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36 results in The Cambridge History of Russia

Page 1 of 2

  • 27 - The Orthodox Church and the schism

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 618-639

  • Summary

    This chapter surveys the institutional structure and economic position of the Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century. After the relatively uneventful tenure of Patriarch Filaret, the Muscovite Church began to feel pressure for change from within and from without. When Patriarch Nikon became patriarch in 1652, many of the latent tensions within the Russian Church erupted into open conflict. During his tenure in Novgorod, Nikon made it clear that, in his opinion, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was the natural leader in the campaign to revitalize Russian Orthodoxy. Belief was a significant element in the resistance of the Don ossacks to Moscow's administrative control. The Russian Orthodox community had fallen into schism. In competition with the state-supported official Church, the Old Believers had begun to build their own organisations, select their own cadre of leaders and create their own religious culture. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church soon had to bend before the onslaught of a wilful reforming autocrat.

  • 22 - Non-Russian subjects

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 520-538

  • Summary

    In its western borderlands, Russia had come to acquire a large population of Orthodox Christians who were non-Russian. The ever-growing number of Russia's subjects now included non-Christians in the east and non-Russians in the west. Russia's steppe frontier remained ambiguous and ill defined. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Moscow was well established in western Siberia and reached the banks of the Enisei River. Throughout the seventeenth century Russia could boast of no visible territorial expansion in the North Caucasus. Russia's advance here had been stalled for the same reasons as its march eastward into south-eastern Siberia was halted in the 1650s. In the second half of the seventeenth century, Moscow's newly claimed subjects in the west came from eastern Ukraine. The Russian conquest and colonisation policies of the mid-Volga region triggered a large-scale migration of the non-Christians. Russia's methods of conquest and colonisation appear to have formed a clear pattern.

  • 8 - Medieval Novgorod

  • from Part I - Early Rus’ and the Rise of Muscovy (c. 900–1462)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 188-210

  • Summary

    For the last seventy years medieval Novgorod has been the subject of intensive archaeological investigation. The most important event in the early history of the north-west region of Rus' was its temporary subjection to the power of the Scandinavians. From the beginning of the twelfth century onwards, problems associated with landholding became the central issues in the economic and political history of Novgorod. A major landmark in the development of the boyar state was the establishment at the end of the twelfth century of the post of republican 'thousander', as a result of which the 'hundreds' system passed out of the jurisdiction of the prince into the jurisdiction of the boyar republic. At the very beginning of the century a permanent military danger arose on the western borders of the Novgorod lands, from the Teutonic order of knights who had settled on the Baltic. The confrontation between Novgorod and Moscow intensified from decade to decade.

  • 7 - The emergence of Moscow (1359–1462)

  • from Part I - Early Rus’ and the Rise of Muscovy (c. 900–1462)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 158-187

  • Summary

    During the century following the Mongol invasion and subjugation of the Russian lands to the Golden Horde the princes of Moscow, the Daniilovichi, gained prominence in north-eastern Russia. Within their domain, however, the Daniilovichi came to depend less on the khans and to develop domestic sources of support, rooted in their own court, in their relationships with former dynastic rivals and in the Church. During fragmentation of the Golden Horde, Dmitrii Ivanovich, who ruled to 1389, and his successors Vasilii I Dmitr' evich (1389-1425) and Vasilii II Vasil' (1425-62) nurtured and developed the foundational elements to establish their legitimacy as rulers of a state of Muscovy and to monopolise for their direct descendants the position of prince of its expanding territorial possessions. The demographic and economic disturbances experienced by the horde contributed to mounting political tensions that erupted after Khan Berdibek was killed. Ecclesiastical unity of all the Orthodox Rus', raised the prospect of political unity.

  • 5 - The Rus’ principalities (1125–1246)

  • from Part I - Early Rus’ and the Rise of Muscovy (c. 900–1462)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 98-126

  • Summary

    The years 1125 to 1246 gave birth to new principalities (Smolensk, Suzdalia, Murom and Riazan') and new eparchies (Smolensk and Riazan'). They saw the political ascendancy of a number of principalities (Chernigov, Smolensk, Volyn' and Suzdalia) and the decline of others (Turov, Galich, Polotsk, Pereiaslavl', Murom and Riazan'). The period also saw two singular ecclesiastical initiatives. Andrei Bogoliubskii attempted to create a metropolitan see in Vladimir, and a synod of bishops consecrated Klim Smoliatich as the second native metropolitan. During these years the inner circle created by Iaroslav the Wise evolved into one forged by political realities. Vladimir Monomakh debarred the dynasties of Turov and Chernigov thus making his heirs the only rightful claimants to Kiev. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, only two dynasties remained as viable candidates, namely, those of Smolensk (Mstislav Romanovich and Vladimir Riurikovich) and Chernigov (Mikhail Vsevolodovich). Finally, in the 1240s, the Tatars terminated the established order of succession to Kiev.

  • 10 - Ivan IV (1533–1584)

  • from Part II - The Expansion, Consolidation and Crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 240-263

  • Summary

    The knowledge of the early years of Ivan IV's life comes largely from later sources, which were politically biased. The traditional view is that Ivan created a centralised state which assumed control over its subjects through the political regime of autocracy. The period from the end of the 1540s to the early 1560s was formative for Ivan's reign. The royal family received a new status during a multi-phase transformation of the concept of its power, which began with Ivan's coronation as tsar and culminated in turning him into a sacred figure. Ivan valued the political and organisational instruments that he received in the 1550s. It is true that his policy later became extravagant and unpredictable, probably as a result of mental illness. The assumption and active propaganda of the title of tsar, transgressions and sudden changes in policy during the oprichnina contributed to the image of the Muscovite prince as a ruler accountable only to God.

  • 2 - Russia’s geographical environment

  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 19-44

  • Summary

    This chapter adopts a broad, catholic and perhaps even escapist approach, defining Russia's geographical environment as the entire territory. The natural environment touches human development at many points, indeed is part of that development. To talk of peasant environments is to consider the natural environments which confronted most Russians on a day-to-day basis and from which they were obliged to wrest their subsistence. Across the vast East European plain on which most Russians lived there is considerable environmental variation, and the means which peasants employed to ensure their subsistence also varied. The chapter considers peasant ecotypes against the broad background of the major zonal differences which existed in the Russian environment. It talks about Russian territory, which can be divided into four major zones, roughly in the order in which they were encountered by the Russian peasants of the period: mixed forest, boreal forest, tundra, forest-steppe and steppe.

  • 20 - Local government and administration

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 464-485

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the important developments affecting local government in the period 1613-89. After 1613 most of the local administrative organs common before the Troubles were liquidated or were absorbed into town governor administration. Town governor administration operated under closer central chancellery control than had vicegerent administration in the previous century because the town governors' offices were held to higher expectations of written reporting and compliance with written instructions. The spread and systematisation of town governor administration was crucial to Patriarch Filaret's reconstruction programme. Over the course of the seventeenth century voevoda administration came to display more of the characteristics of rational bureaucratic organisation. In one important respect voevoda administration resisted full bureaucratic rationalisation. In districts where the governor's office had direct responsibility for tax collection as well as tax recording the governor could be held accountable to the central chancelleries for any arrears or deficits caused by unfair or negligent collection measures as well as by embezzlement.

  • 4 - Kievan Rus’ (1015–1125)

  • from Part I - Early Rus’ and the Rise of Muscovy (c. 900–1462)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 73-97

  • Summary

    Political legitimacy in Kievan Rus' resided in the dynasty. The ruling family managed to create an ideological framework for its own pre-eminence which was maintained without serious challenge for over half a millennium. To this extent the political structure was simple: the lands of the Rus' were, more or less by definition, the lands claimed or controlled by the descendants of Vladimir Sviatoslavich. Like Vladimir, Iaroslav allocated regional possessions to his sons. Unlike Vladimir, he specified a hierarchy of seniority both within the dynasty and between the regional allocations, and he laid down some principles of inter-princely relations. The princes of Rus' were warlords, heading a military elite. Since prince of Kiev, Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh wrote an 'Instruction' for his sons, a kind of brief curriculum vitae presenting as exemplary his own credentials and achievements. In the three generations after Vladimir the main implications of the official conversion to Christianity were made manifest.

  • 26 - Popular revolts

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 600-617

  • Summary

    This chapter provides a chronological overview of the popular revolts, and examines the social composition of their participants. It considers the aims and demands they embodied, within the common framework of rebellions in the name of the tsar. In some cases the revolts in provincial towns were triggered by news of the events in Moscow. The social composition of the revolt was fairly heterogeneous, including representatives of relatively privileged groups, such as the gentry and merchants. The role of the bond-slaves in the Moscow revolts was a somewhat ambiguous one. The composition of the participants in the urban revolts in the provinces in 1648-50 reflected the varied social structures of the towns affected. The Razin revolt was the most heterogeneous of all the later seventeenth century uprisings. In the revolts which took place under the first Romanovs, the rebels commonly described their main targets as 'traitor-boyars'. In most popular revolts, the 'evil' traitor-boyars were contrasted with the 'good' tsar.

  • 16 - The law

  • from Part II - The Expansion, Consolidation and Crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 360-386

  • Summary

    This chapter illustrates the evolution of middle Muscovite law. The law tried to support institutions of private property and protect commerce and business. One of the main functions of law was to provide financial support for officialdom and, in a minor way, maintain the army. Finally, like all law everywhere, the Russkaia pravda served as a device for resolving conflicts, regulating compensation for damages, and creating a more humane society-replacing the law of the jungle. The chapter talks about the Muscovite Sudebniki, and two other Russian law codes, the Pskov Judicial Charter and the Novgorod Judicial Charter. The codes represent the best of north-west Russian law of the time, which was considerably more advanced than the contemporary law of Muscovy. The immunity charter was issued by a ruling prince to a private individual or Church body granting the immunity holder exemption either from taxation or from the jurisdiction of the issuer's court, or both.

  • 24 - Law and society

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 559-578

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the complexity of the judicial system by surveying the multiple venues of legal proceedings in Muscovy, then by examining judicial practice and finally by surveying changes in the positive law. The Russian Orthodox Church was a key beneficiary of judicial immunity. Muscovy's colonial policy was laissez-faire in the seventeenth century, tolerating diversity in law, judicial institutions and elites. The legal system embraced by the system of governors was uniform across the state in law and procedure, but not in judicial venue. Muscovite judicial practice was in many ways more medieval than early modern in its distributive justice. The seventeenth century was remarkable for the generation and codification of secular law. Going into the seventeenth century, judges had available to them several codes of law. The most significant changes in positive law were made in the realm of social legislation. Society interacted with law in a multitude of ways in seventeenth-century Muscovy.

  • 9 - The Growth of Muscovy (1462–1533)

  • from Part II - The Expansion, Consolidation and Crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 211-239

  • Summary

    This chapter describes the situation and conditions in Muscovy at the time of the ascension to the throne of Ivan III in 1462; how that situation and those conditions were affected by the reigns of Ivan III and Vasilii III. It sums up the differences that occurred in Muscovy by 1533. The domestic policies of both Ivan III and Vasilii III focused on reducing the power of their brothers and on maintaining good relations with the boyars and the Church. Ivan III and Vasilii III sought out and adapted foreign institutions and technical skills to their policy needs, and had far-ranging foreign policies. It was under Vasilii that the first stipulations concerning the need for churches and monasteries to register their land acquisitions with state agents began to appear. During the reign of Ivan III, Muscovy and the Crimean khanate had friendly relations. In 1533, Muscovy was on the verge of becoming the dominant power in the western steppe region.

  • 25 - Urban developments

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 579-599

  • Summary

    This chapter considers a number of facets of urbanism in the seventeenth century that was a difficult period for Russia. It addresses two issues, namely the symbolic and religious role of towns and their physical morphology. The appearance of many new towns in Russia during the course of the seventeenth century is largely explained by the process of frontier expansion and colonisation of new territories. The fragmented character of urban society which characterised sixteenth century towns continued to be a feature of the seventeenth. Moscow remained the centre of Russian commercial life in this period. An important feature of Moscow's economy in the seventeenth century was the extensive 'in house' production for the benefit of the court, government, army and other central agencies. Religion was central to the life of Russian towns in the seventeenth century. Something of its significance for the individual town emerges in the 1627 cadaster for Vologda, as discussed by Mertsalov.

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the development of the Russian state and society, and political, economic and social issues, including the law, the Orthodox Church and intellectual and cultural life. It first covers the history of medieval Novgorod across the entire period, from its origins to its annexation by Moscow. The book then deals with aspects of the period as a whole. Finally, a purely thematic organisation is adopted, in view of the degree of political continuity within the period. The most significant development in the recent historiography of the pre-Petrine period of Russian history was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which brought to an end the official privileging of ideologically driven Marxist approaches to the study of history, imposed and enforced by censorship and other forms of control.

  • 13 - Towns and commerce

  • from Part II - The Expansion, Consolidation and Crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 298-316

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on Russian towns as commercial foci and on their multifunctional character. The sixteenth century was thus a dynamic period for the founding of new towns, and especially the latter half. Towns with any degree of commercial life generally had a population of 'taxpaying' or posad people. Many town dwellers supported themselves to greater or lesser degree by engaging in agriculture and various kinds of primary production. By clustering around the towns commerce and manufacture were able to benefit from the military protection, access to important officials and geographical nodality available in urban centres. Crafts and manufactures were a key feature of the posad of many towns, as well as of many of the 'white' suburbs. The character of commerce and trade in Russia's regions and their towns is known in part. Referring to Europe's regional economies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Kristof Glamann has written that 'it is isolation, not interaction, that leaps to the eye'.

  • 15 - The Orthodox Church

  • from Part II - The Expansion, Consolidation and Crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 338-359

  • Summary

    By 1600 churches with multiple altars, tent roofs and helmet cupolas went up everywhere. They blended forms, materials and techniques developed in many places, elements of popular religiosity and Renaissance innovations in engineering and design. In 1467 Metropolitan Filipp wrote to Archbishop Iona of Novgorod about popular animosity in Iona's eparchy towards the Church and its wealth. Archbishop Gennadii told Metropolitan Zosima that a Jew in the entourage of Mikhail Olel' kovich, who came from Kiev to be Novgorod's prince in 1471, had caused the unrest. In 1487 Gennadii charged four men with heresy and sent them to Moscow for judgement. In 1525 the Iosifite Metropolitan Daniil convened a court that on the slenderest evidence convicted Maximos of heresy and treasonous relations with the Turks. Soon after 1504 Iosif Volotskii exalted Moscow's ruler, utilising the double-edged maxims of the deacon Agapetus to Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. The Church found the Time of Troubles perplexing.

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