Russian History: A Very Short Introduction

Yet, as it turned out, there was a sufficiently robust sense of identity and potential unity for Muscovy to generate its own revival, especially when faced with the threat of domination by ‘heretics’. The decisive factors were Orthodoxy as the national religion, symbolized by the Patriarch, and the resourcefulness of local communities in organizing resistance. When one boyar clan prepared to welcome the Polish royal heir Władisław as constitutional monarch in a personal union with the Polish crown, Patriarch Germogen reacted by insisting that no one should swear loyalty to a Catholic ruler. He sent epistles to elders of the city assemblies, calling on them to mobilize a militia to prevent heretics from taking over Moscow. In Nizhny Novgorod, the merchant Kuzma Minin proclaimed the formation of a militia, and appealed to other cities to do the same:

Let us be together of one accord . . . Orthodox Christians in love and unity, and let us not tolerate the recent disorders, but fight untiringly to the death to purge the realm of Muscovy from our enemies, the Poles and Lithuanians.

Detachments came from the various cities to Iaroslavl, on the Volga, under the command of the boyar Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and marched on Moscow, where they expelled the Polish garrison.

The re-establishment of the Muscovite realm was thus mainly the achievement of local communities of joint responsibility, led by boyars, servicemen, urban elites, and Cossacks, and inspired by Muscovy’s role as the bastion of Orthodox Christianity. It is understandable, then, that the zemskii sobor which was summoned by the Patriarch in 1613 rejected all foreign candidates to the throne and restored the political model inherited from Ivan IV. Its delegates elected as Tsar Mikhail Romanov (r. 1613–45), descendant of the family of Ivan’s first wife. They imposed no conditions on him: the overriding priority was to restore a stable Muscovite realm with a strong ruler. It was expected, though, that he would consult with his elites before taking major decisions.

Seventeenth-century Muscovy was, then, ruled along the same lines as in the 16th. The royal family, the court, and the administrative chanceries grew in size, but did not change their essential nature: they supplied vital central coordination to the mobilization of people and resources taking place in the localities. Assemblies, such as the Boyar Duma and the zemskii sobor, which connected the centre with those localities, remained weakly developed and uninstitutionalized, though at times they played a crucial role in the formation of policy. What was permanent were the boyar and service noble clans, with their clientele networks in towns and villages throughout the country.

The link with the localities was reinforced by military governors (voevody) appointed by the Tsar. They increasingly operated according to codified law and written instructions, and they were required to make frequent reports on local conditions. However, the voevody lacked specialized legal training, and they depended for part of their income on kormlenie, so that much of what they achieved they owed to personal links with their subordinates. To prevent those links becoming too cosy, they were normally appointed for only two years at a time. All the same, these personalized central–local ties were to remain characteristic of Russian governance.

During the 17th century, the chanceries developed into an effective and differentiated early modern bureaucracy, dealing in ever greater detail not only with military matters, but with finance, post, and communications, the assignment of service lands, and relations with other states. An elite lineage hierarchy (mestnichestvo) determined entry into the chanceries, but thereafter promotion depended on merit. Officials were bound by oaths of loyalty and secrecy, which became an integral part of Russian state culture. That culture ensured that high officials, though often corrupt and self-enriching, did not engage in oppositional politics. The very success of these governing bodies in coping with the crises of the 17th century increased their relative power and inhibited the formation of intermediate bodies which might have mediated their relationship with the population. The only competing institution was the church, which still had its charters and wealth inherited from the past.