500

Social revolution.

-"The Robber"

[1606-10 centre of the movement was at Putivl (which had been the headquarters of the Pretender), and a leader arose in Ivan Bolotnikoff who impressed it with the stamp of a social revolution, issuing flyleaves inciting to at tacks on property and the commercial classes. It was, in fact, avowedly a programme of rapine, and this marks a new stage in the smuta. The rebellion attracted ambitious members of the new families to whose career the reaction of Shuiski closed the door. A heterogeneous army recruited from the southern provinces, including Riazan, laid siege to Moscow (October, 1606); but it was a political coalition of social adversaries, and a month's association in camp convinced the more conservative elements, especially represented by the men of Riazan, that they could not work in harmony with the radical followers of Bolotnikoff. The siege was broken up, and there ensued a general rallying of the orderly classes to the government of Vasili, who then collected an army; a year later this revolutionary attempt was finally suppressed by the capture of Tula, its last stronghold. The Tsar discerned that the Pretender's success had been largely due to the support of the vagrant peasants; and it was this political motive which led him (1607) to renew in a stricter form the laws of serfdom which had been passed in the regency of Boris.

The reaction and the old order seemed thus to win the victory in the first bout. But before Tula had fallen a new Pretender arose in the Sieverski province. His name is unknown; he was generally called “the Robber." His position was entirely different from that of his predecessor. The first "Dimitri " had guided a movement which was primarily in his own personal interests; the second "Dimitri" was a puppet serving the interests of political and social revolution and foreign designs. Supported by Polish adventurers, he gained such a strong following that in the summer of 1608 he won a battle close to Moscow, fortified himself at Tushino, and blockaded the capital. The revolt spread to the whole of the Moscow province, and north-westward to Pskoff. The north of Russia the Pomore-had been almost untouched by the troubles and ferment which had begun with the Oprichnina. It was now faithful to the Tsar; Prince Skopin Shuiski created at Vologda a military and administrative centre, and, by the end of 1609, having succeeded in uniting forces with the general Sheremeteff from the south-eastern province, he cleared of the Robber's troops the regions north of Moscow. But before this was achieved, the Muscovite Government was confronted by

a new enemy. King Sigismund had invaded Russian territory. The success of Skopin and the invasion of Sigismund brought about the fall of the two rival governments at Moscow and at Tushino in the course of 1610. The Robber fled from Tushino, and Sigismund entered into negotiation with the Tushinites, in whose counsels Philaret (Theodore Romanoff), their Patriarch, had a leading voice. A covenant of union was concluded (February, 1610) by which the Tushinites accepted Prince

1610-1]

Prince Wladislaw elected Tsar

501

Wladislaw of Poland as Tsar, with the condition that, while there was to be a close military union between the two countries, Russia was to be autonomous and its orthodoxy inviolable. This agreement reflects the policy and interests of those groups of the upper class which were opposed to the reaction of the boiar princes. The Tushinite leader entered into relations with the inhabitants of Moscow, proposing peace and the overthrow of Vasili. The army of the north, which had lost its leader by the death of Skopin, took no part in these events, and Shuiski and his party were overthrown (July, 1610) by the Moscow populace.

With the fall of the reactionary government the last stage of the domestic strife begins. It seemed as if the direction of affairs was now to be under the control of a foreign Power. The next three years (1610-2) are marked by attempts, both open and secret, finally successful, to restore order and create a permanent government. The first experiment, after a temporary administration by seven boiars, was the acceptance of Prince Wladislaw, who was elected to the throne by a Sobor under boiar influence" the last political act in the history of Moscow boiardom"; but when it became clear that his sovereignty was a mask for a military dictatorship, exercised by his father, Moscow attempted to substitute a national government. In the struggle with Sigismund which ensued, the Patriarch Hermogenes played an important part. To him the national and religious feelings of the Muscovite turned as to a sort of guardian. He stubbornly refused to recognise the foreign Tsar; he circulated letters denouncing Sigismund; and, when some of them fell into the hands of the Poles, he was kept under surveillance. But his letters bore fruit, especially at Riazan and Nizhni-Novgorod. An antiPolish movement was organised by Prokopi Liapunoff; a national host was formed; and a new alliance was cemented between the middle classes and those who had been the adherents of the Robber. This unnatural union with the "Robbers" and the Cossacks, intent on rapine, was a policy doomed to failure. In the mixed army which besieged Moscow in 1611 there was neither unity nor discipline; the Cossacks plundered the land at will; and the attempt to organise an effective government was futile. The death of Liapunoff was followed by open discord; the rest of the army left the Cossacks and "Robbers " alone in the camp and went their ways. This ended the second attempt to create order; and the prospect seemed gloomier than ever. The control had passed to the Poles, on the one hand, threatening political servitude, and to the Cossacks and rural proletariate, on the other, threatening a social subversion. Sweden, too, alarmed by the election of Wladislaw, had appeared on the scene and occupied Novgorod the Great, putting forward on her side the candidature of a Swedish prince.

From this desperate situation Russia was rescued by the middle classes, who rallied together against the foreign and the domestic dangers. The brethren of the Troitsa monastery, who were active

502

National movement against the Poles

[1611-3

during this crisis, urged the country to make common cause with the Cossack army against the Poles. But the Patriarch Hermogenes was firmly opposed to any union with the brigands, and his view prevailed in the towns of the northern provinces from which the deliverance came. The initiative was taken by Nizhni-Novgorod, where the leaders of the movement were Kuzma Minin, elder of the commune, who represented the bourgeois, and Savva Ephimieff, who represented the higher groups of society. To organise and lead the national forces which were to clear Moscow and her territory from the two foes, Prince Dimitri Pozharski was chosen, a member of an old princely family which had come down in the world. An adherent of the old traditions, he had, in the reign of Vasili Shuiski, shown decided military talent. Kazan joined the movement, and Pozharski anticipated the Cossacks in seizing laroslavl, which then, as the richest town in the regions north of Moscow, became the political centre of the national movement. A temporary Government was formed, consisting of a Sobor of the normal composition, while a council of war acted as a Duma; and, on April 7, 1612, a manifesto was issued calling on the land to unite against the foreign invaders and "the Russian robbers." Months were spent at Iaroslavl in organising, and negotiations, meant only to gain time, were carried on with Novgorod, which had acknowledged a Swedish prince. The Cossacks were driven from the towns which they had occupied ; and, when the national army at last moved on Moscow, the Cossack leader Zarutski marched off with nearly half the host, and the rest submitted. Then Moscow was taken and the Poles driven out (October).

A national Sobor met at Moscow in January, 1613, to elect a new Tsar. The Shuiskis, Galitsins, and the princely Houses, even the deliverer Pozharski, had no influence at this election, and the choice fell on Michael Romanoff, son of Philaret, the first Tsar of the dynasty which reigns to-day.

The smuta was over. A durable settlement was achieved by the active combination of those conservative classes which had held aloof both from the revolutionary designs of the serfs and Cossacks, and from the reactionary policy of the prince boiars. It was the triumph of the men of service, who had neither been seduced into the den of "Robbers" nor drawn into the nets of foreign conspiracies, and of the peasants and bourgeois of the communes of the northern provinces, which had been least affected by the Oprichnina. The issue of the civil war solved both 'the political and the social problems, which had upset the fabric of the State, in the interest of the middle classes. Politically, the smuta completed the work of the Oprichnina; the power of the boiars was undermined, and the ground was cleared for the development of a bureaucracy recruited without regard for birth. Socially, the rebellion of the lower classes against the lot of serfdom was crushed; they were sacrificed to the middle class, and the policy of Boris was reinforced.

1613-53] The Middle Classes.

Michael Romanoff 503

The political influence of the middle classes was felt throughout the reign of the first Romanoff, and for a time under his successor. It was expressed by frequent meetings of the consultative assemblies, which had been introduced by Ivan IV and since his reign had fulfilled the important duty of electing Tsars. The significance of these Sobors, as we have already observed, is political rather than constitutional. They hardly give the reign of Michael the claim of being a “parliamentary epoch"; but they served as a check on the acquisition of excessive influence by the nobles. We find the Sobor giving assent to taxation, nominating a Patriarch, deliberating on the question of going to war with Poland. In 1642 it was summoned to consider whether Azoff, which had been captured by the Cossacks, should be retained by Russia. This Sobor consisted of the Council of nobles, the higher clergy, and 195 representatives of other classes. Through it public opinion influenced the Tsar's decision. The statements of the lesser nobility, the merchants, and the delegates from the rural districts, as to the wide-spread misery and exhaustion from which the country was suffering through taxation, military service, and the exactions of governors, convinced the Tsar that a war with Turkey was impossible; and the Cossacks were bidden to abandon Azoff. In the reign of Alexis a Sobor was summoned (1648) for the preparation of a new law Code. This Code (Ulozhenie) and the work of this Sobor represented another success for those classes which had raised the Romanoffs to power. They were dissatisfied with their economical conditions; wars, taxes, the competition of foreign commerce pressed heavily upon them; and so far as the Ulozhenie was not mere codification, it attempted to satisfy their needs, by sharpening the laws on serfdom, by restricting the acquisition of lands by the Church, and by enactments against foreign trade. Again in 1653 a Sobor was consulted on the question of war with Poland. This was the last, and it was seemingly due to the influence of the Patriarch Nikon, of whom more will presently be said, that the institution disappeared.

The weak character of Michael (1613-45), a man of no talent, threatened Russia with evils similar to those which it had suffered in the minority of Ivan IV. This calamity was averted by the return, in 1619, of his able father, Philaret, from Poland, where he had been kept as a hostage. Philaret was created Patriarch and assisted the Tsar in the cares of government. Until his death (1633) he was virtually the colleague of his son; his name appeared along with the Tsar's in public Acts. The secure establishment of the new dynasty on the throne was largely the result of his prudent guidance and firm control. The Government had in the first place to deal with those foreign Powers which had fished in the troubled waters. The cession of Ingria and Carelia bought off the claims of Sweden and procured the restoration of Novgorod (Peace of Stolbova, 1617). Poland had made a formidable

504

Reign of Alexis

[1618-51 effort to realise the design of Báthory. For her it was a question of life and death, and her failure may be said to have meant the loss of her last chance. Wladislaw, indeed, did not abandon his pretensions; he marched on Moscow (1618), and his repulse only led to a truce by which Poland retained Smolensk, Chernigoff, and Sieverski. On the death of Sigismund III in 1632 the war was renewed, this time by Russia; and Wladislaw, now King of Poland, renounced his claims to the throne for a sum of money, by the Treaty of Polianovka, 1634.

The reign of Alexis (1645-76) witnessed not only the recovery of the recent acquisitions of Poland, but also the annexation of some of the border-lands, which in race, language, sentiment, and religion were Russian, but in consequence of the Lithuanian conquest had become part of the composite Polish-Lithuanian State. This Russian Lithuania, including White Russia in the north and Little Russia in the south, had formed a State distinct from Poland itself until 1569, when the Act of Lublin, to which reference has already been made, established a common Diet and Senate with a common political capital, and made Little Russia, as distinct from White Russia, part of Poland, though Poland and Lithuania (with White Russia) retained their separate laws, armies, chancellors, and other chief functionaries. The Orthodox religion was safeguarded; but the increase of Polish influence in the Russian lands led to Roman propagandism actively carried on by Jesuits, and to a long persecution of the Orthodox by those who aimed at union. In the north this policy might ultimately have succeeded, but it was disastrous in the southern steppes of the Ukraine, where there was a military population, of free habits, impatient of authority, and devoted to the Orthodox faith. These "Cossacks" of the towns, distinguished from the Zaporogian Cossacks who lived in absolute freedom beyond the Falls of the Dnieper, were organised in regiments under the general supremacy of the Hetman of Little Russia, who was appointed by the King. Smarting under the oppressive rule of the Poles, who treated them as an inferior race, the Little Russians were fully prepared for revolt, when a leader appeared in the person of the Hetman Bogdan Chmielnicki, a man of ability, bravery, and some education. The war which he commenced (1648) against the Poles was marked by savage atrocities on the part of his followers, who displayed particular fury against the Jesuits and the Jews; and not less cruel reprisals were practised by the Polish nobles. After the first slight successes of his insurrection, Chmielnicki sent to Warsaw a formal list of complaints of the ill-treatment and injustice suffered by the Cossacks and people of Little Russia. At this juncture King Wladislaw died, and his successor, John Casimir, was prepared to treat. But the struggle continued, broken by negotiations and truces, until in 1651 Chmielnicki experienced a crushing defeat. He had counted on the support of the Khan of Crimea, but the Khan had proved a treacherous ally.