it was an “unusually bold show of force by the communist nation.” All of this lessens the likelihood that future conflicts will remain at the local level. "It is difficult to hope that future wars will only be regional or local. U.S. military forces are present in any strategic direction – west, south, east and north," the military analyst said. How serious is the threat?

Gareyev believes Russia hasn’t witnessed such a “crunch” in 400 years, a dark chapter of Russian history known as the “Time of Troubles" [1598-1613] when the Motherland was ravaged by a famine, as well as foreign invaders. "Regarding security, Russia has never been in such a crunch as in the early 21st century since, perhaps, 1612," he admitted. In order to confront this rising threat, Gareyev recommends Russia assess the risks realistically and objectively. He even had a few choice words for the “ultra-liberal” camp and experts of particular non-governmental organizations, who “keep tricking the public” into believing that there are no storm clouds looming on the horizon. "This [chicanery] is done very conditionally, ambiguously and in a roundabout way,” the Academy president said. “Ultra-liberal politicians and analysts, and experts of non-governmental organizations, keep tricking the public into believing that nothing threatens Russia.” Meanwhile, spending on defense and even patriotism are described as “far-fetched and archaic" initiatives, he added.

In conclusion, Makhmud Gareyev warned that if Russia did not take the initiative in the face of the increasing risks, the enemy will only will be too happy to set these tasks itself. "Threats and defense tasks are an objective reality,” he stressed. “If threats are not neutralized politically, it will be impossible to abolish them…and the enemy will set these tasks to us, as in 1941.” An eye on future wars Meanwhile, with Russia straddling the active fault line between the United States and China, the Russian General Staff announced it will reject obsolete military hardware from defense industries if the Armed Forces has no use for it. "We need more advanced armaments with certain parameters, but many producers do not want to make such [items],” Chief of the Russian General Staff Nikolai Makarov said at the Academy of Military Sciences on Saturday. “They make the products they can make and try to push them on the Armed Forces. We do not need that.” The Chief of the General Staff did not mince his words, harshly rebuking the military’s R&D arm for failing to produce state-of-the-art weapons of war over the last two decades.

"We failed to reach modern standards in warfare, and lived with outdated ones in the past 20 years,” Makarov railed. “The world was developing space technologies, information and control systems…while we were focused on a large army and buying obsolete weapons from the defense sector. We missed the development of war methods and means.” In August 2009, Makarov announced that Russia was taking a radical step and purchasing several French Mistral class amphibious assault ships (LHD). Some Russian military observers interpreted the unprecedented move as a marked decline in Russia’s ability – or willingness – to develop such sophisticated weapons of war. The criticism seems slightly unwarranted, however, especially when it is considered that more and more countries are willing to “subcontract” the research and development of particular technologies to third parties. Furthermore, Russia’s military-technological prowess remains world-renowned on several fronts, including in the development and production of missiles, tanks and fighter jets, known as the classical “core” weapons of modern warfare. Nevertheless, Makarov is delivering a wakeup call to the Russian defense industry, telling them that he will no longer buy whatever is deposited at his doorstep.

If anything, the harsh rebuke should intensify cooperation between the military commanders and the defense industries, perhaps ushering in more “think tanks” to decide what will be required to fight – and win – future wars. 2020-2025 The Chief of the General Staff revealed that the military conducted a thorough analysis of wars and conflicts that had a high chance of occurring in the period from 2020 to 2025, and weighed them against the requirements of the Armed Forces. "These requirements were included in tactical and technical characteristics and presented to the [defense] industry in February 2010,” Makarov said. “The document said that certain military products would fail the missions of the next ten years due to their technical parameters.” Makarov, as the highest ranking military officer, basically said that such a situation would not continue on his watch. "Being the General Staff Chief, I am in charge of combat missions and I will buy what I need instead of what I am offered,” he said.

“That is an absolutely concrete and clear approach.” Makarov even mentioned the “events of August 2008” [a reference to the five-day Georgian-Russian conflict, which was sparked when Tbilisi made an ill-advised attempt to take over South Ossetia with a crack-of-dawn artillery assault, prompting a clash between Georgian and Russian forces], which forced the military command to take a drastic turn. The Chief of the General Staff said the rush to reform the Russian military, essential and unavoidable as it was, may have overlooked some key considerations. "We urgently needed to overcome the crisis in the Army,” Makarov explained. “As a result, we started the reforms without sufficient academic recommendations.” Meanwhile, there are other problems plaguing the Russian military. Much like its American counterpart, Russia is suffering the burden of inflationary defense costs. Makarov complained about the price of a T-90 tank, for example, which cost 42 million rubles just three years ago, but now comes with a 100 million-ruble price tag. "No one can explain why," he observed. Who will fill the boots of the Russian Army?

As the Russian high command puts out the call for state-of-the-art weaponry, there remains yet another enemy nibbling at Russia’s flank that has nothing to do with a foreign aggressor: dismal demographic rates. Russia’s population shrank by 1.6 per cent between 2002 and 2010, and now totals 142,905,200, the federal statistic agency Rosstat said in a tentative report on the national census, conducted in October 2010, which was published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Monday. According to the preliminary census results, the number of females [76.7 million] considerably exceeds that of the males [66.2 million]. The difference was calculated at 10.515 million in 2010 versus 9.956 million in 2002. Demographic experts blame the slightly worsening ratio on a high rate of premature deaths among men. Now, the General Staff of the Russian armed forces must take into consideration the nation’s demographic situation in drafting people for military service, Makarov acknowledged. "We are able to draft just 270,000 young men now,” he said.

“We don't have more." When the decision was made to set the size of the armed forces at 1 million, the demographic decline was taken into account. "Some are suggesting: let's make the army five or six million people in size,” he said. “But we don't have people for this in Russia.” Nevertheless, even with its current demographic problems, Russia boasts the fourth largest military in the world, with just over 1 million active personnel and 20 million reserve troops. Makarov said the Russian military will eventually adapt a recruiting structure similar to those of NATO member states, slowly phasing out its conscript-based system in favor of recruiting contract troops. "For example, the Czech Armed Forces have a small number of conscripts, about 10-15%. We will have the same at some point," the Chief of the General Staff said. The recent decision to enlarge the number of contract servicemen in the Armed Forces to 425,000 "is just the first step," he said.

"We will be moving further, towards a contract Armed Forces.” Makarov also cited as a positive example the Polish Armed Forces, in which contract servicemen show up for military service like a regular job, arriving at 8:00 a.m. for training and going home at 4:00 p.m. It may even give Russian troops enough time to beat, in addition to any future adversary, the evening rush hour as well. Muscovite Period Muscovite Period [Excerpted from Russia: A Country Study, Glenn E. Curtis, ed. (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1996). Muscovy The development of the Russian state can be traced from Vladimir-Suzdal' through Muscovy to the Russian Empire. Muscovy drew people and wealth to the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus'; established trade links to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Caspian Sea and to Siberia; and created a highly centralized and autocratic political system. Muscovite political traditions, therefore, exerted a powerful influence on Russian society.

The Rise of Muscovy When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus', Moscow was an insignificant trading outpost in the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal'. The outpost's remote, forested location offered some security from Mongol attack and occupation, and a number of rivers provided access to the Baltic and Black seas and to the Caucasus region. More important to Moscow's development in what became the state of Muscovy, however, was its rule by a series of princes who were ambitious, determined, and lucky. The first ruler of the principality of Muscovy, Daniil Aleksandrovich (d. 1303), secured the principality for his branch of the Rurik Dynasty. His son, Ivan I (r. 1325-40), known as Ivan Kalita ("Money Bags"), obtained the title "Grand Prince of Vladimir" from his Mongol overlords. He cooperated closely with the Mongols and collected tribute from other Russian principalities on their behalf. This relationship enabled Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Muscovy's chief rival, the northern city of Tver'.

In 1327 the Orthodox metropolitan transferred his residency from Vladimir to Moscow, further enhancing the prestige of the new principality. In the fourteenth century, the grand princes of Muscovy began gathering Russian lands to increase the population and wealth under their rule. The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III (the Great; r. 1462-1505), who conquered Novgorod in 1478 and Tver' in 1485. Muscovy gained full sovereignty over the ethnically Russian lands in 1480 when Mongol overlordship ended officially, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century virtually all those lands were united. Through inheritance, Ivan obtained part of the province of Ryazan', and the princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl' voluntarily subordinated themselves to him. The northwestern city of Pskov remained independent in this period, but Ivan's son, Vasiliy III (r. 1505-33), later conquered it.

Ivan III was the first Muscovite ruler to use the titles of tsar and "Ruler of all Rus'." Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival Lithuania for control over some of the semi-independent former principalities of Kievan Rus' in the upper Dnepr and Donets river basins. Through the defections of some princes, border skirmishes, and a long, inconclusive war with Lithuania that ended only in 1503, Ivan III was able to push westward, and Muscovy tripled in size under his rule. The Evolution of the Russian Aristocracy Internal consolidation accompanied outward expansion of the state. By the fifteenth century, the rulers of Muscovy considered the entire Russian territory their collective property. Various semi-independent princes still claimed specific territories, but Ivan III forced the lesser princes to acknowledge the grand prince of Muscovy and his descendants as unquestioned rulers with control over military, judicial, and foreign affairs. Gradually, the Muscovite ruler emerged as a powerful, autocratic ruler, a tsar. By assuming that title, the Muscovite prince underscored that he was a major ruler or emperor on a par with the emperor of the Byzantine Empire or the Mongol khan.

Indeed, after Ivan III's marriage to Sophia Paleologue, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, the Muscovite court adopted Byzantine terms, rituals, titles, and emblems such as the double-headed eagle. At first, the term autocrat connoted only the literal meaning of an independent ruler, but in the reign of Ivan IV (r. 1533-84) it came to mean unlimited rule. Ivan IV was crowned tsar and thus was recognized, at least by the Orthodox Church, as emperor. An Orthodox monk had claimed that, once Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Muscovite tsar was the only legitimate Orthodox ruler and that Moscow was the Third Rome because it was the final successor to Rome and Constantinople, the centers of Christianity in earlier periods. That concept was to resonate in the self-image of Russians in future centuries. Ivan IV The development of the tsar's autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, and he became known as the Terrible (his Russian epithet, groznyy , means threatening or dreaded).

Ivan strengthened the position of the tsar to an unprecedented degree, demonstrating the risks of unbridled power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from bouts of paranoia and depression, and his rule was punctuated by acts of extreme violence. Ivan IV became grand prince of Muscovy in 1533 at the age of three. Various factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547. Reflecting Muscovy's new imperial claims, Ivan's coronation as tsar was an elaborate ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms. In the 1550s, he promulgated a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government. These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare. During the late 1550s, Ivan developed a hostility toward his advisers, the government, and the boyars. Historians have not determined whether policy differences, personal animosities, or mental imbalance cause his wrath.

In 1565 he divided Muscovy into two parts: his private domain and the public realm. For his private domain, Ivan chose some of the most prosperous and important districts of Muscovy. In these areas, Ivan's agents attacked boyars, merchants, and even common people, summarily executing some and confiscating land and possessions. Thus began a decade of terror in Muscovy. As a result of this policy, called the oprichnina , Ivan broke the economic and political power of the leading boyar families, thereby destroying precisely those persons who had built up Muscovy and were the most capable of administering it. Trade diminished, and peasants, faced with mounting taxes and threats of violence, began to leave Muscovy. Efforts to curtail the mobility of the peasants by tying them to their land brought Muscovy closer to legal serfdom. In 1572 Ivan finally abandoned the practices of the oprichnina . Despite the domestic turmoil of Ivan's late period, Muscovy continued to wage wars and to expand.

Ivan defeated and annexed the Kazan' Khanate on the middle Volga in 1552 and later the Astrakhan' Khanate, where the Volga meets the Caspian Sea. These victories gave Muscovy access to the entire Volga River and to Central Asia. Muscovy's eastward expansion encountered relatively little resistance. In 1581 the Stroganov merchant family, interested in fur trade, hired a Cossack leader, Yermak, to lead an expedition into western Siberia. Yermak defeated the Siberian Khanate and claimed the territories west of the Ob' and Irtysh rivers for Muscovy. Expanding to the northwest toward the Baltic Sea proved to be much more difficult. In 1558 Ivan invaded Livonia, eventually embroiling him in a twenty-five-year war against Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark. Despite occasional successes, Ivan's army was pushed back, and Muscovy failed to secure a coveted position on the Baltic Sea. The war drained Muscovy. Some historians believe that Ivan initiated the oprichnina to mobilize resources for the war and to quell opposition to it.

Regardless of the reason, Ivan's domestic and foreign policies had a devastating effect on Muscovy, and they led to a period of social struggle and civil war, the so-called Time of Troubles (Smutnoye vremya, 1598-1613). The Time of Troubles Ivan IV was succeeded by his son Fedor, who was mentally deficient. Actual power went to Fedor's brother-in-law, the boyar Boris Godunov. Perhaps the most important event of Fedor's reign was the proclamation of the patriarchate of Moscow in 1589. The creation of the patriarchate climaxed the evolution of a separate and totally independent Russian Orthodox Church. In 1598 Fedor died without an heir, ending the Rurik Dynasty. Boris Godunov then convened a zemskiy sobor , a national assembly of boyars, church officials, and commoners, which proclaimed him tsar, although various boyar factions refused to recognize the decision.

Widespread crop failures caused a famine between 1601 and 1603, and during the ensuing discontent, a man emerged who claimed to be Dmitriy, Ivan IV's son who had died in 1591. This pretender to the throne, who came to be known as the first False Dmitriy, gained support in Poland and marched to Moscow, gathering followers among the boyars and other elements as he went. Historians speculate that Godunov would have weathered this crisis, but he died in 1605. As a result, the first False Dmitriy entered Moscow and was crowned tsar that year, following the murder of Tsar Fedor II, Godunov's son. Subsequently, Muscovy entered a period of continuous chaos. The Time of Troubles included a civil war in which a struggle over the throne was complicated by the machinations of rival boyar factions, the intervention of regional powers Poland and Sweden, and intense popular discontent. The first False Dmitriy and his Polish garrison were overthrown, and a boyar, Vasiliy Shuyskiy, was proclaimed tsar in 1606.

In his attempt to retain the throne, Shuyskiy allied himself with the Swedes. A second False Dmitriy, allied with the Poles, appeared. In 1610 that heir apparent was proclaimed tsar, and the Poles occupied Moscow. The Polish presence led to a patriotic revival among the Russians, and a new army, financed by northern merchants and blessed by the Orthodox Church, drove the Poles out. In 1613 a new zemskiy sobor proclaimed the boyar Mikhail Romanov as tsar, beginning the 300-year reign of the Romanov family. Muscovy was in chaos for more than a decade, but the institution of the autocracy remained intact. Despite the tsar's persecution of the boyars, the townspeople's dissatisfaction, and the gradual enserfment of the peasantry, efforts at restricting the power of the tsar were only halfhearted. Finding no institutional alternative to the autocracy, discontented Russians rallied behind various pretenders to the throne. During that period, the goal of political activity was to gain influence over the sitting autocrat or to place one's own candidate on the throne.

The boyars fought among themselves, the lower classes revolted blindly, and foreign armies occupied the Kremlin in Moscow, prompting many to accept tsarist absolutism as a necessary means to restoring order and unity in Muscovy. The Romanovs The immediate task of the new dynasty was to restore order. Fortunately for Muscovy, its major enemies, Poland and Sweden, were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Muscovy the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617 and to sign a truce with Poland in 1619. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the city of Smolensk from Poland in 1632, Muscovy made peace with Poland in 1634. Polish king Wladyslaw IV, whose father and predecessor Sigismund III had manipulated his nominal selection as tsar of Muscovy during the Time of Troubles, renounced all claims to the title as a condition of the peace treaty. The early Romanovs were weak rulers. Under Mikhail, state affairs were in the hands of the tsar's father, Filaret, who in 1619 became patriarch of the Orthodox Church.

Later, Mikhail's son Aleksey (r. 1645-76) relied on a boyar, Boris Morozov, to run his government. Morozov abused his position by exploiting the populace, and in 1648 Aleksey dismissed him in the wake of a popular uprising in Moscow. The autocracy survived the Time of Troubles and the rule of weak or corrupt tsars because of the strength of the government's central bureaucracy. Government functionaries continued to serve, regardless of the ruler's legitimacy or the boyar faction controlling the throne. In the seventeenth century, the bureaucracy expanded dramatically. The number of government departments (prikazy ; sing., prikaz ) increased from twenty-two in 1613 to eighty by mid-century. Although the departments often had overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions, the central government, through provincial governors, was able to control and regulate all social groups, as well as trade, manufacturing, and even the Orthodox Church. The comprehensive legal code introduced in 1649 illustrates the extent of state control over Russian society.

By that time, the boyars had largely merged with the elite bureaucracy, who were obligatory servitors of the state, to form a new nobility, the dvoryanstvo . The state required service from both the old and the new nobility, primarily in the military. In return, they received land and peasants. In the preceding century, the state had gradually curtailed peasants' rights to move from one landlord to another; the 1649 code officially attached peasants to their domicile. The state fully sanctioned serfdom, and runaway peasants became state fugitives. Landlords had complete power over their peasants and bought, sold, traded, and mortgaged them. Peasants living on state-owned land, however, were not considered serfs. They were organized into communes, which were responsible for taxes and other obligations. Like serfs, however, state peasants were attached to the land they farmed. Middle-class urban tradesmen and craftsmen were assessed taxes, and, like the serfs, they were forbidden to change residence. All segments of the population were subject to military levy and to special taxes.

By chaining much of Muscovite society to specific domiciles, the legal code of 1649 curtailed movement and subordinated the people to the interests of the state. Under this code, increased state taxes and regulations exacerbated the social discontent that had been simmering since the Time of Troubles. In the 1650s and 1660s, the number of peasant escapes increased dramatically. A favorite refuge was the Don River region, domain of the Don Cossacks. A major uprising occurred in the Volga region in 1670 and 1671. Stenka Razin, a Cossack who was from the Don River region, led a revolt that drew together wealthy Cossacks who were well established in the region and escaped serfs seeking free land. The unexpected uprising swept up the Volga River valley and even threatened Moscow. Tsarist troops finally defeated the rebels after they had occupied major cities along the Volga in an operation whose panache captured the imaginations of later generations of Russians. Razin was publicly tortured and executed. Expansion and Westernization Muscovy continued its territorial growth through the seventeenth century.

In the southwest, it acquired eastern Ukraine, which had been under Polish rule. The Ukrainian Cossacks, warriors organized in military formations, lived in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the Tatar lands, and Muscovy. Although they had served in the Polish army as mercenaries, the Ukrainian Cossacks remained fiercely independent and staged a number of uprisings against the Poles. In 1648 most of Ukrainian society joined the Cossacks in a revolt because of the political, social, religious, and ethnic oppression suffered under Polish rule. After the Ukrainians had thrown off Polish rule, they needed military help to maintain their position. In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bogdan Khmel'nitskiy (Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyy), offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Muscovite tsar, Aleksey I, rather than under the Polish king. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer, which was ratified in the Treaty of Pereyaslavl', led to a protracted war between Poland and Muscovy.

The Treaty of Andrusovo, which ended the war in 1667, split Ukraine along the Dnepr River, reuniting the western sector with Poland and leaving the eastern sector self-governing under the suzerainty of the tsar. In the east, Muscovy had obtained western Siberia in the sixteenth century. From this base, merchants, traders, and explorers pushed eastward from the Ob' River to the Yenisey River, then to the Lena River. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Muscovites had reached the Amur River and the outskirts of the Chinese Empire. After a period of conflict with the Manchu Dynasty, Muscovy made peace with China in 1689. By the Treaty of Nerchinsk, Muscovy ceded its claims to the Amur Valley, but it gained access to the region east of Lake Baikal and the trade route to Beijing. Peace with China consolidated the initial breakthrough to the Pacific that had been made in the middle of the century. Muscovy's southwestern expansion, particularly its incorporation of eastern Ukraine, had unintended consequences.

Most Ukrainians were Orthodox, but their close contact with the Roman Catholic Polish Counter-Reformation also brought them Western intellectual currents. Through Kiev, Muscovy gained links to Polish and Central European influences and to the wider Orthodox world. Although the Ukrainian link stimulated creativity in many areas, it also undermined traditional Russian religious practices and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church discovered that its isolation from Constantinople had caused variations to creep into its liturgical books and practices. The Russian Orthodox patriarch, Nikon, was determined to bring the Russian texts back into conformity with the Greek originals. But Nikon encountered fierce opposition among the many Russians who viewed the corrections as improper foreign intrusions, or perhaps the work of the devil. When the Orthodox Church forced Nikon's reforms, a schism resulted in 1667. Those who did not accept the reforms came to be called the Old Believers (starovery ); they were officially pronounced heretics and were persecuted by the church and the state. The chief opposition figure, the archpriest Avvakum, was burned at the stake. The split subsequently became permanent, and many merchants and peasants joined the Old Believers. The tsar's court also felt the impact of Ukraine and the West.

Kiev was a major transmitter of new ideas and insight through the famed scholarly academy that Metropolitan Mogila (Mohyla) founded there in 1631. Among the results of this infusion of ideas into Muscovy were baroque architecture, literature, and icon painting. Other more direct channels to the West opened as international trade increased and more foreigners came to Muscovy. The tsar's court was interested in the West's more advanced technology, particularly when military applications were involved. By the end of the seventeenth century, Ukrainian, Polish, and West European penetration had undermined the Muscovite cultural synthesis--at least among the elite--and had prepared the way for an even more radical transformation. Time of Troubles: Russia from 1584 to Tsar Michael in 1613 previous | next Time of Troubles: 1584 to Tsar Michael in 1613 On his death-bed in 1584, Ivan IV (the Terrible) appointed Boris Godunov as one of the guardians of his son and heir, Feodor. Like many sons of domineering men, Feodor was weak in will and initiative. Moreover, according to biographers, he was feeble minded.

He was never more than a figurehead although 27 when becoming tsar, and a possible successor to Feodor was Ivan's son by his seventh marriage: Dmitri. In 1591 Dmitri was nine and a half, and that year he died after his throat was slit. Officials claimed that the boy had accidentally cut himself playing with a knife during an epileptic fit. Believing that Dmitri had been murdered, mobs attacked and killed Dmitri's guardians. Historians suspect that agents of Feodor's former guardian, Godunov, had murdered Dmitri. At any rate, when Feodor died in 1598, at the age of 40, Ivan's family had no heirs for the throne, and Boris Godunov was accepted as Moscow's new tsar. Godunov had the Russian army win back the port of Narva from the Swedes, and he invited the British to trade through the port, without tolls. He tried to advance the interests of Russia's middleclass. Near Moscow, he had fortresses and towns built to check raiding by the Tatars and Finnish tribes.

Tsar Godunov was the first of Moscow rulers to send young people abroad to study, and the first to allow Lutheran churches. But despite Godunov's efforts to do well for Russia, his reign ended in disaster. Drought came in 1601, followed by famine. Packs of people roamed about the countryside searching for something to eat. People tried eating bark from trees, and it is said cannibalism appeared again. Nobles could not feed their slaves and drove them out to starve, and an army of desperate slaves harassed Moscow. Rumor spread that Godunov was a usurper and that Russia was being punished for its sins. The famine lasted until 1604, killing as many as 100,000 in Moscow and a third of Godunov's subjects. Godunov died suddenly in 1605, in his fifties. He was succeeded by his one son, Theodor II. These were what historians call the Time of Troubles, and rebellion against Moscow authority was in motion. Someone to be known as the "False Dmitri" claimed to be Muscovy's true tsar.

He and his army pushed through the Ukraine and entered Moscow in triumph. Godunov's wife and Theodor II were assassinated. Nobles were pleased to be rid of the Godunovs, and the people of Moscow were delighted, believing that another of God's miracles had rescued them from the usurpers and had brought them their true tsar. Soon they were disappointed, as the "False Dmitri" failed to follow traditional etiquette. He did not attend church services and went about town dressed as a Pole with an entourage of Poles. The Poles were Roman Catholic and were believed by the Eastern Orthodox Russians to be heretics. In May 1606, the "False Dmitri" married a Catholic woman who brought with her from Poland more Poles. A Muscovite prince, Basil Shuisky, with allies among the nobles, overthrew and assassinated the "False Dmitri" and proclaimed that he had been an impostor. And many Muscovites were pleased again. The body of the "False Dmitri" was publicly displayed and then burned. His ashes were put into a cannon, which was fired in the direction of Poland. Outside Moscow to the west, north and south, rebellions continued.

The tsar from 1606 was Basil Shuisky. In early 1609, Tsar Shuisky sought and won help from Sweden in exchange for agreeing to an "eternal" alliance against Poland and giving up any plan to expand into Livonia. In agreement with Shuisky, 6,000 soldiers arrived from Sweden to combat rebel forces. Sigismund III of Poland was not pleased by the alliance between Sweden and Moscow and declared war on Moscow. In Moscow in 1612, Tsar Shuisky was overthrown by a group of nobles who invited the Poles to create law and order. An army from Poland pushed into Moscow. The son of Sigismund III, Vladislav, a Roman Catholic, was installed there as tsar. The Swedes believed that if Russia were being carved up they should take a portion for themselves, and they seized the area around Novgorod . The patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Hermogen, refused to recognize the Polish tsar, and in retaliation the Catholic government let him starve to death. The traditional hostility between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians intensified, and Orthodox Russians formed an army of national liberation.

The Poles were driven from Moscow in 1613, and the Russian family named Romanov seized the opportunity to fill the vacant throne. The Romanov family was descended from a German nobleman who had migrated to Moscow in the 1300s. In the 1500s one of the Romanov daughters, Anastasia, had become Ivan IV's first wife. Her son, Theodor, had been the last tsar of Ivan’s family, the Riurikid dynasty, hence the Romanov claim to royalty. The patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Moscow was a Romanov, and he proclaimed his sixteen-year-old son Michael as tsar. A national council of nobles, called the Zemsky Sobor, elected Michael as tsar, and the Russians were relieved to have a legitimate tsar to rally around.

Tsardom of Russia - iSnare Free Encyclopedia Tsardom of Russia Languages Russian Religion Russian Orthodox Government Autocracy Tsar (Emperor) • 1547–1584 Ivan IV (first) • 1682–1721 Peter I (last) Legislature Zemsky Sobor History • Coronation of Ivan IV 16 January 1547 • Time of Troubles 1598–1613 • Russo-Polish War 1654–1667 • Great Northern War 1700–1721 • Treaty of Nystad 10 September 1721 • Empire proclaimed 22 October 1721 Population • 1500 [1] est. 6,000,000 • 1600 [1] est.

14,000,000 Currency Russian ruble Preceded by Ukraine The Tsardom of Russia (Русское царство [2] [3] , Russkoye tsarstvo or Российское царство [4] [5] , Rossisyskoye tsarstvo ), also known as the Tsardom of Muscovy, [6] [7] was the name of the centralized Russian state from assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. From 1551 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 (about the size of the Netherlands) per year. [8] The period includes the upheavals of the transition from the Rurik to the Romanov dynasties, drawn-out military conflict with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as the Russian conquest of Siberia , leading up to the 42-year reign of Peter the Great , who ascended in 1682 and transformed the Tsardom into a major European power.

After a military victory over Sweden and Poland , he implemented substantial reforms and proclaimed the Russian Empire ( Russian : Российская Империя, Rossiyskaya Imperiya) in 1721. Contents Further information: Rus' (name) and Muscovy (disambiguation) While the oldest endonyms of the Grand Duchy of Moscow used in its documents were Rus' ( Russian : Русь) and the Russian land ( Russian : Русская земля), [9] a new form of its name, Rusia or Russia, appeared and became common in the 15th century. [10] [11] [12] In the 1480s Russian state scribes Ivan Cherny and Mikhail Medovartsev mention Russia under the name Росиа, Medovartsev also mentions "the sceptre of Russian lordship (Росийскаго господства)".

[13] In the following century Russia co-existed with the old name Rus' and appeared in an inscription on the western portal of the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in Yaroslavl (1515), on the icon case of the Theotokos of Vladimir (1514), in the work by Maximus the Greek , [14] the Russian Chronograph written by Dosifei Toporkov (?–1543/44 [15] ) in 1516–22 and in other sources.

[16] In 1547, Ivan IV assumed the title of “Tsar and Grand Duke of all Rus' ” (Царь и Великий князь всея Руси) and was crowned on 16 January, [17] thereby turning the Grand Duchy of Moscow into Tsardom of Russia, or "the Great Russian Tsardom", as it was called in the coronation document, [18] by Constantinople Patriarch Jeremiah II [19] [20] and in numerous official texts, [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] but the state partly remained referred to as Moscovia (English: Muscovy ) throughout Europe, predominantly in its Catholic part, though this Latin term was never used in Russia.

[27] The two names "Russia" and "Moscovia" appear to have co-existed as interchangeable during the later 16th and throughout the 17th century with different Western maps and sources using different names, so that the country was called "Russia, or Moscovia" ( Latin : Russia seu Moscovia) or "Russia, popularly known as Moscovia" ( Latin : Russia vulgo Moscovia). In England of the 16th century, it was known both as Russia and Muscovy. [28] [29] Such notable Englishmen as Giles Fletcher , author of the book Of the Russe Common Wealth (1591), and Samuel Collins , author of The Present State of Russia (1668), both of whom visited Russia, were familiar with the term Russia and used it in their works.

[30] So did numerous other authors, including John Milton , who wrote A brief history of Moscovia and of other less-known countries lying eastward of Russia, published posthumously, [31] starting it with the words: "The Empire of Moscovia, or as others call it, Russia..." [32] In the Russian Tsardom, the word Russia replaced the old name Rus' in official documents, though the names Rus' and Russian land were still common and synonymous to it, [33] and often appeared in the form Great Russia ( Russian : Великая Россия), which is more typical of the 17th century, [34] whereas the state was also known as Great-Russian Tsardom ( Russian : Великороссийское царствие). [21] According to prominent historians like Alexander Zimin and Anna Khoroshkevich , the continuous use of the term Moscovia was a result of traditional habit and the need to distinguish between the Muscovite and the Lithuanian part of the Rus', as well as of the political interests of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , which competed with Moscow for the western regions of the Rus'.

Due to the propaganda of the Commonwealth, [35] [36] as well as of the Jesuits , the term Moscovia was used instead of Russia in many parts of Europe where prior to the reign of Peter the Great there was a lack of direct knowledge of the country. In Northern Europe and at the court of the Holy Roman Empire , however, the country was known under its own name, Russia or Rossia. [37] Sigismund von Herberstein , ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor in Russia, used both Russia and Moscovia in his work on the Russian tsardom and noted: "The majority believes that Russia is a changed name of Roxolania . Muscovites ("Russians" in the German version) refute this, saying that their country was originally called Russia (Rosseia)". [38] Pointing to the difference between Latin and Russian names, French captain Jacques Margeret , who served in Russia and left a detailed description of L’Empire de Russie of the early 17th century that was presented to King Henry IV , stated that foreigners make "a mistake when they call them Muscovites and not Russians.

When they are asked what nation they are, they respond 'Russac', which means 'Russians', and when they are asked what place they are from, the answer is Moscow, Vologda, Ryasan and other cities". [39] The closest analogue of the Latin term Moscovia in Russia was “Tsardom of Moscow”, or “Moscow Tsardom” (Московское царство), which was used along with the name "Russia", [40] [41] sometimes in one sentence, as in the name of the 17th century Russian work On the Great and Glorious Russian Moscow State ( Russian : О великом и славном Российском Московском государстве). [42] Russia vulgo Moscovia, Atlas Maior , 1645 Byzantine heritage Ivory throne of Ivan the Terrible By the 16th century, the Russian ruler had emerged as a powerful, autocratic figure, a Tsar . By assuming that title, the sovereign of Moscow tried to emphasize that he was a major ruler or emperor on par with the Byzantine emperor or the Mongol khan .

Indeed, after Ivan III 's marriage to Sophia Palaiologina , the niece of Constantine XI Palaiologos , the Moscow court adopted Byzantine terms, rituals, titles, and emblems such as the double-headed eagle , which survives as the Coat of Arms of Russia . At first, the Byzantine term autokrator expressed only the literal meaning of an independent ruler, but in the reign of Ivan IV (1533-1584) it came to mean unlimited rule. Ivan IV was crowned Tsar and thus was recognized, at least by the Russian Orthodox Church , as Emperor. Philotheus of Pskov claimed that after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Russian Tsar was the only legitimate Orthodox ruler, and that Moscow was the Third Rome because it was the final successor to Rome and Constantinople , the centers of Christianity in earlier periods. That concept was to resonate in the self-image of Russians in future centuries. Early reign of Ivan IV The development of the Tsar's autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, and he became known as the Terrible.

Ivan strengthened the position of the Tsar to an exceptional degree, demonstrating the risks of unrestrained power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from breakdowns of paranoia and depression, and his rule was disrupted by acts of intense violence. Ivan IV became Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 at the age of three. The Shuysky and Belsky factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547. Reflecting Moscow's new imperial claims, Ivan's coronation as Tsar was a ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms. In the 1550s, he declared a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government. These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare. The key documents prepared by the so-called Select Council of advisors and promulgated during this period are as follows.

Ivan the Great Bell Tower , raised to the present height during the reign of Boris Godunov Muscovy (Grand Duchy) remained a fairly unknown society in Western Europe until Baron Sigismund von Herberstein published his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (literally Notes on Muscovite Affairs) in 1549. This provided a broad view of what had been a rarely visited and poorly reported state. In the 1630s, the Russian Tsardom was visited by Adam Olearius , whose lively and well-informed writings were soon translated into all the major languages of Europe. Further information about Russia was circulated by English and Dutch merchants . One of them, Richard Chancellor , sailed to the White Sea in 1553 and continued overland to Moscow. Upon his return to England, the Muscovy Company was formed by himself, Sebastian Cabot , Sir Hugh Willoughby , and several London merchants. Ivan the Terrible used these merchants to exchange letters with Elizabeth I . Despite the domestic turmoil of the 1530s and 1540s, Russia continued to wage wars and to expand.

It grew from 2.8 to 5.4 million km2 1533-84. [43] Ivan defeated and annexed the Khanate of Kazan on the middle Volga in 1552 and later the Astrakhan Khanate , where the Volga meets the Caspian Sea . These victories transformed Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state, which it continues to be today. The tsar now controlled the entire Volga River and gained access to Central Asia. Expanding to the northwest toward the Baltic Sea proved to be much more difficult. In 1558 Ivan invaded Livonia , eventually involving himself in a twenty-five-year war against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Sweden , and Denmark . Despite occasional successes, Ivan's army was pushed back, and the nation failed to secure a coveted position on the Baltic Sea. Hoping to make profit from Russia's concentration on Livonian affairs, Devlet I Giray of Crimea , accompanied by as many as 120,000 horsemen, repeatedly devastated the Moscow region , until the Battle of Molodi put a stop to such northward incursions.

But for decades to come, the southern borderland was annually pillaged by the Nogai Horde and the Crimean Khanate , who took local inhabitants with them as slaves. Tens of thousands of soldiers protected the Great Abatis Belt — a burden for a state whose social and economic development was stagnating. These wars drained Russia[ citation needed ]. Oprichnina Main article: Oprichnina The Apostle (1564) by Ivan Fyodorov and Pyotr Mstislavets , one of the first Russian printed books During the late 1550s, Ivan developed a hostility toward his advisers, the government, and the boyars . Historians have not determined whether policy differences, personal animosities, or mental imbalance caused his wrath. In 1565 he divided Russia into two parts: his private domain (or oprichnina ) and the public realm (or zemshchina ). For his private domain, Ivan chose some of the most prosperous and important districts of Russia. In these areas, Ivan's agents attacked boyars, merchants, and even common people, summarily executing some and confiscating land and possessions.

Thus began a decade of terror in Russia which culminated in the Massacre of Novgorod (1570). As a result of the policies of the oprichnina, Ivan broke the economic and political power of the leading boyar families, thereby destroying precisely those persons who had built up Russia and were the most capable of administering it. Trade diminished, and peasants, faced with mounting taxes and threats of violence, began to leave Russia. Efforts to curtail the mobility of the peasants by tying them to their land brought Russia closer to legal serfdom. In 1572 Ivan finally abandoned the practices of the oprichnina. According to a popular theory[ citation needed ][ by whom? ], the oprichnina was started by Ivan in order to mobilize resources for the wars and to quell opposition to it. Regardless of the reason, Ivan's domestic and foreign policies had a devastating effect on Russia, and they led to a period of social struggle and civil war, the so-called Time of Troubles (Smutnoye vremya, 1598-1613).

Time of Troubles Main articles: Time of Troubles and Polish–Muscovite War (1605–18) Ivan IV was succeeded by his son Feodor , who was mentally deficient. Actual power went to Feodor's brother-in-law, the boyar Boris Godunov (who is credited with abolishing Yuri's Day , the only time of the year when serfs were free to move from one landowner to another). Perhaps the most important event of Feodor's reign was the proclamation of the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1589. The creation of the patriarchate climaxed the evolution of a separate and totally independent Russian Orthodox Church . In 1598 Feodor died without an heir, ending the Rurik Dynasty. Boris Godunov then convened a Zemsky Sobor , a national assembly of boyars, church officials, and commoners, which proclaimed him tsar, although various boyar factions refused to recognize the decision.

Widespread crop failures caused the Russian famine of 1601–1603 , and during the ensuing discontent, a man emerged who claimed to be Tsarevich Demetrius , Ivan IV's son who had died in 1591. This pretender to the throne, who came to be known as False Dmitriy I , gained support in Poland and marched to Moscow, gathering followers among the boyars and other elements as he went. Historians speculate [44] that Godunov would have weathered this crisis had he not died in 1605. As a result, False Dmitriy I entered Moscow and was crowned tsar that year, following the murder of Tsar Feodor II , Godunov's son. Subsequently, Russia entered a period of continuous chaos, known as The Time of Troubles (Смутное Время). Despite the Tsar's persecution of the boyars, the townspeople's dissatisfaction, and the gradual enserfment of the peasantry, efforts at restricting the power of the Tsar were only halfhearted. Finding no institutional alternative to the autocracy, discontented Russians rallied behind various pretenders to the throne.

During that period, the goal of political activity was to gain influence over the sitting autocrat or to place one's own candidate on the throne. The boyars fought among themselves, the lower classes revolted blindly, and foreign armies occupied the Kremlin in Moscow, prompting many to accept Tsarist autocracy as a necessary means to restoring order and unity in Russia. The Poles surrender the Moscow Kremlin to Prince Pozharsky in 1612. Painting by Ernst Lissner The Time of Troubles included a civil war in which a struggle over the throne was complicated by the machinations of rival boyar factions, the intervention of regional powers Poland and Sweden, and intense popular discontent, led by Ivan Bolotnikov . False Dmitriy I and his Polish garrison were overthrown, and a boyar, Vasily Shuysky , was proclaimed tsar in 1606. In his attempt to retain the throne, Shuysky allied himself with the Swedes, unleashing the Ingrian War with Sweden. False Dmitry II , allied with the Poles, appeared under the walls of Moscow and set up a mock court in the village of Tushino .

In 1609 Poland intervened into Russian affairs officially , captured Shuisky, and occupied the Kremlin. A group of Russian boyars signed in 1610 a treaty of peace, recognising Ladislaus IV of Poland , son of Polish king Sigismund III Vasa , as tsar. In 1611, False Dmitry III appeared in the Swedish-occupied territories, but was soon apprehended and executed. The Polish presence led to a patriotic revival among the Russians, and a volunteer army, financed by the Stroganov merchants and blessed by the Orthodox Church, was formed in Nizhny Novgorod and, led by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin , drove the Poles out of the Kremlin. In 1613 a zemsky Sobor proclaimed the boyar Mikhail Romanov as tsar, beginning the 300-year reign of the Romanov family. Romanovs Andrei Ryabushkin : Tsar Michael at the Session of the Boyar Duma (1893) The immediate task of the new dynasty was to restore order.

Fortunately for Russia, its major enemies, Poland and Sweden, were engaged in a conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617. The Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618) was ended with the Truce of Deulino in 1618, restoring temporarily Polish and Lithuanian rule over some territories, including Smolensk , lost by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1509. The early Romanovs were weak rulers. Under Mikhail, state affairs were in the hands of the tsar's father, Filaret , who in 1619 became Patriarch of Moscow. Later, Mikhail's son Aleksey (r. 1645-1676) relied on a boyar, Boris Morozov , to run his government. Morozov abused his position by exploiting the populace, and in 1648 Aleksey dismissed him in the wake of the Salt Riot in Moscow. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain Smolensk from Poland in 1632, Russia made peace with Poland in 1634.

Polish king Władysław IV Vasa , whose father and predecessor was Sigismund III Vasa , had been elected by Russian boyars as tsar of Russia during the Time of Troubles, renounced all claims to the title as a condition of the peace treaty. Legal code of 1649 The autocracy survived the Time of Troubles and the rule of weak or corrupt tsars because of the strength of the government's central bureaucracy . Government functionaries continued to serve, regardless of the ruler's legitimacy or the boyar faction controlling the throne. In the 17th century, the bureaucracy expanded dramatically. The number of government departments (prikazy ; sing., prikaz ) increased from twenty-two in 1613 to eighty by mid-century. Although the departments often had overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions , the central government, through provincial governors, was able to control and regulate all social groups, as well as trade, manufacturing, and even the Orthodox Church . Portrait of the Russian diplomat and voivode Pyotr Potemkin by Godfrey Kneller The Sobornoye Ulozheniye , a comprehensive legal code introduced in 1649, illustrates the extent of state control over Russian society.

By that time, the boyars had largely merged with the new elite, who were obligatory servitors of the state, to form a new nobility , the dvoryanstvo . The state required service from both the old and the new nobility, primarily in the military because of permanent warfare on southern and western borders and attacks of nomads . In return, the nobility received land and peasants . In the preceding century, the state had gradually curtailed peasants' rights to move from one landlord to another; the 1649 code officially attached peasants to their home . The state fully sanctioned serfdom , and runaway peasants became state fugitives . Landlords had complete power over their peasants. Peasants living on state-owned land, however, were not considered serfs. They were organized into communes , which were responsible for taxes and other obligations. Like serfs, however, state peasants were attached to the land they farmed. Middle-class urban tradesmen and craftsmen were assessed taxes, and, like the serfs, they were forbidden to change residence. All segments of the population were subject to military levy and to special taxes.

By chaining much of Russian society to specific domiciles, the legal code of 1649 curtailed movement and subordinated the people to the interests of the state. Under this code, increased state taxes and regulations altered the social discontent that had been simmering since the Time of Troubles. In the 1650s and 1660s, the number of peasant escapes increased dramatically. A favourite refuge was the Don River region, domain of the Don Cossacks . A major uprising occurred in the Volga region in 1670 and 1671. Stenka Razin , a Cossack who was from the Don River region, led a revolt that drew together wealthy Cossacks who were well established in the region and escaped serfs seeking free land. The unexpected uprising swept up the Volga River valley and even threatened Moscow. Tsarist troops finally defeated the rebels after they had occupied major cities along the Volga in an operation whose panache captured the imaginations of later generations of Russians. Razin was publicly tortured and executed.

Acquisition of Ukrainian Lands A warrior of the Russian noble cavalry (поместная конница) during the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667 . The drawing is based on the pieces preserved in the Kremlin Armoury . The Tsardom of Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century. In the southwest, it claimed eastern Ukraine's lands, which had been under Polish–Lithuanian rule and sought assistance from the Tsardom to leave the rule of the Commonwealth. The Zaporozhian Cossacks , warriors organized in military formations, lived in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the Crimean Tatar lands. Although part of them was serving in the Polish army as Registered Cossacks , the Zaporozhian Cossacks remained fiercely independent and staged a number of rebellions against the Poles. In 1648, the peasants of what is now Ukraine joined the Cossacks in rebellion during the Khmelnytsky Uprising , because of the social and religious oppression they suffered under Polish rule. Initially, Cossacks were allied with Crimean Tatars , which had helped them to throw off Polish rule.

Once the Poles convinced the Tartars to switch sides, the Zaporozhian Cossacks needed military help to maintain their position. In 1648 the Hetman (leader) of the Zaporozhian Host , Bohdan Khmelnytsky , offered to ally with the Russian tsar, Aleksey I . Aleksey's acceptance of this offer, which was ratified in the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654, led to a protracted war between Poland and Russia . The Truce of Andrusovo , which did not involve the Hetmanate ( Cossack Hetmanate ) as a participating party of the agreement ended the war in 1667. As a result, it split Ukrainian territory along the Dnieper River , reuniting the western sector (or Right-bank Ukraine ) with Poland and leaving the eastern sector ( Left-bank Ukraine ) self-governing under the sovereignty of the tsar. However, the self-government did not last long and Eastern Ukrainian territory was eventually incorporated into the Russian Empire (after the Battle of Poltava ) during the 18th century.

Raskol (Schism) Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexis in the Cathedral of the Archangel Russia's southwestern expansion, particularly its incorporation of eastern Ukraine, had unintended consequences . Most Ukrainians were Orthodox, but their close contact with the Roman Catholic Polish also brought them Western intellectual currents. Through the Ukrainian Academy in Kiev , Russia gained links to Polish and Central European influences and to the wider Orthodox world. Although the Ukrainian link induced creativity in many areas, it also weakened traditional Russian religious practices and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church discovered that its isolation from Constantinople had caused variations to appear between their liturgical books and practices. The Russian Orthodox patriarch, Nikon , was determined to bring the Russian texts back into conformity with the Greek texts and practices of the time. But Nikon encountered opposition among the many Russians who viewed the corrections as improper foreign intrusions. When the Orthodox Church forced Nikon's reforms, a schism resulted in 1667. Those who did not accept the reforms came to be called the Old Believers ; they were officially pronounced heretics and were persecuted by the church and the state. The chief opposition figure, the protopope Avvakum , was burned at the stake.

The split afterwards became permanent, and many merchants and peasants joined the Old Believers. The tsar's court also felt the impact of Ukraine and the West. Kiev was a major transmitter of new ideas and insight through the famed scholarly academy that Metropolitan Mohyla founded there in 1631. Other more direct channels to the West opened as international trade increased and more foreigners came to Russia. The Tsar's court was interested in the West's more advanced technology, particularly when military applications were involved. By the end of the 17th century, Ukrainian, Polish, and West European penetration had weakened the Russian cultural synthesis—at least among the elite—and had prepared the way for an even more radical transformation. Conquest of Siberia Main article: Russian conquest of Siberia Vasily Surikov : Yermak's Conquest of Siberia (1895) Russia's eastward expansion encountered little resistance. In 1581 the Stroganov merchant family, interested in the fur trade, hired a Cossack leader, Yermak Timofeyevich , to lead an expedition into western Siberia .

Yermak defeated the Khanate of Sibir and claimed the territories west of the Ob and Irtysh Rivers for Russia. From such bases as Mangazeya , merchants, traders, and explorers pushed eastward from the Ob River to the Yenisei River , then on to the Lena River and the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648 Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov opened the passage between America and Asia. By the middle of the 17th century, Russians had reached the Amur River and the outskirts of the Chinese Empire . After a period of conflict with the Qing dynasty , Russia made peace with China in 1689. By the Treaty of Nerchinsk , Russia ceded its claims to the Amur Valley, but it gained access to the region east of Lake Baikal and the trade route to Beijing . Peace with China strengthened the initial breakthrough to the Pacific that had been made in the middle of the century.

Reign of Peter the Great and establishment of the Russian Empire Nativity Church at Putinki , an example of the 17th-century Russian uzorochye style Peter the Great (1672–1725), who became ruler in his own right in 1696, was destined to bring the Tsardom of Russia, which had little contact with Europe and was mostly seen as a regional power, into the mainstream of European culture and politics. After suppressing numerous rebellions with considerable bloodshed, Peter embarked on a tour of Western Europe incognito . He became impressed with what he saw and was awakened to the backwardness of Russia, a nation that resembled a Mongol khanate more than a European monarchy. Peter began requiring the nobility to wear Western clothing and shave off their beards, an action that the boyars protested bitterly. Arranged marriages among nobility were banned and the Orthodox Church brought under state control. Military academies were established to create a modern European-style army and officer corps in place of the disorganized levies that Muscovite rulers had traditionally used. These changes did not win Peter many friends and in fact caused great political division in the country.

These along with his notorious cruelties (such as the torture death of his own son for plotting a rebellion) and the immense human suffering that accompanied many of his projects such as the construction of Saint Petersburg led many pious Russians to believe that he was the Antichrist . The Great Northern War against Sweden consumed much of Peter's attention for years, however the Swedes were eventually defeated and peace agreed to in 1721. Russia annexed the Baltic coast from Sweden and parts of Finland , which would become the site of the new Russian capital, Saint Petersburg. The Russian victory in the Great Northern War marked a watershed in European politics, as it not only brought about the eclipse of Sweden and Poland as great powers, but also Russia's decisive emergence as a permanent factor in Europe. Expansion into Siberia also continued and war with Persia brought about the acquisition of territory in the Caucasus , although Russia surrendered those gains after Peter's death in 1725. State flags There was no single flag during the Tsardom.

Instead, there were multiple flags: Standards used by the Tsar: [45] Standard of the Tsar of Moscow (1693–1700): white-blue-red tricolor with golden double-headed eagle in the center. [45] Replaced by the Imperial standard in 1700 (see below). [45] Imperial Standard of the Tsar of Russia: black double-headed eagle carrying St. Vladimir Red Coat of Arms, on a golden rectangular field, adopted in 1700 instead of the older white-blue-red Standard of the Tsar of Moscow. [45] Civil Flag: The early Romanov Tsars instituted the two-headed eagle Imperial Flag of the Tsar, which origin dates back to 1472, as a Civil Flag, it remained the Civil Flag of Russia until replaced during the Empire in 1858. [46] Civil Ensign of Russia: the white-blue-red tricolor, that was adopted on 20 January 1705 by decree of Peter I . [45] Naval Ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy : white field with a blue saltire, adopted in 1712.

[47] Before that, the naval ensign of Russia was white-blue-red tricolor. [47] Naval Jack of the Imperial Russian Navy: red field with a blue saltire, adopted in 1700. Standard of the Tsar of Moscow (1693–1700) Imperial Standard of the Tsar (from 1700) Naval Ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy (1697–1699) [47] and Civil Ensign of Russia (from 1705) [45] Naval Ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy (1699–1700), [47] a transitional variant between the 1697–1699 Ensign and the Andreevsky Flag of 1712 Naval Jack of the Imperial Russian Navy (from 1700) [48] Naval Ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy (from 1712) [47] See also

Question: The period known as "The Time of Troubles" 1598-1613 refers to which country?
Answer: Russia