Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 1 - Chapter 1 - The genesis of Russia

PART I: Russians, their history, their culture

1. The genesis of Russia
Because my niece, Princess Nina Obolensky, once told me that our family descends from Rurik, the Viking chieftain that grounded Russia some eleven hundred years ago, I knew that I couldn't let my story begin in 1917. I had to go into the history, culture and leitmotivs of the Russian people, and I had to show that Russian history repeats itself over and over again. With the flight of the Russian nobility and numerous artists and scientists, a large part of Russian history and culture went abroad, where some of it - thank God! - lived on. The Communists wanted us - and the people of Russia - to believe that Lenin and Stalin were the founders of Russia. Fortunately we know better than that.
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The state of Russia arose in western Eurasia, where in the 2nd and 3rd century, in a part of the area between the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Lower-Danube, East Slavonian tribes had settled down. The first known inhabitants of the Southern Russian steppes were the Scyths, a nomad tribe. They were formidable archers and horsemen, who appeared in Southern-Russia during the 7th century B.C. In the 6th century B.C. they conquered Armenia and Northern Persia and they even penetrated into Mesopotamia. The Scyths and the Turks also fought the Greeks, who in those days founded colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea. In our culture the Scyths are mainly known for their beautiful ornaments and weapons, decorated with animal motives.
An Alan tribe called themselves the Rukhs, `the Shining', and the notions `Russian' and `Russia' presumably derived from this name. Smaller tribes and family communities often formed alliances, as a result of which common values arose and society started to regulate itself. The Russian words for `justice' (pravda) and `law' (zakon), belong to the oldest of the Slavonian languages and derive from that period.
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The 6th century Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote that originally there was a political democracy, where all public affairs were dealt with in tribe meetings. But at one stage there arose an aristocratic class, which enriched itself with warbooty and prisoners of war, who were used as slaves, to work and fight for the aristocrats. A part of the treasures of these monarchs was excavated in Pereshchepino, in the Poltava province, and can be found in the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg. The Sarmats in the Southern Russian steppes were overrun in the 3rd century, by the Goths, a German tribe, which dropped down the Dnieper and the Don from the north, but towards the end of the 4th century they in turn had to make place for the Huns, a Turkish tribe with a militaristic aristocracy.
Under Atilla the power of the Huns reached a pinnacle. Half-way through the 5th century the center of Atilla's power was in Pannonia, from where he plundered the areas around the Mediterranean, Rome and Byzantium. After Atilla's death in 453 the power of the Huns began to wane, and towards the end of the 9th century Pannonia was occupied by the Magyars. The Huns retreated to the area of Azov, and later called themselves Bulgarians.
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One of my English uncles, the historian Dmitri Obolensky (1918-) - since 1984 Sir Obolensky - wrote about the come and go of tribes and peoples, `The written sources offer us the picture of a perplexed succession of tribes and peoples which wipe each other from the map every two centuries or so.' Sir Dmitri has written 8 books, about the Byzantine Commonwealth, Russian verse, Russian art, Russian architecture, Russian history, Russian language and Russian literature.
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Northern Russia
In those days the forests on both sides of the Urals were populated by Finnish-Uigurian tribes. The Fins formed the northern, while the Magyars formed the southern tribe. The Fins lived close to the forests and lakes and were a people of hunters and fishermen; they used fur as a circulating medium. Their organization was not developed in such a way that they could stop the Slavonian colonization to the north. They retreated more and more; the stragglers mixed with the Slavonian colonists.
In North Western Russia, in the basins of the western Dvina and the Niemen, lived Lithuanian and Baltic tribes. This area originally also consisted mainly of forests, but the population soon began to cultivate areas on behalf of arable farming. The Khazars were a Turkish tribe of nomads. During the Turkish migration and colonization, in the beginning of the 5th century, they penetrated the steppes between Lake Aral and the Caspian Sea, and half-way through the 5th century they settled in the Lower-Volga area. In the 6th and 7th century the Vikings - Danes, Jutlanders, Norwegians and Swedes - had surveyed the eastern coasts of the Baltic. Subsequently they sailed the Dvina, and finally they reached the basin of the Upper-Volga and the Oka. Towards the end of the 7th century they settled in the neighborhood of Yaroslavl, Rostov and Suzdal, where they shared the power over the native Finnish tribes with Slavonian colonists from Novgorod and Smolensk. About 750 the Swedish Vikings reached Southern-Russia, where they gradually acquired the Slavonian language and culture and started to call themselves `Russians'. Subsequently they crossed the Strait of Kerch, and reached the Taman-peninsula, by which they deeply had penetrated the territory of the Khazars. At first the Swedish-Slavonian Russians recognized the power of the Khazar kagan, but about 825 they discovered that the power of the Khazars was considerable weakened by a new offensive of the Arabs, so their leader defied the power of the Khazars and settled in the Taman-peninsula, where he adopted the title of `Russian kagan'.
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The coming of Rurik
The Khazars and the Volga-Bulgarians internationally traded in expensive furs, but the Russian kaganate soon proved to be a formidable competitor, as a result of which the Russian economy developed. The Khazars and Volga-Bulgarians were beaten out of the field.
The Khazars didn't want to put up with that, and they started a war against the Russians, who in turn levied a strong expeditionary force from the north, to reopen commercial traffic. That was the only way to avoid an economical crisis. When the Russian-Slavonian-Swedish soldiers were in the imminent danger to be worsted by the Khazars, the Russian kagan decided to call in the assistance of `the Variags (wanderers) from oversea', and in 856 Rurik came to Novgorod. He was a famous Viking chieftain, adventurer and pirate, who in those days, as a vassal of Emperor Lothar, ruled over Southern-Jutland and Friesland. He is regarded the founder of Russia and the progenitor of the first Russian dynasty of tsars, which reigned until 1598, first from Kiev, later from Moscow. Forty-two old aristocratic Russian families (like Dolgorouky, Obolensky, Sviatopolk-Mirsky, Lvov and Volkonsky) directly descend from Rurik, who in turn was a scion of the Jutland lineage of Skjoldung. He restored order in Northern Russia and made sure that he had a firm seat, but he wasn't interested in the expansion of his territory to the South, like the Russians had hoped. Rurik's men reached Kiev in 858, allied themselves with the Magyars and joined the Russian kaganate of the Taman-peninsula. From there Constantinopel was attacked, in June 860, because the Russians thought that they, after having beaten the Khazars, could occupy the Byzantine empire without a blow. Unfortunately, this turned into a disappointment, and they had to beat a hasty retreat. However, the Byzantine patriarch Photios used this opportunity to send missionaries after the retreating Russians. Christianity came to Russia in two ways: Russian merchants and military men told about it when they returned from Constantinopel, and Greek missionaries spread the gospel. But in those days there were also Christians among the Variags (Vikings) who served in the druzhina (army) of the monarchs. In Kiev they built the St.-Elias church. In his encyclical of 867 to the Eastern patriarchs the patriarch of Constantinopel, Photios (820-895), mentioned that the evangelization of the Russians was thriving. He even had sent a bishop to Khersonesos, a Greek city in the Crimea peninsula.
Rurik died in 879. His successor Oleg paid more attention to the South, and occupied Kiev with his troops. In Kiev sprung up a fierce battle between the Swedish Russians and the Norwegian Russians, and after Oleg had killed the leaders of the Swedish Russians, he proclaimed himself ruler of Kiev, as a result of which a new state arose, the so called Kievian Russia. Until 911 the Kievian monarchs have repeatedly but in vain tried to capture Constantinopel. It is lamentable, but the Russians were fascinated by the pomp and circumstance of the Byzantine empire, and their passion for expansion was also beamed on the Byzantine treasures. In 911 Rurik's successor Oleg was forced to conclude a treaty with the Byzantine empire. In 944 Igor I (912-945), Grand Duke of Kiev and Rurik's son, entered into a treaty with the Greek. Byzantine envoys came to Kiev to let the monarch and his druzhina vow that they would comply with the treaty. The Christians were sworn in in the St.-Elias church, but the heathens did so before the image of their thunder god Perun. Most Christian communities could be found in the areas around the Black Sea, where the Byzantine influences obviously were strongest, but also in more northern parts Christian enclaves were founded. The Christian community of Kiev, including the Obolensky's, intended to convert entire Russia to Christianity. One of the first who volunteered was Olga, the widow of Igor I, who reigned over Kiev in the name of her minor son Sviatoslav. In 957 Olga went to Constantinopel, where she was welcomed by emperor Constantin VII Porphyrogenetos (905-959), a very wise man, who let the virtual rule to his fellow-emperor and father-in-law Romanos I. This visit was described in Constantin's book De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae. Later Olga was canonized by the Russian-Orthodox Church. .
Olga's son Sviatoslav, a very dynamical and resourceful man, who during his reign (964-972) mainly amused himself with campaigns, expanded the territory of the state of Kiev. Sviatoslav knew the history of the Khazars, and when he heard that there were still Russian tribes which had to hand over contributions to the Khazars, he decided to put a halt to it. In 965 there was nothing left of their empire, and their most important cities, Sarkel on the Don and Itil on the Volga, were captured by Sviatoslav. With the help of the emperor of Byzantium he conquered the Bulgarians at the Danube, to settle down in the town of Pereyaslavets, on the lower course of the Danube. `Here I want to live,' he said, `here lies the heart of my empire. Here one can become all the good things in life: gold, cloth, wines and fruits from Greece, silver and horses from the Czechs and Hungarians, and fur, wax, honey and slaves from Russia.' Sviatoslav was succeeded by Vladimir, who let himself being baptized in 988, and who ordered the whole Russian people to convert to Orthodoxy. All citizens were brutally driven into the Dniepr and the Pochayna and massively baptized by Orthodox clergymen. Although the Christianizing in general met with little resistance, there was a rebellion in Novgorod, which was put down brutally. Vladimir was succeeded by Yaroslav the Wise. Yaroslav died in 1054, and after that Russia became divided into principalities, ruled by his sons. Every time a royal house expanded, their principalities were divided into smaller pieces. The death of every monarch of Kiev met with a shift of monarchs, because being monarch of Kiev meant the highest honour, which usually fell to the eldest relative. Principality was a real family business, in which however the veche (urban assembly) could pull a string or two. Autocracy was out of the question. Whenever a monarch wasn't satisfactory, the veche sent for another. Many monarchs tried to enforce their power by means of marriages and treaties. By allying themselves with other European royal houses they tried to expand their influence and territory, but in the 10th century the Kievian state disintegrated, and half-way through the 12th century several more or less independent principalities saw the light: Galicia in the west, Novgorod in the north, Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east and Kiev in the south. Kiev was no longer the cultural center of Russia.
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The Germans and Greeks bring the gospel
In those days the Germans appeared at the mouth of the western Dvina. Their relationship with the population of that area, Latvians and Lithuanians, was highly peaceful. Most German colonists were traders or missionaries. In 1200 bishop Albert founded the city of Riga, and he tried to convert the autochtonous population to Christianity. As this didn't quite work out the way he had planned, he sent for soldiers, to enforce the words of the missionaries. A new order of knighthood was founded. Now that the crusades to the Holy Land had not resulted in convertion of the Muslims, converts had to be made elsewhere. Bishop Albert's Knights of the Sword wore white capes with red crosses, and expanded their power quickly, east of Riga in the direction of Pskov and Polotsk. In 1224 Estonia was captured. With the arrival of Christianity Russian society underwent substantial changes. Human sacrifices and blood feud had to make place for charity, leniency and care for the weak. Byzantium sent metropolitans (archbishops) to Kiev, and let Russian monarchs marry Byzantine princesses, to ensure themselves of unions with Russia. The mother of Vladimir Monomach, Grand Duke of Kiev from 1113 to 1125, was such a Byzantine princess. Ecclesiastical Russia was subsidiary to the patriarch of Constantinopel, as a result of which the Russian people got the impression that Russia was also subsidiary to the emperor of Byzantium in political respect. The Byzantine bishops, who weren't unfamiliar with politics, stimulated this, and preached that the power of the monarchs was divine and that every resistance against the monarch was considered a mortal sin. Because this way the power of the monarch increased, he didn't bother to argue with the bishops. Russia became a metropoly of the patriarchy of Constantinopel, headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev - usually a Greek. The Metropolitan was appointed by the patriarch of Constantinopel, and there was no way the monarch could influence the appointment. The power of the Greek and the loss of prestige of the Russian monarch in relation to his people resulted in an increasing deterioration of the relationship with Constantinopel. The area between the Niemen and the Weichsel was controlled by other Germans, the knights of the Livonian Order, who wore black capes with white crosses. On request of a Polish monarch they had come to the Baltic, to protect him against the Prussians, a Lithuanian tribe. The Livonian Order conquered the Prussians and founded a new German state, which later was called Prussia.
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The monarch and his boyars
In the pre-Tatar era the Russian principalities knew royal, aristocratical and democratical administrations, but in old Russia the monarch wasn't an autocratical ruler. His main tasks were to defend the city against enemies from outside, and to appoint judges. The monarch himself was the supreme judge.
The aristocratic element was formed by the council, which was empaneled by high military officers out of royal circles and other aristocrats, which usually were called boyars. The boyars had no obligations whatsoever towards the monarch. They possessed their land and real estate in hereditary tenure, and even when they were engaged by another monarch, this right could not be forfacted. The democratic element was the veche, which consisted of all adult free men of the population. The veches of the smaller towns were subsidiary to the one of the capital. In South-Western Russia, in the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia, the council of boyars ruled political life. If the monarch didn't want to fight the boyars, he had to submit to them. In other parts of Russia also conflicts raised between the monarch and the boyars, but in general there was close co- operation, because this was in the interest of both parties. They were however always beware of their interdependence, and now and then this resulted in conflicts, which sometimes ended in a struggle for power.
In Kievian society there were no impassable borders between the several free population groups; there were no hereditary castes or classes, and social mobility was high. Sure, there were social classes, and the boyars and other landed gentry formed the social upper layer, but it wasn't impossible to move up the social ranks. Half and full slaves There were two forms of slavery in Kievian Russia, which remind us of ancient Greece: temporary and permanent slavery; the latter form was hereditary and also was called `full slavery'. The temporary slaves were usually prisoners of war. After a war was terminated they had to pay a ransom, and when they weren't able to do so, they had to pay off the ransom by labour. Full slaves were regarded possession of their owner and could be bought and sold. Some full slaves served in the household of their masters, but most of them worked in the fields. One or two were able to develop their positions in such a way that they could buy themselves free. Conversely a free man who could not maintain himself in such a way, could sell himself as a slave, but the consequence of that action was that he lost his citizen's rights. More often people leant money and payd off the debt and interest by working for the creditor. That made him `half-free', as if he were a contract labourer. After a certain period, which was agreed in advance, he got back his citizen's rights, but as soon as he took off untimely, he was regarded a fugitive, and once he was caught he became a full slave.
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Russia in the Tatar period
Russia was occupied by the Tatars (Mongols) for two centuries , but towards the end of this period Moscow became a semi-autonomous state. The biggest enemy was no longer the Golden Horde, but the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In 1385 a treaty between Lithuania and Poland was signed. Grand Duke Yagailo of Lithuania married the Queen of Poland and was made King of Poland. In the treaty the principality of Lithuania was absorbed by the Polish kingdom, but both countries remained sovereign states. In 1393 Yagailo's cousin Vitovt was made Grand Duke of Lithuania, and soon he became the most powerful ruler of Eastern-Europe.
In Kievian Russia the boyars under the Tatars remained the helpers of the monarch, but they didn't become any constitutional rights. Sure, the monarch was completely subsidiary to the Khan, but this way he was also protected against the boyars' political demands. The boyars were however still free to go from one monarch to another, without having to fear that they lost their inherited estates this way.
All that changed as the Grand Duke of Moscow became the ruler of Russia in name of the Khan. If the boyars left the Grand Duke to offer their services to another monarch, he wouldn't thank them for that, especially in times of war or conflicts between the monarchs. It often happened that the estates of a boyar who was regarded a traitor by the Grand Duke, were forfeitured, and sometimes the boyars were even executed for their lack of loyalty. In the first century of Tatar rule the power of the Grand Duke was limited by the Khan. The monarch was allowed to keep a retinue, but the Tatars controlled and ruled the army. The monarch stayed the supreme judge, but that was the limit of his power. In fact he was a bailiff of the Khan. That's why he was able to spend more time with the administration of his estates, and that's how his court became the center of government, while his servants, the lower nobility, became his most important advisors and executors of his policy. Subsequently the Khan ordered his Russian vassal to collect his taxes, which increased the power of the Grand Duke, and when Grand Duke Dmitri Donskoy became an autonomous ruler, he was allowed to use the administrative and military apparatus that the Tatars established in Russia. That's why had he much more power than his predecessors in the pre-Tatar period ever had. The Russian autocracy was born.
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Ivan the Great settles the Moscovian empire
After the Tatar oppression Moscovia remained the dominating Russian state and the power of the Grand Duke increased even more. Under Ivan III's administration (1462-1505) Moscow became an internationally known principality. He was a visionary and prudent ruler, who introduced the system of the military fief (pomyestye) and sided with both the Russian monarchs and the boyars. He married a Byzantine princess, by which he gained prestige from both Western and Eastern monarchs, which in turn made it possible for him to establish diplomatic relations. He hired Italian artists, who embellished the Kremlin with beautiful palaces and churches, and he modernised the Russian artillery. Moscow became an imposing international city, the beautiful capital of a promising empire.
Ivan's Byzantine marriage (1472) was set up by the pope, who hoped Russia would become Roman-Catholic this way. He also thought that Ivan would help him with his battle against the Ottoman Turks. But both aims weren't realized, and the only one who gained by the marriage was Ivan himself. His bride, Sofia Paleologos (his second wife), was a cousin of the last emperor of Byzantium, and although she was raised a Roman-Catholic, she let herself being converted a Russian-Orthodox. The Greeks and Italians, who accompanied her to Moscow, brought the traditions of the Byzantine pomp and circumstance with them to the Moscovian court and the Byzantine two-headed eagle, later the coat of arms of the Romanoffs, appeared on the seal of the state of Moscow. The envoy of the pope, who travelled with Sofia to pave the way for all the pope's plans, was outrageous.
In Novgorod, which now was administrated by Moscow, the relation between the boyars and the ordinary citizens deteriorated, which in 1475 led to serious disturbances. As a result of this hereditary landownership was abolished; land possession became conditional, as a favour of the Grand Duke for proven or yet to prove services. This rather enforced the power of the Grand Duke, but the power of regional monarchs and the boyars was controlled even more. Moscow annexed one principality after the other, and let the regional monarchs choose between emigration to Lithuania or to work for the Grand Duke of Moscow. Only a few monarchs wished to move to Lithuania; most monarchs chose for Moscow, where they became the upper layer of the boyars and held the upper positions in the Moscovian army and administration. A complicated coordination system was created, according to which the genealogical seniority of boyar lineages and individual boyars was settled. The autocratic Grand Duke reigned by means of an aristocratical administration. The foundation of tsardom was layd.
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Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV, the Terrible, was a psychopath, due to his unhappy childhood. His father died in 1533, when little Ivan was only three years old. Elena Glinskaya, his mother, reigned in his name until 1539, together with the duma of boyars. All those years there were frictions, not just between her and the boyars, but also between the boyars themselves. In 1539 she also died; most likely she was poisoned by her aristocratic enemies. The council of boyars reigned autonomous, until Ivan in 1547 was crowned Tsar. Young Ivan didn't have any reason not to be paranoid, and justifiably feared for his life. He hated the arrogance of the high placed boyars at his court. At official occasions, like receptions for foreign ambassadors, they behaved like slaves, while in daily life they didn't hesitate to steal jewellery and art from the palace. In 1547, after Ivan IV was crowned Tsar, he married Anastasia Romanoff, who belonged to an old boyar lineage. André Ivanovich Kobyla, a Russian émigré who was a successful merchant in Prussia, was the progenitor of the Moscovian lineage of Romanoff. Contrary to the Obolensky's, the Dolgorouky's, the Bariatinsky's and others, and contrary to what many historians want us to believe, the Romanoffs of the 14th century didn't belong to the high Russian aristocracy. Only after Kobyla's great-great-granddaughter Anastasia married Tsar Ivan the Terrible, by which the Romanoffs connected their lineage with the old dynasty of the Moscovian tsars, the name of the lineage raised in prestige. Under Ivan IV's administration a new office was created, the zemsky sobor (national assembly), which in 1550 gathered for the first time. The zemsky sobor had two Houses: The House of Lords consisted of the duma of boyars, the council of bishops and the high officials of the empire; the House of Commons consisted of the representatives of the lower nobility and merchants. The House of Commons had to counterbalance the biased influence of the boyars in state affairs. Ivan felt betrayed by the boyars, and many of them were thrown in prison or executed. The practice that boyars were free to serve the monarch of their choice was still normal, but in Ivan's eyes those boyars were traitors, and he didn't have any mercy on them. After he retreated in Alexandrov in December 1564, about forty miles east of Moscow, he sent a message to the people of Moscow, in which he announced that he wished to abdicate, because he could not trust the boyars. His plan worked out perfectly, because shortly after that the disturbing Moscovites sent a delegation, which begged Ivan to remain Tsar. He agreed, providing that the people would grant him absolute power and would allow him to finish off the traitors. This way the oprichnina started, the Reign of Terror of Ivan the Terrible. His new disciples, the oprichniki, wore black garments and called themselves `brothers'. They were members of the lower nobility. He trusted them completely, unlike the boyars, who weren't admitted to the oprichnina, unless they were willing to cut all ties with their class and swear a special oath. Apart from the members of the lower nobility Ivan surrounded himself with about 6,000 Baltic-German prisoners of war and other German adventurers, who amounted as officers in his oprichnina-guards and all were rewarded with confiscated land of the boyars. 350 years later the same stunt was pulled by Lenin. The oprichnina-regime spread to more and more cities and districts, so on the pinnacle of Ivan's Reign of Terror Moscovia was divided in two equally large areas. The oprichnina-regime ruled in the middle and the north of the country while the traditional administration still existed in the provinces in the west and south. This area was called zemshchina (the country). The hereditary estates of the boyars in the oprichnina-areas were all declared forfacted, and the former owners became land in the zemshchina, that is if they weren't executed. This process was accompanied by a lot of cruelty and plundering, but that was what Ivan had in mind, because the boyars had to be ruined and defeated. He personally attended the execution of thousands of boyars. Because at first the citizens weren't affected by the oprichnina, they didn't care about the horrible fate of the boyars. In 1566 300 boyars were received in audience by the Tsar and they asked him to stop the persecutions. They were imprisoned, tortured and executed. Two years later Metropolitan Philip openly disapproved of the oprichnina in his sermons. He was imprisoned and deported to a monastery in the province, where he was strangled by the chief oprichnik. The Reign of Terror lasted 7 years, until in 1572 it became clear to Ivan that his Moscovian state had to expect international reprisals if the terror wouldn't end soon. He dissolved the oprichniki, but most members stayed in the army and the court of the Tsar. He had to step back a little; the boyars Ä the one or two that still were alive Ä were allowed to return to their estates.
Many farmers and peasants, who until than had been free, had escaped the plundering of the oprichnina, to cultivate new arable farmland in the basin of the Mid-Volga. The land they used to cultivate was completely neglected. The hereditary estates of the boyars were serviced much better, because most boyars possessed slaves, who could do the work of the fled farmers and peasants. The possessors of the military fiefs complained that they were ruined by the turnover of peasants, which made Tsar Ivan IV decide to limit the freedom of the farmers and peasants. In 1582 Ivan the Terrible killed his eldest son Ivan in a burst of anger. When Ivan died in 1584, he was succeeded by the weak Feodor, who would be the last Tsar of the Rurik-dynasty.
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The Times of the Troubles
After Ivan the Terrible died, Nikita Romanovich, Anastasia's brother, was appointed patron and councillor of Ivan's son Feodor, the new Tsar, who however was retarded. This Feodor had a halfbrother, Tsarevich Dmitri (the one and only), who was murdered in 1591. Nikita Romanovich' own son also was called Feodor. This Feodor Nikich Romanoff (1560-1633) was very much in favour with the people, and he claimed the tsar's throne, but in 1598, on his deathbed, Feodor Ivanovich stated that his wife Irene had to reign in his place. But Irene wouldn't hear of it and entered a monastery. Now the zemsky sobor had to decide who would become the new Tsar. Feodor Romanoff, who was nominated by the population and boyars of Moscow, lost out to Boris Godunov, the brother in law of the new Tsar Feodor I, who was suspected to be the murderer of Tsarevich Dmitri, and who since 1586 had ruled in Tsar Feodor's name. Boris was chosen Tsar in 1598. Boris saw his rival as a threat and sent Feodor Romanoff to the monastery of Ipatiev, which meant that Romanoff now was divorced of his wife Martha. Martha became a nun, while Feodor Romanoff adopted the name of Philaret. In 1601 Boris ousted the remaining Romanoffs. He produced order out of chaos. He was a very competent statesman and at first it seemed that he could adjust the consequences of Ivan IV's Reign of Terror, but he didn't take the boyars into account, who were determined to restore their old privileges. The boyars begrudged Boris' high position and frustrated his plans in every possible way, because Boris, just like Ivan the Terrible, found the interests of the lower nobility and the merchants more important than those of the boyars. Boris also put the back up of the farmers and peasants, when he decided to continue Ivan's policy of restriction of their freedom.
Most likely no Tsar ever suffered more setbacks than Boris Godunov. His intentions were good, as head of state he was incorruptible and progressive, but everything went the other way he wanted. He wished to bring the technique and education of the West to Russia, established diplomatic relations with other countries, and sent Russian youths abroad to study there. His daughter was engaged to a Danish prince - the tradition was born - but the old chap died before they got married. Famine stroke and all his plans and projects failed. He became the scapegoat of his people and the disturbances cumulated alarmingly. Since 1601 there were three failures of the harvest in a row, while the cities and villages were plundered by Cossacks and bandits. The boyars, who now saw that Boris couldn't cope with the problems, expressed their dissatisfaction and demanded action. Boris reaction was imprisoning them and charge them with treason. The boyars revolted, because Boris, who was a boyar himself, completely ignored the traditional respect of the people for the old Rurik dynasty. They were planning to produce a claimant to the throne from the House of Rurik, and in the absence of a real Rurik they educated one who had to pretend. In 1603 they spread the message that Tsarevich Dmitri had appeared at the court of a Western Russian monarch and subsequently was welcomed royally in the castle of a Polish nobleman, Grigori Mniszek, in Sambor, Galicia. After Boris' death in 1605 his son Feodor II mounted the throne, but with the help of the boyars he was evicted by the first false Dmitri. In the Times of Troubles (1604-1613) there were several uprisings. Two false Dmitri's ascended the throne and a third one tried to. As a result of the dissatisfaction which was caused by this, the Moscovian boyars let Philaret (Feodor Nikich Romanoff) return from exile and elected him Metropolitan of Rostov. But the second false Dmitri captured Philaret and had him thrown into a Polish dungeon. In 1613, after the Poles and the second false Dmitri were chased off, the zemsky sobor (national assembly) was gathered to elect a new Tsar. On February 21, 1613 the national assembly (a delegation of aristocrats, bishops, craftsmen, farmers and merchants, who represented all classes of Russia) unanimous stated that Michael Feodorovich Romanoff (1596-1645), who lived with his mother Martha in the monastery of Ipatiev in Kostroma, should become the new Tsar of Russia. Michael was only sixteen years old, and because his father was still imprisoned in Poland, his mother accepted the throne in name of the minor, on the condition that the zemsky sobor would support the young Tsar at all times. That was the beginning of the Romanoff-dynasty, which would reign over Russia for more than three hundred years.
Boyars and serfs during the early days of the Romanoff-dynasty A new code of law was created, which meant more equal taxes and which gave the landowners the right to fetch back their runaway serfs. Serfdom was now permanently. Particularly the lower nobility and the merchants profited from the new code of law; the boyars-aristocracy and the farmers came off badly. The upper layer of the society was however still formed by the boyars, who held all the high positions in the administration. After them came the Moscovian lower nobility, followed by the nobility of the provinces. The military officers of the bordertroops and the Moscovian Cossacks were promoted in time after which they were admitted into the class of the lower nobility, and most of them became farming landowners.
The boyars never completely recovered from the oprichnina and the Times of Troubles, not even during the Romanoff dynasty. Many old royal lineages became extinct, and the ranks of the boyars were swollen by newcomers from the Moscovian lower nobility. The differences between the high and lower nobility diminished, but the `middle group' which increased became the cornerstone of the tsar's power. More aristocrats meant more possession of land (pomyestye), and because it had become a good habit of the Romanoffs to confirm the rights of a son to his father's feudal estate, towards the end of the 17th century most differences between the rights of the boyars on their hereditary estates and those of the lower nobility on their feuds, were extinguished.
The farmers who lived on the state farmlands were free, but they had the obligation to perform certain duties, to pay taxes and to improve the infrastructure. The farmers who lived on the farmlands of the private landed gentry were serfs, and belonged to the real estate. At first they were still citizens with rights, who were allowed possession, and protection of their personal interests, but in time they became slaves. In the Moscovian period the phenomenon of kabala-slaves (provisional slaves) came into being; they were contract workers, comparable to the half-free slaves of Kievian Russia. A kabala-slave leant money from his master, in exchange for which he worked. Usually he was not capable of paying the principal and he had to stay on the estate until he himself or his master died. When the master died first, the kabala-slave was turned free. Consequently being a master it wasn't very wise to turn your back on a kabala-slave.
Tsar Michael Romanoff, who particularly was popular among the urban population and the Moscovian Cossacks, was an amiable yet somewhat passive young man. After his father Philaret was released from his Polish prison, he was enthroned Patriarch. Philaret became Grand Sovereign, a title which until then was reserved for the Tsar. Philaret, in the mean time he was in his sixties, was the man who in fact ruled over Russia. Tsar Michael stood in awe of his father, just like his courtiers and subjects. Philaret worked close together with the zemsky sobor, but he rejected Western culture and the Roman-Catholic Church. In 1633, the year in which Philaret died, Michael became the actual ruler.
Michael died in 1645. He was succeeded by his son Alexis Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1629-1676), who ascended the throne, just like his father, on his 16th birthday. Alexis was a cheerful, nice young man, who was very proficient at falconry and sympathetic towards the Western culture. However, he preferred to leave the ruling of Russia to his governor, the boyar Boris Morozov. Morozov wasn't very popular, particularly because of the salt taxes he introduced in 1646, and because of his harsh policies, which in 1648 led to an uprising of the population of Moscow. Tsar Alexis, who in the mean time had become 19, was jolted awake by this, and he dismissed his governor, very much against the will of his wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, whose sister was married to Morozov. He gathered the zemsky sobor to deliberate about the grievances of the people, as a result of which he ordered to create a new code of law. In 1649 the code of law was approved by the zemsky sobor, and 2,000 copies were printed.
Maria Miloslavskaya died in 1669 and Alexis' second wife was the pretty, darkhaired Natalia Narishkina (1651-1694), whom he married on February 1, 1671.
The Tsar was ruler of entire Russia, but still his power wasn't absolute. The power of the Church should not be neglected, because the patriarchs often interfered with state matters. Patriarch Nikon (Nikita Minin, 1605-1681) brought about a tempestuous development of the Russian-Orthodox Church. He was born in the district of Nizhni-Novgorod, as a farmer's son. At first he was a village priest, but after the death of his children he became a monk, while his wife entered a nunnery. In 1648 he was enthroned Metropolitan of Novgorod, and in 1652 Patriarch of entire Russia, after he had Tsar Alexis Romanoff and the bishops promise to obey him at all times. Nikon thought that the Russian-Orthodox Church had strayed too much from the Byzantine doctrine of Patriarch Photios, and he wanted to bring the prayer books and rituals back into line with this doctrine. He felt that the Patriarch and the Tsar had to rule the Orthodox society together, and that the Patriarch - `the living image of Christ' - was more important than the Tsar. At one stage Tsar Alexis was fed up with Nikon's patronizing. He freed himself from the authority of the patriarch. Nikon considered this a violation of Alexis' solumn oath. On July 20, 1658 he left, without formally resigning his office of patriarch, to New Jerusalem, the monastery he had built for himself about forty miles west of Moscow. This was followed by a sustained crisis in the ecclesiastic administration, and with the help of the older bishops Tsar Alexis ruled the church for the time being, but in 1666 the council removed Nikon from his office and officially bannished him to New Jerusalem.
The tsars had to reign in co-operation with the duma of boyars. Until halfway the 17th century many decisions were in fact made by the zemsky sobor. The day to day administration was in the hands of the prikazi (departments). Every prikaz had one or more boyars as members. The decision-process found place on basis of consent. The obligations of the nobility towards the Tsar consisted of unlimited military employment. The merchants and artisans were obligated to support the state economically, and the farmers, amongst them the nobility of the provinces, had to deliver recrutes and food for the army, as well as workers and horses for the construction of new cities and factories.
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Peter the Great
Alexis died in 1676 and was succeeded by the fourteen year old Feodor Alexeevich Romanoff (1661- 1682), the eldest son out of his first marriage. Feodor was a nice, well-mannered boy, but he was always ill. During his brief administration Russia conquered the Ukrain, but when he died in April 1682, at the age of twenty-one and childless, an important decision had to be made: who would become the next tsar? The one who should become tsar was Feodor's brother Ivan Alexeevich Romanoff (1666-1696) (Ivan V), an ailing and uninterested fifteen year old kid, who by no means could rule over Russia. But there was a better candidate: his halfbrother Peter Alexeevich Romanoff (1672-1725) was the son of Alexis' second wife, Natalia Narishkina, and although he only was ten years old, many high officials were sure that the strong, intelligent and purposeful Peter would be preferable to Ivan, both for the sake of the dynasty and Russia. Even the Patriarch of Russia shared this opinion, and on the Red Square in Moscow he gathered the people to support his choice. Peter was elected tsar. The ten year old boy could not yet image that there would be a time in which he would be called `Peter the Great'. Ivan Alexeevich couldn't care less that his halfbrother Peter surpassed him, but his elder sister Sophia Alexeevna Romanoff (1657-1704), who was twenty-five, was very ambitious and hoped to rule in Ivan's name. By Peter's appointment her plans were thwarted, and so she tried to depose him with the help of the Miloslavsky Party and the army. In vain though. She was however allowed to be regentess during the time Peter himself wasn't able to rule yet.
Peter I was a remarkably energetic and inquisitive young man. During the regency of his halfsister Sophia he lived in Preobrazhenskoe, a village near Moscow, where he was introduced to Dutch technicians from Nemetskaya Sloboda, the `German suburb' of Moscow. They arose his interest for shipbuilding and navigation, as a result of which he went to study arithmathics and geometry.
In 1689, when he was seventeen, he married Yevdokia Lopuchina. In that year he also heard that Sophia's accomplices planned to commit an assault on his life. That was the limit, and with the help of the Narishkin Party he got rid of Sophia's regency. She was sent to a monastery. Only after his mother, Natalia Narishkina, had died in 1694, Peter I started to rule independently.
In 1697 he left for Western Europe, to get acquainted with modern European technology. He studied naval architecture in England and Holland - in Zaandam he worked as a shipwright at a shipbuilding yard - and established diplomatic relations. He returned to Russia with hundreds of technicians, diplomats, military men, courtiers and artists. In May 1703 he founded the city of St. Petersburg, Russia's new capital. The separation between the Moscovian and the Petersburg nobility was born.
Peter the Great not just regarded the serfs, but also the farmers on the farmlands of the state as predial to the state. The serfs of private landowners didn't have to pay as much taxes, because they also had to earn the bread and butter of their masters. The burden of taxation increased all the time, as a result of which people became more and more dissatisfied. The high circles of the Moscovian aristocracy - the boyars - didn't like it all that Peter the Great didn't judge them on basis of their extraction, but on their personal qualities. They were not use to that. To make matters worse Peter published his `notorious' rank classification, in 1722. The lowest officer's rank, the one of lieutenant, entitled someone to hereditary nobility. The aristocracy-by-birth was replaced by service aristocracy. The Russian-Orthodox Church, which for a long time had been the basis of the Russian state, lost its influence during the 17th century. The church suffered under the administration of Tsar Peter the Great, because in Germany Peter was influenced by Luther's doctrine. He regarded the Byzantine Church a backward and old fashioned institution, and felt that the Russian Church had to be reformed according to the proposition `Cuius regio, eius religio' - the religion of the ruling monarch is the religion of the state. Peter wanted at all costs to prevent the appearance of a second Nikon, and he decided that the ecclesiastic power had to be made subsidiary to the secular authorities. When patriarch Adrian died in 1700, Peter used this opportunity to refuse his permission for the election of a new patriarch. The patriarch's seat stayed vacant and was dissolved some time later.
During the second half of his administration Peter introduced a clerical college, which had to rule the Russian Church. Later this college was called the Holy Synod. The Holy Synod would become the highest ecclesiastical governing body, an official organization which was subsidiary to the Tsar. Peter the Great loved to make a fool of the Russian-Orthodox clergymen, and the officials and aristocrats neither respected the church. Towards the end of the 18th century religion was only regarded of importance for the moral upbringing of the lower classes, just like halfway the 20th century communism was only regarded of importance for the upbringing of the lower classes. Peter the Great died in 1725 and was succeeded by his widow Catharina, but in fact the power came into the hands of the High Secret Council, which consisted of the leading characters of Peter's new nobility, like General Alexander Menshikov, Count Peter Tolstoy and baron André Ostermann. Monarch Dmitri Golitsyn was the only member of the council who belonged to the old aristocracy.
Catharina I died in 1727. Her son, Tsarevich Alexis, was executed way back in 1718, and his son, the new Tsar Peter II, was only twelve years old. Tsarevich Alexis Petrovich Romanoff (1690-1718) was Peter's eldest son out of his first marriage. He married Princess Charlotte von Brunswick-Wolfenb&uum- l;ttel. They had two children: Natalia (1714-1728) and Peter (1715-1730), the later Peter II. Anna Petrovna Romanoff (1708-1728) and Elizabeth Petrovna Romanoff (1709-1761) were two of Peter's daughters out of his second marriage. .
Catharina I was succeeded by Peter's grandson Peter Alexeevich Romanoff (1715-1730) (Peter II), but because he was only twelve years old the High Secret Council kept ruling in his name, for the time being. That's why the old opposition against Peter's reforms arose once more, which forced the Imperial Court to move to Moscow. As a result of this the composition of the High Secret Council was changed dramaticly; the new members of the council all belonged to the old aristocratical families of Golitsyn and Dolgorouky, except for Ostermann. When the young Tsar died in 1730, some days before he would be crowned, the High Secret Council decided to offer the Russian throne to Anna of Kurland, the second daughter of Peter the Great's halfbrother Ivan Alexeevich Romanoff. This Anna Ivanovna Romanoff (1693-1740) was allowed to be Empress of Russia, but the real Imperial power once more came into the hands of the High Secret Council. The officers of the guard however, who came in large numbers to Moscow to celebrate the coronation of Peter II, got wind of the takeover and prevented it.
Tsaritsa Anna had taken her Kurland court with her, as a result of which the Russian nobility at the court had to take quite a few steps back. Leading German courtiers, like Ernst Johann Biron, Duke of Kurland, Ostermann and Field Marshall Burkhard Christoph von Muennich, ruled the roost in future. In 1740, after Anna's death, the just born Ivan VI (1740-1764), the grandson of her sister Catharina, the Duchess of Mecklenburg, was chosen tsar. When the German court was discorded at the end of 1741, one of the guard regiments used the opportunity to launch a palace revolution. The officers of this guard regiment asked Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth to ascend the throne. The eighteen months old Tsar Ivan VI was arrested on January 5, 1742 (some say he resisted his arrest), and in 1764 he was murdered, during the attempt of a reckless officer to liberate him from prison. Elizabeth was mainly supported by the Vorontsovs, the Shuvalovs, the Chernishevs and other families who belonged to the Russian landed gentry, and the German culture at the court had to make place for French, and later also English influences. In the days of Tsaritsa Elizabeth (1741-1762) the large majority of the new boyars consisted of officers of the guards, who wanted to put an end to the unlimited compulsary military service of the nobility. They also wanted to abolish the limitations of the inheritation of aristocratic estates. Elizabeth took the dissatisfaction of the military officers into account and promised them civil and economical privileges, providing that the military officers would support her with the abolishment of the High Secret Council. With that the peace and the autocratical administration were restored.
Elizabeth died on December 25, 1761, with a glass of brandy in her hand. Her successor, Peter Feodorovich Romanoff (1728-1762) (Peter III), would only rule until June 1762. He was a son of Carl Fredrick von Holstein, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and his mother was Anna Petrovna Romanoff, the eldest daughter of Peter the Great and Catharina I. This Carl Peter Ulrich von Holstein, initially tipped to be the future King of Sweden, was baptized in 1742 in the Russian-Orthodox church, at the request of his aunt Elizabeth Petrovna Romanoff, and adopted the name of Peter Feodorovich Romanoff. Once he was Tsar of Russia he robbed the Russian-Orthodox Church of its treasures and he tried to introduce Protestantism to Russia. This caused an officers rise, which was used by Peter's wife, Catharina Alexeevna Romanoff (1729-1796), to ascend the Russian throne as Catharina II (the Great).
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Catharina the Great
Catharina II was born Princess Sophie Auguste Frederike von Anhalt-Zerbst, daughter of Prince Christian August von Anhalt-Zerbst and Princess Joan of Holstein-Gottorp. Some historians however say that she was conceived by King Frederick II of Prussia. On June 29, 1744 she solemnly professed her faith in perfect Russian, after which she became her Russian name. On August 21, 1745 the Archbishop of Kazan celebrated the marriage of Catharina and Peter Feodorovich Romanoff.
The British historian B.H. Sumner stated in his Survey of Russian History (Oxford, 1944) that, starting with Catharina the Great, the Romanoff dynasty wasn't Russian anymore but had become German, since Catharina's both parents were German, and her husband Peter III, the former Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, had a German father and a Russian mother. Sure, all Russian tsars after 1762 married German princesses, but Sumner was wrong of course, because on September 20, 1754 the marriage of Peter III and Catharina II produced Paul Petrovich Romanoff (1754-1801). Officially, that is. When we assume that Peter III was the father of this Paul I, then Sumner would partially have been right. Paul considered himself the son of Catharina and Peter III, but both in her Confession (to Potemkin), written before she married Grigori Potemkin, and in her Memoirs, Catharina stated that not Peter III, but her first lover Serge Saltikov was Paul's natural father. And that unsettles Sumner's contention, because contrary to Peter III, Saltikov was not impotent. Moreover he was one hundred percent Russian, and descended from a very old aristocratic lineage. In April 1762 Catharina gave birth to a second son: Alexis. Because everyone knew that the giant officer Grigori Orlov was the father of this child, Alexis wasn't allowed to use the last name of Romanoff. As Alexis Bobrinsky he would become the progenitor of the families of Bobrinsky and Bobrinskoy.
After Catharina II, the Great, ascended the throne in 1762, she had to deal with a powerful political opposition of the nobility. Her predecessor, Peter III, didn't even rule one year, but that was enough to let him sign a manifesto in which the nobility became the right to decide for themselves how long, if at all, they wanted to serve in the army. Catharina had brought down Peter III, but she had to be careful with the privileges he had granted the nobility, otherwise she also might be confronted by a Council of Aristocrats, like the one of 1730. Peter III, who was an alcohol addict since he was a boy of ten and who was unrecognizable mutilated by smallpox, didn't resist when he was pushed off the throne. He was locked up in Ropsha Castle, where he was strangled by Alexis Orlov, the brother of Catharina's lover Grigori Orlov, on July 18, 1762. The people were told that he died of the gripes of piles, which nobody found surprising.
Catharina rewarded the five brothers Orlov with high positions, and in the mean time she had found another lover, the excellent Russian statesman and compulsive gambler Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin (1739-1791), whom she married secretly in 1774. Alexis Orlov, who would become Catharina's next lover, cut out one of Potemkin's eyes during a duel, and it is said that Potemkin's reaction to that was, `If you do that one more time, I'll never look at you again!'
Catharina partially undid the reforms of Peter the Great, as a result of which the nobility gave up its political resistance and became compensation in the form of high positions in the administration. In 1785 she had the personal and class privileges of the nobility ratified by a special charter. The leaders of the progressive aristocrats however found it necessary to limit serfdom and the privileges of the nobility. But they also knew that this could not be done without the cooperation of the Imperial power, and that's why they proposed to enforce the Imperial power at the same time. With this plan they went to Tsarevich Paul, but he feared that he was due for the same punishment as Tsarevich Alexis Petrovich. This assumption seemed right, because Catharina, who hated her eldest son, was preparing a manifesto in which she excluded Paul I from succession to the throne and in which she appointed her grandson, Paul's eldest son Alexander, as her successor. She wanted to publicize the manifesto on November 24, 1796, but her death, on November 6, 1796, foiled her plans.
The history of Russia not only knows three false Dmitri's, but also a false Peter III. Emelian Ivanovich Pugachov (1730-1775), an illiterate Don-Cossack, stated that he was Peter III, who wasn't killed, but had escaped. His role in Russian history wouldn't have been of any importance, hadn't it been for the fact that his name is still used as a symbol of the false hopes many new Russian leaders arouse. For example: in 1917 the majority of the Russian people called the eloquent bolshevik leader Lenin a `Pugachov', and even today there are Russians who call Boris Yeltsin a `Pugachov'. Me, myself and I are tempted to call Zhirinovsky a `Pugachov'. Just like Lenin Pugachov was responsible for a series of rises, but contrary to Lenin he was cought, brought to Moscow and executed. Pugachov's rise forced Catharina the Great to become reconciled with the nobility. The boyars gave up their political resistance, and in exchange for that they became high positions in the administration and the courts of justice, which were founded in 1775. Apart from that in 1785 the personal and class privileges of the nobility were enforced by a special charter, in which the cities also were granted certain privileges.
Pugachov's rise also made clear that particularly the question of the farmers and serfdom had to be resolved. The leaders of the opposition, which partly consisted of liberal boyars, found it necessary to limit serfdom and the privileges of the nobility.
The new Tsar, Paul I, was an extremely harsh and unbalanced man, maybe because of his unhappy childhood. Five years after he had ascended the throne Paul was murdered in his bedroom, in the night of March 25, 1801, because he antagonized both the nobility and the army. Tsar Paul I had not only four sons, but also five daughters. One of them, Anna Pavlovna Romanoff (1795-1865), married William Frederick George Ludwig (1792-1849), Grand Duke of Luxemburg, Duke of Limburg, Prince of Orange Nassau, who was King of the Netherlands from 1840 to 1849. This William II and Anna Pavlovna had four children: William (III) (1817-1890), Alexander (1818-1848), Henry (1820-1879) and Sophia (1824- 1897). The present Royal House of the Netherlands descends from William and Anna Pavlovna.
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New times
The new tsar was Paul's son Alexander Pavlovich Romanoff (1777-1825) (Alexander I), who was twenty- four years old. Sure, he had permitted that his father would be overthrown, but he never thought that daddy might be killed in the process. When he heard that his father was dead, he became a nervous breakdown, but he came to his senses when his governor, Count Von Pahlen, said to him, `C'est assez faire l'enfant, allez régner!' Alexander I's policies were a relief. Without hesitation he took several liberal actions, like abolishing the department of political police, which under Paul I had become a giant organization, extending amnesty to political prisoners and exiles, abolishing the torturing of criminals and restoring the privileges of the landed gentry and the cities. When he was forty-eight, Alexander I became ill, due to a fever he caught in the Crimea, and on December 1, 1825 he died in Taganrog. Alexander I was succeeded by Nicholas I (1796-1855), and during his administration some military settlements were brought into great prosperity. Schools and hospitals were founded, facilities the average farmer could only dream of. But he also was a cruel tsar, and when he in stead of his older brother Constantin succeeded Alexander I to the throne, there was a rebellion, which later was called the Rise of the Decembrists. Most Decembrists were liberal aristocrats, who fought for the emancipation of farmers and serfs. In 1825 Nicholas sent them to prison and Siberian hard labour camps. Forty years later Nicholas' son, Alexander Nikolaevich Romanoff, Alexander II (1818-1881), announced a general pardon for the Decembrists. He became rather famous by the fact that he abolished serfdom in 1861, but he did so much more: he for instance reinstalled the municipal and regional home rule of the zemstvo's, improved jurisdiction, shortened military service, limited censorship, advocated the improvement of the position of the farmers, and ended the Crimean War. Many historians wrote that Alexander II was the best tsar in Russian history, but his increasing popularity finished him off. The revolutionaries saw with disappointment that the people's demand for a revolution decreased day by day, and due to the fact that in the opinion of some the goal sanctifies all means, the consequences soon made themselves felt: Alexander II became the victim of a bomb attack, as a result of which he died on March 13, 1881.
The murder found place on the day that the Tsar had signed the constitution of his Minister of Home Affairs Michael Loris-Melikov. Loris-Melikov had advised Alexander II to give the people a constitution. He was sure that this would deprive the revolutionaries of the moral support of the liberals and social- revolutionaries. Because of the death of the Tsar this plan was however abolished. If the main goal of the communists would have been improvement of the standard of living of the people, than they should have let Alexander II finish his job. His death served another purpose: the realization of Marx' Verelendungstheorie: the worse the situation becomes, the sooner the people will rise; a people that isn't hungry isn't interested in a revolution, and that's why people have to suffer. It was the duty of every revolutionary to speed up this process. Under Alexander II the power of the nobility waned and democracy developed, but when he was murdered by Vera Figner and her narodniki, his son Alexander III wasn't eager to continue the reforming policy of his father. Alexander III cancelled most of his fathers reforms, and he died in 1894. In that year he was succeeded by his son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, who was murdered by the bolsheviks in 1918.
Serfdom, economy and infrastructure
In the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century the Russian waterways were improved considerable. In 1813 the first Russian steam ship was built in St. Petersburg, but it would still take thirty years before the first steam ships sailed the Volga. In 1817 the first roads were paved, and the first railroad went from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo and was opened in 1838. In 1842 the Russians started to build a railroad between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The first telegraphic connection between Moscow and St. Petersburg was established in 1851. The private landowners had to pay taxes for every serf they possessed. In spite of that the government was not capable of establishing an economy based on a normal wages and price mechanism. To be able to collect taxes a business had to make profit, and making profit depended on cheap labour force Ä serfs that is. During the 18th century about 1,300,000 serfs worked in factories and estates, and between 1700 and 1850 almost half of the Russian economy was based on the labour of serfs, just like today a large part of the Chinese economy is based on the labour of political prisoners. However: only 16% of the nobility possessed more than a hundred serfs and over 30% possessed less than ten serfs. The richest nobleman was Nicholas Sheremetyev, who had 185,610 serfs and about 15,000 square miles of land. Most aristocrats were no financial geniusses. Capital was earned quickly, by fishing, extraction of oil, gold-digging etcetera, and even quicklier spend. When such an enterprising aristocrat suddenly possessed a fortune, then most of the time he proved to be extremely generous: orphanages, hospitals and schools shoot up like mushrooms, while his more businesslike colleagues thought he was insane.
In the 17th century the owners of the pomyestye-estates were mainly military men, but in the 18th century they considered themselves (justifiable) the economical and financial cornerstones of the government, and they also became administrative responsibilities. They stayed however responsible for the delivery of serfs as recrutes for the army. In the 18th century the phenomenon serfdom had changed considerably. Under Peter the Great serfdom had changed into slavery. The farmer was no longer tied to the land, but to his master, who could do with him whatever he pleased, as long as he provided the state with enough serfs. Both legally and fiscally there was no more difference between serfs and slaves, that is: formally slavery did not exist any more, because slaves were the equals of serfs. This however didn't mean that their situation was improved. Half-way through the 18th century the landowners became the right of corporal punishment of their serfs and to send them to Siberia, or to sell them. In 1827 a bill was passed, which said that there had to be sufficient land for the serfs. In 1833 a law was made which forbade the landowner to tear apart a family of serfs. In those days there were two kinds of serfs: the house-serfs, who were part of the household of the landowner, and the farmers. The house-serfs had no rights at all, but the farmers were in a better position. The farmland of an estate usually consisted of the personal fields of the owner, which were worked by the farmers, and the fields of the farmers themselves. The administration of the fields of the farmers was not done individually, but found place in the obshchina or mir (village council), which was presided by a chosen senior spokesman. Such a spokesman of the villages only was chosen if his election was approved of by the landowner. All the individual duties of the serfs were determined by the mir. The farmers in the north of Russia for example had to pay obrok (lease), and in other parts of the country the farmers were obligated to work three days a week on the land of the landowner. The era from 1775 to 1800 was the pinnacle of Russian serfdom, after that the pleads to end this phenomenon found an increasingly larger audience.
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The abolishment of serfdom
In the 19th century there was a revival of ecclesiastical life in Russia. Bishop Tikhon Zadonsky was one of the first Russians who raised his voice against serfdom, and with that he fostered a lot of goodwill from the people and the liberal aristocrats. Alexander I gave all the subjects of the Tsar, with the exception the serfs, the right to possess land. Alexander saw two problems: the demands of the aristocrats and the question of serfdom. The nobility wanted the Senate to become a Council of Aristocrats and the Imperial power limited in favour of the nobility. Trying to kill two birds with one stone, on March 4, 1803 Alexander published an ukase, in which the rules for the liberation of the serfs were set down. Every landowner became the right to free his serfs and the duty to give land to his remaining serfs.
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After the publication only 50,000 serfs were freed. But the aristocrats now knew that Alexander had the possibility to free all serfs, and after that he didn't approve of any political proposal, unless the aristocrats were prepared to meet the wishes of the serfs and farmers. The other way around this principle also worked: when Alexander needed the support of the liberal aristocrats, they only were cooperative if he promised to change the law even more in favour of the serfs and farmers. In particular General Alexis Arakcheev and Grigori Kankrin, the chief intendant of the army, advised Alexander to liberate the serfs and farmers gradually. Arakcheev proposed to set aside five million roubles per year for the purchase of the estates of the nobility, but Alexander realised that the completely abolishment of serfdom would lead to a rise of the landowning nobility. It would not be the first time that an unsuspecting Tsar was killed in his bedroom. Nicholas I saw that the fundamental mistake of the old regime was serfdom, but during his administration he didn't get the chance to abolish the system completely. The economical disadvantages were too big and he thought he couldn't afford this step. In a speech to the nobility in Moscow his successor, Alexander II, stated, `It is better to start reforms from above than to wait until serfdom is abolished from below.' He suited the action to the word and on March 3, 1861 he passed a bill in which serfdom was abolished.
The manifesto clasped the following: the house-serfs had to be freed within a period of two years. They didn't have to pay a ransom, but they also wouldn't receive any money or land. The farmers-serfs not only became their personal freedom, but also land. In those days European Russia had a population of 60 million souls, of which 50 million were working in the fields. 20 million of them were serfs who belonged to the high and lower nobility, less than 20 million were state farmers. 85% of the landowners sold a piece of land to the farmers, but even now the farmer still wasn't his own boss on his own land; he had payd for his land with leant money, and the government found it had the right to see to it that this money was payed back. Farmers communes were formed, which in fact owned the land, and payed off the loans. The communes divided the land among their members. Unless the farmer had money of his own, which rarely was the case, he stayed dependent on the commune. In turn the communes were controlled by special bureaucratic governmental institutions. Surely, the new system had some advantages, but this way no one was able to forget the horrors of serfdom. The new system reminded the people too much of the old one. One of the advantages of the abolishment of serfdom was that the payment in kind (goods and services in exchange for labour) was abolished, as a result of which the circulation of money was set in motion, but in general the reformations of 1861 were little satisfactory. Alexander II learned the farmers how to live in a communist system, in which not the individual but the commune owned the land, but they found it unfair that this system only was enforced on them, and not on the entire Russian population. From this point of view the coming revolutions derived.
When Russian serfdom ended, it would still take four years before the United States abolished slavery. Democratization In 1864 the zemstvo was reformed, as a result of which one could speak of real local self administration of all social classes for the first time. The changes came down to it that every district (uezd) became chosen representatives, who had to administrate the schools, health organizations and infrastructure of the district. According to the electoral law there were three curia's: the private landowners (aristocrats and merchants), the farmers communities and the urban population. The executive committee of a district (uprava) was chosen for three years, by the representatives of all three curia's. The district representatives in turn chose a provincial zemstvo-committee.
Alexander III wasn't a real starry-eyed idealist, but in 1882, a year after he was crowned Tsar, he enacted an ukase in which the landowners were obligated to sell land to the farmers, insofar this still hadn't happened. In 1886 the term payments of the farmers were decreased, and the principal was exonerated. Moreover, the farmers became the opportunity to lease land of the state and to migrate to free areas in the eastern part of Russia, where they could build up a new existence. From 1892 on the Siberian railroads were constructed, to stimulate this migration. In 1862 the national inspection of factories was established, as a result of which the government could directly check if the terms of employment were complied. The working hours of minors and women were limited by law. In 1894 Nicholas II was crowned Tsar, and in 1897 working days were limited to eleven and a half hour and nightwork to ten hours. Children under the age of 17 weren't allowed to work at night, and children younger than twelve weren't allowed to work in factories at all. In 1903 a compensation was introduced for workers who had an accident at work, which in 1912 was followed by health insurance and a proper accident insurance. Due to the fact that the wages increased, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the standard of living of the working class improved considerable. In 1900 the average Russian worker still earned about 187 roubles per year, but in 1913 this was 300 roubles, and the workers in some branches industry even earned 1500 roubles per year. Moreover, many employers complemented the wages with facilities like free housing, free medical help and free vocational training.
In 1900 forty-two very big factories and commercial enterprises could be found in Moscow. Twenty- nine of the owners used to be farmers, eight of them had been retail traders and only five derived from an aristocratic lineage.
Despite of World War I Russia was a developing country, in economical, political, cultural and social respects, until the communists seized to power in 1917.