13. Time of Troubles, 1505 - 1613, Rus 2 Russia
From the very beginning the government of Boris Godunov pursued a policy of rather serious isolation of Russia from the neighboring western states: the Commonwealth of Poland and Sweden.
The order established by Godunov was devoid of the extremes and atrocities that took place under Ivan the Terrible, however, his reign, which officially began in 1598, after the death of Feodor, was a rather harsh regime for the whole population. No one felt safe for even a minute. The possible successor, the child Tsarevich Dmitry had just been assassinated.
The Impostor
Nonetheless, events in Western Europe had a very sensitive effect on the history of the peoples of Russia. At the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, Catholic reaction, called the Counter-Reformation, gained strength. The Catholics, despite the corruption in which the Holy See was mired, organized themselves to repel the Protestants and gained brave leaders and sincere supporters. The emperors and Spanish kings of the Habsburg dynasty, the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Guises of Lorraine, who led the Catholic party in France, formed quite a strong coalition. But the workers of the Reformation, which had triumphed in the Netherlands, Northern Germany, Scandinavia and England, also wasted no time. Everyone was preparing for the struggle, and the first victim of this struggle, oddly enough, was Russia, which had nothing to do not only with the Reformation, but also nothing to do with Western Europe.
The Polish-Lithuanian magnates who made up the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth watched the situation in Russia very attentively. They were fully aware of Tsar Boris's unpopularity, and unfortunately for himself and his relatives, attempted to reconcile the manners of oprichnina with the traditional order of the Russian land. It was impossible to unite the incompatible, and the consequences of such an attempt were, as always, disastrous. In this connection, apparently, the Poles had a plan to exploit the weakness of Godunov's position in their own interests. However, under the conditions of that time, the political and military struggle required a symbol. The Rzeczpospolita needed a pretender to the royal throne - a personality who would combine in his name as a focus on the whole range of political, economic, ideological and other aspirations of the people. Obviously, such a person could only be one who claimed the legitimate rights to the throne, which were given by birth alone.
From the point of view of our contemporaries, dynastic rights play no role, but seventeenth-century people regarded this circumstance as crucial. His supporters could not follow an illegitimate pretender. And the legitimate right to the Russian throne, of course, had to be the descendants of Ivan the Terrible. By this time, one of his sons - Tsar Fyodor - had died a quiet and peaceful death, while the other - the young Dmitry - was slaughtered in Uglich in circumstances unknown to anyone, how and why (1591). (The mystery of the tsarevich's death worries historians to this day, but for our theme the circumstances of his death are not important).
Tsar Boris Fedorovich Godunov. Titularnik, 1672.
Tsar Fyodor Godunov
And then a pretender to the throne appeared, who called himself the rescued Tsarevich Dmitry. It was he who became the banner of the liberation of Russia from the power of the oprichnina continuator - Godunov. Alexander Pushkin in his famous tragedy very well articulated this role of the impostor. False Dmitry (let us call him by his common name), himself says to Marina Mnishek, the lady of his heart:
“But know this, that neither king, nor pope, nor nobles think not of the truth of my words. Whether I am Demetrius or not, what business is it to them? But I am a pretext of strife and war.
That's all they want...”
And indeed, no one was completely indifferent to the degree of truthfulness of his words. When False Demetrius - the boyar's son Grigory Otrepiev, who took monastic vows - appeared in 1601 in Poland, the first reaction to his appearance was very restrained. The Pope, who received the news of the Pretender, put an ironic resolution on his letter about the "rightful Russian Tsar". However, since False Dimitri promised to convert Russia to Catholicism in the event of his taking the Russian throne, the Pope, after some deliberation, nevertheless decided to support this dubious venture and gave his blessing to all those who wished to take part in False Dimitri's campaign.
A diverse public began to group around the Pretender, determined to reclaim Russia from the power of Boris Godunov. They included political émigrés from Moscow who wished to return to their homeland; Cossacks of Little Russia, the North, and the Don who were dissatisfied with the Tsar's ambition for power; and simple Polish adventurers who craved easy profits and saw in False Dimitry's plans a good opportunity for this. But on the whole, False Dmitri had very few forces, and the size of his army could not be compared with the military capabilities of the Moscow government.
Nevertheless, when False Dmitry crossed the Dnieper River with his detachment, then serving as the border, and invaded Seversky land (1604), it turned out that the fortresses surrendered to him without a fight. If any voivode, doing his duty, tried to organize a defense, the people and streltsys would shout: "What are you doing, you son of a bitch? Are you acting against the son of our Tsar, against the sovereign, against Dmitry Ivanovich?!" Voevods in the fortresses and all supporters of Godunov were tied up and handed over to the Samozvanets "heads" by taking an oath - "the kiss of the cross," while False Dmitry graciously forgave his captive enemies.
Russia during the Time of Troubles
False Demetrius I
Marina Mnishek
Here it is necessary to say a few words about the personality of the Pretender. Judging by his behavior, particularly his treatment of the prisoners, False Dmitry was a man somewhat frivolous, but by no means evil. Generosity well combined in it with the ability to win people's sympathy. But, alas, these qualities were not enough for a man who wanted to play the role of the Moscow Tsar.
Seizure of fortresses, as we know, did not end. Against the detachment of False Dimitri were moved regular troops, many times superior to the forces of the Impostor, and his small detachment was defeated by a head. False Dmitry took refuge in Putivl, and he was saved from final defeat by the rebellion of the Sevruks, who thought least of the legitimacy of the pretender to the throne. In their rebellion revealed the ethnic opposition of the descendants of the Northerners - the ancient inhabitants of Seversky land - and Velikorosses. The rebels sat down in the Kromy fortress and declared that they would continue the war for the "rightful tsar" Dmitry, with the true aim of fighting against Moscow. Their leader Karela organized the defense very well, and the tsar's voivods of Kroma did not succeed in taking it. In the meantime, new Polish troops approached Dmitry. True, the Poles, after enduring only the first battle and seeing the smell of the pretender, abandoned him.
Meanwhile, the number of Russians in the army of False Dmitry was growing. He even had some success in clashing with Moscow regiments. And most importantly, nationwide sympathy for the Pretender began to grow. Godunov's government and his police regime were rapidly losing support among all estates. The finale was tragic. In winter 1604-1605 nominated against False Dmitriya army partly scattered, not wanting to fight, and partly sided with the Pretender and moved with him at the head of Moscow. No one wanted to defend the capital - neither boyars, nor serfs, nor landowners, nor merchants; it never occurred to anyone to risk their lives to save Boris Godunov and his supporters. As a result, Godunov died, as we would say, of shock. His son Fyodor was captured and murdered along with his mother (Malyuta Skuratov's daughter). The unfortunate Tsarevna Ksenia Borisovna had to become the concubine of the Impostor, who then ordered her to be tonsured a nun. She died in 1622.
Thus, False Dmitry was on the throne. And in fact, we cannot say that he actively supported the whole country. Rather, the passive nature of the country did not support Godunov: everyone too, remembered the oprichnina. Samozvanets was actively supported only by three sub-ethnoses: Sevryukas; inhabitants of the Lower Don - descendants of Khazars who spoke Russian, but, like Sevryukas, did not consider themselves Great Russians - and Ryazanians - militant inhabitants of the steppe outskirts. The Ryazanians constantly repulsed Tatar raids, answering with equally brutal attacks, and generally got used to war to such an extent that for them everyone was an enemy: steppe Tatars, Mordovians, Muscovites and Kazans.
In addition to the Seversky land, the Don and Ryazan, the entire Volga region, from Kazan to Astrakhan, refused to support Boris Godunov. But because the population there was sparse, and the Volga cities of Saratov, Samara, Syzran, and Tsaritsyn were at that time small burgs with slobodas, the position of the Volga had no significant influence on the course of events. The central part of the country proved absolutely passive in the confrontation with False Demetrius, and it is clear why: all the passionarity of the center was "washed away" by the blood spilled by the oprichniks. There were very few passionate people left, and, unable to dislodge their harmonious neighbors, the remaining passionarians were not able to participate in the common struggle.
So, the Impostor ended up in Moscow. But since he came there with Polish support, having been betrothed to Marina Mnishek, naturally the Poles also came with him (many of them also showed up later, in the bride's "train"). False Dimitri considered it his duty to settle accounts with his allies, which meant he had to be generous to them. However, he was also bound by direct obligations. It must be said that under Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov, the budget of the Moscow state was well balanced: expenditures rarely exceeded revenues, and, as a rule, there was no budget deficit. The accession of False Dmitri led to a flood of money from the treasury, and gifts and grants were given indiscriminately. Treasury was exhausted, and people began to wonder about the new Tsar's temper.
Н. Nekrasov. Overthrow of the Impostor
Here is where the fatal role was played by the difference in the stereotypes of behavior of Russians and Western Europeans. Poles in the XVII century. were very brave, talented, militant, but very arrogant and cocky. Polish pans, when they put their king in Moscow, began to treat the Moscow population with extreme disdain. The Russians were offended, and so conflicts broke out constantly. And the tsar, naturally, supported the Poles. Popular discontent also arose for more substantial "behavioral" reasons. It is known that Catholics have icons, but the faithful simply bow to them, while the Orthodox have a habit of laying their hands on images. Marina Mniszek, the wife of the Impostor, was a Polish woman, and she had no way of knowing how to lay her hands on an icon. Marina, after praying in front of the image of the Mother of God, did not lay her hand, as was the custom in Moscow, but on the lips of the Mother of God. The Muscovites were shocked by this behavior: "The Tsarina kisses the Virgin on the lips, what a thing!
Outrage against False Dmitri grew, and in all estates. It ended dramatically, but quite naturally. Very active Russian boyars led by Vasily Shuisky quickly organized a conspiracy and succeeded. Despite their Polish defenders, False Dmitry was captured and killed. His corpse was burned, his ashes were loaded with the Tsar Cannon, and a shot was fired - the only Tsar Cannon shot in history. The reign of the first Impostor came to an end.
The Bolotnikov Revolt.
It was necessary to choose a new Tsar. Prince Vasily Shuisky became the head of the conspiracy. He was enthusiastically recognized in Moscow, because the Shuiskys had close ties with the merchant ranks. Not only merchants, but also clerks, and workers - all of them were connected with and supported the Shuyskys. Vasily Shuisky was recognized, albeit without much enthusiasm, throughout the north of the country, but in the south they categorically refused to submit to his authority. In Putivl exiled Prince Grigory Shakhovsky revolted, in Chernigov - the disgraced Prince Andrey Telyatevsky revolted. But Ivan Bolotnikov, a serf of Prince Telyatevsky, left a much more notable mark in the history of resistance to Shuisky's authority.
Tsar Vasily Shuisky. Titularnik of 1672.
In the early 17th century, there were two categories of serfs in Russia. One was the servile people who were forced to do hard work, poorly fed and often punished. However, such serfs were few in number, because it seemed much more convenient, easier and cheaper for any boyar to deal with the serfs, than to constantly subdue such a serf and expect continual trouble from him. But there were other villeins, called "court men”. After all, the boyar needed reliable protection, required loyal people to whom he could entrust the transmission of a secret letter or the execution of some intimate assignment. To entrust such matters to a free man was dangerous, because it was impossible to control his further behavior. The bondman, on the other hand, was at the complete mercy of his master. But since lords needed faithful servants, they took care of the men of the court. Such serfs wore luxurious coats, rode fine horses, and ate their fill.
It is difficult to say to what kind of smerds Ivan Isayevich Bolotnikov belonged. But since we know for certain that he fought and was captured by the Tatars, he was most likely a serf who rode a horse and did not work with a shovel in the vegetable garden. His fate ended sadly. The Tartars sold Bolotnikov to the Turks, he became a galley slave, and for several years he rowed a ship with a heavy oar. That galley was seized by Austrian ships, the Turks were partly executed, partly turned into galley slaves, and the Christians were set free. So Bolotnikov found himself freed in Europe - first in Venice, and then in Poland with the wife of the Sandomierz voivode Mnishka, Grigory Otrepiev's mother-in-law. There Bolotnikov met the new impostor - False Dmitry II. Bolotnikov received a letter from him with recommendations for the rebellious Grigory Shakhovsky, and, arriving in Putivl, the former serf rather quickly led the rebellious frontier-troops of the rebellious borderland. When we say "rebellious frontier", we still mean, of course, the three already mentioned sub-ethnoses: Sevriyuk, Dontsov and Ryazan. It was they, dissatisfied with their subordination to Moscow, who consistently supported the first impostor and the second. Such is the ethnic basis of the phenomenon referred to in historical literature as "the peasant war of 1606-1607". Perhaps it would be difficult to think of another name that reflects the essence of the matter so poorly. Here is why.
Uprisings of the more vigorous inhabitants of the periphery, against a center that has lost its passion, are constant in the course of ethnogenesis. Similarly, in France, Gascony, Provence and Brittany, they rebelled against the power of Paris, and in the Roman Empire, provincials rose up against the princes. The passionary potential of Ryazan or Seversky land at the beginning of the 17th century was much higher than in Moscow, as a greater number of passionate people survived the genocide of the end of the 16th century on the outskirts of Russia. After all, in the Seversky land, "away from the bosses", it was possible to live in safety from the oprichnina. Only the Tatars posed a threat there, but was it a smaller threat compared with the oprichniks!
Thus, the survivors in the south, led by Princes Shakhovsky and Telya-Tevsky, under the military leadership of Bolotnikov, moved towards Moscow. The success of this army was by no means due to the support of the peasants, but rather the opposite.
When Bolotnikov approached Tula, the tsarist army melted away: the nobility, having dispersed to their homes, abandoned their voivods. Following the Tula militia of the nobility, disobedience to the tsar manifested itself in Tula itself: the citizens of the city "mutinied" against the government. But most importantly, the regiments of the nobility joined the rebellious camp. The governors of the South Russian nobility were Ryazan nobles: Grigory Sumbulov, Prokopy Lyapunov and the centurion Istoma Pashkov. The Ryazan nobility, which guarded about half of the southeastern border, represented the elite of the government forces. It was with the help of these military professionals, not the peasants, that Bolotnikov reached Moscow and attempted to encircle and storm it. The only siege of the capital by the rebels in the history of the country began and lasted five weeks.
Map of the peasant war in the early 17th century and the war with the Polish and Swedish Interventionists
The boyars and their serfs in Moscow were obviously not enough to defend the city. Understanding this, Tsar Vasily Shuisky recruited a large army, consisting of servants and "summer men". Most importantly, the troops were recruited in the center and north of the country from the peasants who belonged to monasteries and other landowners. Hence, paradoxically enough, it was the peasants who defended Moscow against the "peasant" militia at the call of the tsar, while in the "peasant" army the striking force was the frontier regiments of the nobility.
To explain this social contradiction and to understand the events of the Time of Troubles, we must descend from the high levels of ethnic hierarchy (superethnic and ethnic) to the subethnic level, which determines the internal structure of ethnicity. There are sub-ethnoses in any ethnos. For example, Bolotnikov's supporters in relation to the Poles, Tatars, and Germans considered themselves Russians, but not considering themselves Muscovites, said: "No, we are not Muscovites, we are Sevruks!” The Ryazan inhabitants and the Don inhabitants said the same thing. When the weakness of the central government became apparent, this naturally felt opposition was enough for peripheral sub-ethnoses to claim a leading position in the Russian ethnos and in the Russian super-ethnos. It was the struggle for power between representatives of different sub-ethnoses of the north and south of the country, which was in the acmatic phase of ethnogenesis, that caused the first Russian Distemper.
Tula. View of the Kremlin and the central part of the city
Velikorossiya was victorious: Bolotnikov was driven from Moscow. After his defeat near the walls of the capital, his army split. The Chernigov and Kursk nobility remained with Bolotnikov. Ryazan nobles and Cossacks broke away from him and behaved quite independently. Bolotnikov and the remnants of his supporters were blocked in Tula by troops of Tver, Velikoustyuzhsky, Kostroma, Yaroslavl peasants and small landlords. Ivan Isayevich capitulated only when the besiegers dammed the river Upa in Tula and poured water into half the city. The captive Bolotnikov behaved defiantly, shouting to the victors: "Wait, my time will come, I will gag you in iron, sew you in bear skins and give you to the dogs!" The seventeenth-century people took the insults badly and acted harshly: Bolotnikov was drowned.
Incompatibility
The movement caused by the appearance of False Dmitry II, later called the Tushinsky Thief, was gaining strength. Almost simultaneously with Bolotnikov's revolt, a rokosh (rebellion) of Zebzhidovsky, a former Krakow governor who, incidentally, was present at the secret Catholicization of Grishka Otrepiev, took place in Poland. The right to rebel was a common element of the 17th century Polish nobility's stereotype of behavior and was taken for granted: if Zebrzydowski quarreled with the king, he rebelled, and that is what Polish freedom is all about! But since the mutiny was suppressed, all the participants of the rokosh were under the threat of punishment. In an effort to avoid retribution, they crossed the border and united around False Dimitry II.
False Dimitri II led Polish troops, like his predecessor, to march on Moscow and depose another "usurper," this time Vasily Shuisky. The accusations of usurpation of power were, in general, quite true. Vasily Shuisky was indeed as much the head of the revolt as Bolotnikov: one headed the conspiracy in Moscow, the other led the revolt in Putivl. However, they also had important differences: while Shuisky relied on Muscovites and residents of northern Russia, Bolotnikov's activities reveal a secret reliance on Poland. Tushinsky the thief simply came to power on the spears of the Polish insurgents, who again found their own business, deciding to place their protégé on the throne of Moscow and then get the "pleasures" they were entitled to. Of course, it would have been difficult for False Dimitri II to succeed, relying only on Polish adventurers. But, when he and his supporters came to Moscow and was encamped in Tushin, many Russian people: the Cossacks, and the nobility, and peasants - began to run over to his camp, offering their services, asking for cash awards and favors. Having received a grant from the new impostor, these people easily fled back to Moscow and offered their services to Vasily Shuisky, asking him for the same. They called these seekers of goods and benefits "flights."
False Demetrius II
Neither party could finally win: no one wanted to: The only people who supported the Tushinsky thief were the Poles and the Cossacks, who were not too concerned with the fate of their patron. Taking advantage of the opportunity, they mainly robbed the population. Russian people do not like to be robbed, and therefore the cities "sat in siege" - laying gates and not letting in Tushinians. But it was impossible for the townspeople to resist professional thugs. Tushinians, especially Poles, took town after town, fortress after fortress. They burned small wooden forts and villages, robbed peasants to the bone, in short, behaved like a demoralized soldier in a conquered country.
Tushin's troops encountered serious resistance only once. In the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, founded by Sergius of Radonezh, there were large riches, survived all the turmoil of the late XVI - early XVII centuries. When the supporters of False Dmitry II decided to take this monastery, the siege of it dragged on for almost eight months. A small garrison of Streltsy, monks and volunteers fought heroically and repulsed onslaught of thirty thousand Polish army. The Poles were eventually forced to abandon the siege and set out in search of easier prey.
The courageous defenders of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, having restrained 30 thousand people of False Dmitry II, enabled Vasily Shuisky to regroup his forces. A remarkable, very capable man - the tsar's nephew Mikhail Vasilyevich Sko-Pin-Shuisky - was sent to the north. Gathering in the northern cities of the militia of the nobility, peasants, posadnye people and merchants, he moved on the Tushinsky thief and defeated him. False Demetrius II fled, abandoned by the Poles. Only a part of the Cossacks, Kasimov Tatars and Marina, the constant companion of the impostor, remained with him. A quarrel with the remaining allies led the Tushinsky thief to his death. The impostor, having received a denunciation about "the Kasimov tsar" - Khan Uraz-Mukhammed, ordered to kill him. He did not see anything special in his action - that was how sovereigns did it in Europe - but he miscalculated, because the Tatars, a serious people, regarded the impostor's action in a completely different way. After waiting patiently for some time, the Tatar prince Urusov, a friend of the murdered, stabbed the Tushinsky thief to death (December 1610).
Unfortunately, the national hero of Russia, the savior of Moscow, Skopin-Shuisky aroused the envy of some Moscow boyars and was poisoned by them (May 1610). The death of the commander was followed by another misfortune. The Russian army, coming to the rescue of Smolensk, which had been besieged by Polish king Sigismund Vaza (starting an open aggression against Russia) in the fall of 1609.
It was met by Hetman Zholkevsky near the village of Klushino. Betrayal of German mercenaries, who were in the service of Moscow, led to the defeat of the Russian army. This fatal defeat and the death of "great military leader" Skopin-Shuisky permanently undermined the position of Tsar Vasily. In June 1610. Shuisky was deposed by conspirators and was tonsured a monk. Power in Moscow passed to the "seven boyars", headed by Prince Feodor Mstislavsky. But the seven boyars, according to the "Other Tale," for only two months did they enjoy power. At the end of September, the boyars' government let the Poles into Moscow, and from that moment they became masters of the situation.
М. V. Nesterov. Horsemen. (An episode from the history of the siege of the Trinity Sergius Lavra at the beginning of the 17th century).
The Poles undertook active military actions over a large territory. Sigismund finally captured Smolensk, the defense of which under the leadership of boyar Shein lasted more than a year. Only after such a long siege was the city, the garrison of which numbered only about a thousand archers, was taken by the superior forces of the enemy.
In the same period the Swedish King Gustavus-Adolph also began military operations. Traitors opened the gates of Novgorod to the Swedish troops - the city was captured and the Novgorodians were robbed (1611). Gustav Adolf, seeking to create a kingdom independent from Moscow in Novgorod, also tried to seize Pskov, but failed. Nevertheless, the Swedes were intensively preparing for war with the Poles on Russian territory. Thus, the country, which in 1604 stood as an impregnable cliff, became within seven years merely a convenient battleground for rival European states.
By then, Poland's relations with Sweden were extremely strained. In the process of the Counter-Reformation, Poland became a stronghold of Catholicism, while Sweden converted to Lutheranism. But Swedish King Sigismund Vasa was a zealous Catholic, and the Swedes were happy to replace him with a Lutheran. The Poles then, in spite of the Swedes, chose Sigismund as their king. As a result, the Swedish king on the Polish throne began to prepare for war with Sweden. In this ease of change of rulers, the phenomenon of super-ethnicity vividly manifested itself. In spite of their strong political rivalry, the Poles and Swedes belonged to the same ethnic world of Western Europe, and remained "their own". Similarly, the French felt in Germany, the Germans in France, the Italians in Denmark, and the Spanish in Italy. In Russia, all Europeans were strangers, just as Russians were strangers in Europe. To see this, it is enough to see the consequences of the attempt to place the Polish king on the Moscow throne.
Defense of the monastery of St. Sergius from the Poles
Prince M. V. Skopin-Shuisky. Ok. 1630 г. Parsun
The situation in Moscow was utterly hopeless. Vasily Shuisky, who had been removed from the throne, was taken to Poland, where he died. Tushinsky the thief was killed - there was no government in the country. The Moscow boyars decided to offer the throne to King Wladyslaw of Poland, and from that moment the difficulties began. Since Russia was a different super-ethnos, the condition for ascension to the throne was that the applicant adopt Orthodoxy. But Vladislav could not even think of accepting Orthodoxy, because his father was the leader of the Catholic party. At the head of those who insisted that the prince adopt Orthodoxy was Moscow Patriarch Hermogenes, who sent out messages throughout the country with a call for rebellion and the expulsion of the Latins.
Seeing Hermogenes' intransigence, the Poles, who were garrisoning Moscow, arrested him and starved him to death. But they could not seize the initiative: the patriarch's numerous messages reached their goal. They were copied, distributed, and read in squares and churches. Hermogenes managed to shape public opinion in favor of rebellion, but there was no strength for a decisive intervention: the north of Russia was bleeding, the south was rebelling, the west was invaded by Poland, and Novgorod by Sweden.
In this situation, the Ryazan nobles, led by the already known to us Prokopiy Lyapunov and his brother Zakhar, who forced Shuisky to abdicate the throne, again proved themselves. Realizing the insufficiency of their forces, the Lyapunovs tried to unite with the Cossacks. But even if in the 19th century the nobility and the Cossacks were different sub-ethnoses of the same Great Russian ethnos, in the 17th century, when the passionarity of the nobility and the Cossacks was much higher, they represented two different peoples of Russia. And because they were different ethnic groups, they had different stereotypes of behavior. And when Cossacks invited Prokopiy Lyapunov to negotiate in their Cossack circle, he calmly went there, considering himself an untouchable person. However, faced with Lyapunov's intransigence, the Cossacks cut him down with sabers, as they saw in him a potential threat to their Cossack freedom. After Lyapunov's death the Ryazan militia dispersed. The first attempt to unite Russian forces against the invaders was unsuccessful.
В. P. Vereshchagin. Siege of the Trinity Sergius Lavra during the Time of Troubles
П. P. Chistyakov. Patriarch Hermogenes refuses the Poles to sign the charter Saviors of the Fatherland
Less affected by the Troubles was the northeastern outskirts of Russia, gravitating toward Nizhny Novgorod. Since more passionate people survived there, the saviors of Russia came from there: Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kozma Minin. Kozma Minin, by nickname Sukhoruk, was the usual merchant from Nizhniy Novgorod, and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky - the professional military man participating in all wars of Vague time.
Everyone knows that Minin and Pozharsky saved Russia, but few know what they had to do to do it. Indeed, Minin and Pozharsky were ardent supporters of the national uprising against the Poles and Swedes. The assembled Zemsky Sobor unanimously adopted the decision proposed by Minin and Pozharsky, the essence of which was that the Fatherland must be saved. To save it they needed only two things: the people in the army and the money to organize the campaign. There were enough people, and the residents of the rich Nizhny Novgorod had money. It would seem that all that was left to do was to raise funds and form regiments, but it was not so easy. When the residents of Nizhny Novgorod were asked to distribute the funds among the population, they said, "We don't have any money. One swore that his goods had gone to the Caspian Sea, another swore that his treasury was in Arkhangelsk, a third's clerks had gone to Siberia - and no money was given.
Then Kozma Minin, perfectly aware of his fellow citizens, threw out his famous cry: "Let us pawn our wives and children, but let us save the Russian land!" And again no one was against it. And if so, then Minin and his elected people took by force and put up for sale the wives and children of all the wealthy citizens of the city as serfs. The heads of the families had no choice but to go to the vegetable gardens, dig up the stash of money, and buy back their own families. Thus, Mother Russia was saved.
Here we shall digress and, using the example cited, say a few words about the mechanism of the "work" of passionarity in the general process of ethnogenesis. We should not think that a passionary person necessarily stands on the high rungs of the social hierarchy and his name remains in history. The same elected people who supported Kozma Minin were Passionists. But we do not know the names of many of them, because they were not "leaders of the masses," but part of the people; they did not lead, but rather "swayed" people, pushing them into action. It is such nameless passionaries that represent the most important element in ethnogenesis. Acting not so much by force as by personal example, by inspiration rather than by subjugation, they reveal new stereotypes of behavior and induce the mass of people to do a perfectly necessary, urgent job.
А. Novoskoltsev. The Death of Patriarch Hermogenes
Kozma Minin
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky
It was these nameless passionaries who made their compatriots forget their laziness and toil, and who ensured their lives, their families, and their posterity. Their actions were often brutal rather than harsh, but one cannot explain to anyone that it was in their best interest for Russia to exist as an independent state, and not to be transformed into a colony of Poland and Sweden. Discussions are long, costly, and futile: one cannot argue with everyone. Besides, it is always preferable not to argue but to act. But one can act only when the passivity of the system starts to fall after reaching its maximum, which allows one to organize people somehow.
The same supporters of Minin and Pozharsky each had their own opinion, but said: "All right, Kozma, you know better than we do, and if Prince Dmitry leads us, so we will go", took their antlers and went against the Poles. Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky succeeded in his mission: he led the militia near Moscow, besieged the Kremlin, because Moscow itself had already been burned, took Kitay-gorod by storm, and forced the Poles to surrender, despite the fact that Hetman Khodkevich – a good commander, a veteran of the Turkish War - tried to send help to the Poles sitting in the Kremlin.
After the victory of the Second Militia, which came to Moscow already stripped of all the traditions from the oprichnina and all the people who were in one way or another associated with the oprichnina, the situation was rather difficult. The representatives of the national party defeated the foreign invaders - the Poles and Swedes - relying on the combined forces of the noble militia, led by Minin and Pozharsky, and the Cossack army, led by Prince Dmitry Timofeyevich Trubetskoy. However, there was a split among the Cossacks, because part of the Cossacks retained the traditions of the anti-system, which once supported the Tushinsky thief. The head of these Cossacks became ataman Ivan Martynovich Zarutskiy, who married Marina Mnishek (Polish) after the death of her husband - False Dmitri II. Zarutsky's ties with figures of the Time of Troubles were very strong, which is why he and his Cossacks found themselves in isolation. Left without any support and being well aware of the situation, the ataman retreated to the Don, but the Don did not support him either. Zarutskiy had no choice but to retreat even farther, to the very outskirts of the Russian land of that time - to Astrakhan.
А. D. Kivshenko. Proclamation of Kozma Minin to the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod. Citizens bring donations to the square
Scheme for the liberation of Moscow
Zarutsky occupied Astrakhan and began to hatch a plan to create a separate independent state. But as soon as the Astrakhan people saw who they were dealing with, they began to beat the Cossacks and besieged Zarutsky himself in the Astrakhan Kremlin. In the meantime, Moscow troops approached Astrakhan and were greeted by the population with delight and jubilation. Zarutsky, together with Marina and her son, nicknamed "vorenko", fled to Yaik, but on the way they were caught and brought to Moscow. The son was hanged, Marina died in prison under unknown circumstances, and Zarutsky himself was burned on a stake.
Э. E. Lissner. Expulsion of Polish interventionists from the Moscow Kremlin
The execution of Zarutsky and his family was the last bloody episode of the Time of Troubles, but the war with Poland continued. The Polish king Sigismund, who had initiated it, had already died by then, and the Poles had chosen his son, the failed "Moscow tsar," Vladislav, to the throne. Most Polish magnates and nobles believed that they had no need for war with Moscow and flatly refused to give the king men or money. Using the crown's modest resources Vladislav managed to recruit a small number of German raiders, marched to Moscow with them and was defeated. Under the Truce of Deulinsky in 1618 the Poles retreated, leaving behind the Russian cities of Smolensk and Chernigov, as well as Zaporozhye (previously Zaporozhye Cossacks fought in the Polish army). The Swedes cleared out of Novgorod, but retained the mouth of the Neva River and the entire coast of the Gulf of Finland, reliably closing Russia's access to the Baltic Sea.
Thus, the Time of Troubles came to an end, and its outcome for Russia was dramatically disappointing: the country's European territory shrank considerably.
Organization
After the expulsion of the foreigners and the end of the Time of Troubles, the most urgent issue for the Russian people was the restoration of their statehood - the election of a new tsar. In the passionate people of the acmatic phase, the principle of personal responsibility was very highly valued. People of that time believed (and not without reason) that for confidence in the future it was not enough to have a faceless government, and one sovereign, who would be a symbol of power and to whom one could address as a person, was needed. Therefore, the election of a new tsar concerned everyone and everywhere.
The winners - the Cossack and noble militia - for a long time could not agree: all candidates were rejected. Dmitry Trubetskoy was not wanted by the nobility to be on the throne, because although he was a prince, he commanded the Cossacks. Prince Dmitry Pozharsky was not wanted as sovereign by the Cossacks, for he was the leader of the nobility's militia. But there was another candidate - the quiet and utterly colorless man, the sixteen-year-old Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov. Mikhail's father, Feodor Nikitich Romanov, intrigued in his time against Boris Godunov and was tonsured a monk (under the name of Filaret). On behalf of the Boyar Duma, after August 27, 1610. Moscow kissed the cross of allegiance to Vladislav, Filaret went with an embassy to Sigismund III Vaza, but failed: the Poles arrested him and treated the ambassador rather badly in detention. During the difficult times of the Troubles, Romanov Sr. was associated with the Tushin men, but did not play any prominent role there.
Now it turned out that the Romanov family suited everyone, precisely because it had not proved itself in earlier times and, accordingly, had no support whatsoever. The Cossacks were in favor of Mikhail, since his father, who was a friend of the Tushins, was not an enemy of the Cossacks. The boyars remembered that the pretender's father came from a noble boyar family and was also related to Feodor Ivanovich, the last tsar of the family of Ivan Kalita. Hierarchs of the Church spoke out in support of Romanov, since his father was a monk, and in the rank of metropolitan. And for the nobility Romanovs were good as opponents of oprichnina. So, everyone agreed on a "neutral" and quiet tsar.
К. V. Lebedev. Inokina Martha blesses Mikhail Fedorovich for the throne
Only one mother of the young Mikhail Fyodorovich, the nun Martha, spoke out against it. Knowing history, this woman would not allow her son to be enthroned, saying that it was a troublesome affair, and that she did not want her son to be killed, like Otrepiev and the Tushinsky thief. But since everyone promised to "take care of the sovereign", she had no choice but to become the mother of the Moscow tsar. The future "great sovereign", however, sat in Kostroma and knew nothing: the fate of the young man had been decided without his participation. In February 1613, the people on Red Square named Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov their sovereign. (16 years old)
А. D. Kivshenko. Election of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov: Moscow ambassadors beg him at the Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatiev Monastery to accept the crown.
Patriarch Filaret. Titularnik, 1672. (father)
Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov
The choice was extremely fortunate, for, having reigned from 1613 to 1645, Mikhail Fedorovich himself did nothing. Initially, the work of organizing the state was done by zemsky councils. Zemsky Sobors were composed of elected representatives of practically all estates. Thus, our ancestors gathered the most respected and thoughtful part of the country's population, and solved vital issues with their help: economic, military, and diplomatic. Later, a permanent government was established, the state was put in relative order, and there was no need for zemsky councils. Their functions were successfully performed by the then state apparatus - the Prikaz (office), where clerks served.
The internal political situation during the reign of Mikhail Romanov remained stable. Over thirty years of his reign there was only one serious protest of the peasants (1615), when 20 thousand people came to Moscow and presented a very original claim. The rebels by no means wanted to overthrow the government, they only did not want... to be peasants and asked to be enlisted for military service. The demand made sense, since military service was paid for. But since the government had enough troops and no extra money, the rebels were dispersed, their leaders were seized and told to live at home, without bothering the authorities with unauthorized initiatives. Such an episode, rather ridiculous from our point of view, is quite typical for the beginning of the 17th century and reflects the high level of passionarity of the population.
In the first quarter of the 17th century the gene pool of the Russian super-ethnos began to compensate for the damage that all the troubles of the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century had caused to the Russian passionarity. In the 20s of the 17th century the Russian passionaries didn't want to dig in the ground, just as their forefathers had done a century before; they aspired to live on the borders, fight for the Orthodox Faith or defend any political interests, if only to find some use for their surplus energy. This parallel is well explained in terms of the general theory of ethnogenesis.
The period from the death of Ivan III in 1505 to the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Romanov in 1613 is the first peak of passionarity in the acmatic phase, with a rise in passionarity in the first half of this period, and then a decline. A new rise was outlined only in the 20s of the 17th Century, and, naturally, was similar to the same rise of passionarity of the acmatic phase of the early 16th century. Therefore, the Time of Troubles, from the ethnogenesis point of view, is not accidental, and the blood that was shed, the fires that were burning our land were the consequences of passionarial depression after the overheating of the mid 16th century. It was also natural for the people to want to get rid of the anti-system which slowly made its way to us from the West during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
А. P. Ryabushkin. Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich and the Boyars in his Tsar Room
The map of the political reorganization of Europe after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).
The decline in passionarity and its rise had a very different impact not only on the political balance of power in the country, but also on the state of its natural resources. Ivan the Terrible, a kind of "Westerner", who at one time was even going to flee to England, graciously received the English sailor Richard Chancellor in the middle of the 16th century, who opened the way to Arkhangelsk through the White Sea. Later, Ivan the Terrible granted the English extremely profitable concessions to export to Western Europe hemp for ropes, timber, furs, salmon, and other goods. In fact, the English used these concessions to the detriment of our country. Russian merchants were terribly displeased, but, of course, there was no way to challenge Ivan the Terrible's decisions.
In addition, the oprichnina recruited a large number of "foreign specialists" - Germans, Swedes and Livonians - who were eager to get a place, naturally, in order to return home with money. Both the realization of concessions and the payment of "specialists" were at the expense of the country's resources, which were not controlled in any way. Therefore, the period of declining passionarity in the acmatic phase on the natural resources was reflected very, very unfavorably. Fortunately, technology in the 16th century was not developed to the extent that predatory exploitation of natural resources for 50 years could not lead to their complete exhaustion, and didn’t became impossible to live on the land. Nature was then even stronger than technology and was able to restore both landscape and resources fairly quickly.
When the decline of passionarity gave way to an upswing, the Russian ethnos demonstrated a completely different attitude to nature in his native country. In contrast to Ivan the Terrible and the surrounding impostors, the government under Mikhail Romanov imposed strict restrictions on foreign merchants, imposed rather heavy taxes on them, and renegotiated all the former bondage treaties. In foreign trade the Russian state began to unconditionally focus on the interests of its own, Russian merchants. And when foreigners expressed a desire to travel through Russia to Persia to compete with the Russians trading with the Middle and Near East, the government strictly forbade such trips. Note that this tradition was maintained in Russia during the whole period of the rise of passionarity in the acmatic phase - up to the beginning of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich.
Let us limit ourselves to one example. The Thirty Years' War between Protestants and Catholics was raging in Europe. Begun in 1618 by a Czech revolt against the Austrian government, the war lasted until 1648. England, of course, took part in it on the side of the Protestants. But in England, moreover, there was a revolution started by the king against Parliament. It is commonly thought that revolutions are made by parliament against the king, but in England it was just the opposite. Since the 13th century the English parliament determined the budget of the country, and the king demanded the possibility of uncontrolled control of the state treasury. Parliament not only refused him, but also executed the royal supporters who supported the monarch in his desire to become the autocrat. In response, the king rebelled against Parliament, the lawful authority of his own country. The rebellion was crushed in 1648, and in 1649 the king was executed and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell came to power. Cromwell then dispersed Parliament and took all power into his own hands.
It was at this time, in 1650, that the trade treaty between England and Russia, one of the few concluded during the time of Ivan the Terrible, came to an end. When the English ambassadors came to Moscow and asked Alexey Mikhailovich's government to renew the contract for another term, they were answered on behalf of the tsar: "As soon as the English Germans had killed their king Carolus, the Great Tsar of Moscow and All Russia commanded that the English Germans would not be allowed on Russian soil". A harsh terms of the trade agreement was signed not with the British, but with the Dutch.
Thus, during the rise of passionarity in the acmatic phase the export of Russian resources abroad was strictly limited, and thus regulated the pressure on the landshafts of the country. Nature was indeed able to rest in this period.
The only territorial acquisition of the first Romanovs was the land of the Don Cossacks. The Cossacks in the post-Smouth period directed their efforts at plundering the Crimea and Northern Anatolia in Turkey. The Turkish government, in order to avoid raids by Cossack flotillas, built the fortress of Azov in the lower reaches of the Don. The Azov embarrassed the Cossacks, but in 1637 they took the fortress and opened access to the Black Sea. In 1641, Sultan Ibrahim moved a huge army under the walls of Azov. The Cossacks withstood a long siege, asked for help from Moscow and received support. In 1642 the Cossacks still had to leave the fortress, but the significance of the "Azov siege," although it did not end with the annexation of Azov to the Russian state, is that the process of ethnic integration of the Don Cossacks into the Russian super-ethnos intensified. Since then, the Don Cossacks have never supported forces hostile to Russia.
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