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Russia and Muscovy

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  1. ntroduction
  2.  
  3. The centuries when western Europe was undergoing the Renaissance and Reformation were dynamic times in Muscovy as well. The Mongols had arrived in 1250 and laid waste to many of the towns of Kievan Rus’—the polity that ruled a territory fanning north and northeast from the city of Kiev, its political and religious center. The next two centuries saw the successor states to Kiev entering a complex relationship with the Mongols and their successors, a period called Appanage Rus’ (traditionally, 1250–1450). By 1450, when the Renaissance was moving into full swing in the West, the East Slavic spaces were again beginning to coalesce into more sturdy polities, though it could not have been foreseen then which one, if any, of these polities—Vladimir, Suzdal’, Tver, Riazan’, or Moscow, among others—would come to dominate Rus’. By the end of the Renaissance centuries—by the mid-17th century—Moscow had long been the clear winner in the contest between its East Slavic rivals, having annexed the other major polities (but not Kiev) by the first quarter of the 16th century. Muscovy also emerged as a major player in the political and diplomatic world that extended from Poland-Lithuania through the Qipchaq Steppe to the nearer reaches of Siberia, a giant expanse that was beginning then to be explored and appropriated for Russian settlement and commerce. Culturally, however, Muscovy remained an integral part of the European world, despite the upheavals of the so-called Tatar Yoke, as Ivan III (r. 1462–1505) imported artists and architects from Italy and much of his improvised Imperial style of the court from the Byzantines and the Holy Roman Empire. The 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries were thus a dynamic and discrete period, when Russia both settled issues of its own particular history—its political unity, its succession system, its economic life, and its expansion into new territories—and continued and deepened its involvement with the rest of Europe. Despite these links to the historical processes in the West, the “Renaissance Era” is not a category of periodization in Russian history, largely because Russia did not experience the Renaissance—nor, of course, the Protestant Reformation—even if it did borrow from the political, cultural, and even religious styles and vocabularies developed then in the West. As a result, histories of Russia in the period from 1450 to 1650 do not typically treat these centuries as a discrete period, and so scholarly works that treat the period often spill over these chronological boundaries, either reaching back to Appanage or Kievan times, or forward to Imperial times.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. A number of excellent general treatments of Russia from the 15th through the 17th centuries are available, though they vary by the period they cover and the emphases they place on long-term trends, key events, and major personalities. Crummey 1987 is perhaps the most accessible of these works, beginning with the reign of Grand Prince Iurii Daniilovich (r. 1304–1325), the first Muscovite grand prince, and ending with the election to the throne of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (r. 1613–1645), the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, in 1613. Martin 2007 begins with the foundation of the Rus’ polities in Novgorod and Kiev in the 10th century and goes through the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1533–1584). Three older works remain very relevant: Solov’ev 1976 is a sweeping and influential narrative of East Slavic history from its beginnings in the 9th century down to the 18th century; Volumes 4–6 of Ocherki istorii SSSR (Druzhinin 1953–1958) provide a highly competent chronological, interdisciplinary, and Soviet-era assessment of the entire period; and Karamzin 1988–1989 begins its elegant, literary treatment at the beginnings of Rus’ history and proceeds to 1611. Two other works provide modern and topical surveys: Perrie 2006 divides up the periods and topics of Russian history among leading scholars, with most of its focus falling particularly on the 14th through 17th centuries; and Keenan 1986 draws thoughtful and dramatic conclusions about the length and breadth of Russian history based on the implications of the author’s own idiosyncratic understanding of the Early Modern period. Taken together, these works provide not only strong and synthetic surveys of the centuries in question, but also they show the range of evolving concerns that historians have had in attempting to describe these centuries over time and today.
  8.  
  9. Crummey, Robert O. The Formation of Muscovy, 1304–1613. London: Longman, 1987.
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  11. General yet comprehensive in scope, this small volume presents a highly readable introduction to the structure of Russian history from the 14th through the early 17th centuries. Evenhanded on the major historiographical debates, the book remains among the most accessible general introductions available in English.
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  13. Druzhinin, N. M., ed. Ocherki istorii SSSR. 9 vols. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1953–1958.
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  15. Encyclopedic, though deeply imprinted with the ideological concerns of the time in which it was produced, this set of volumes remains noteworthy if only because it was written by the leading Soviet scholars of the mid-20th century. For the Early Modern centuries, Volumes 4–6 are particularly useful. Volumes are not, however, numbered, so readers will have to find these volumes by their cumbersome titles: Period Feodalizma, chast’ II: XIV–XV vv.; Period Feodalizma, konets XV v. – nachalo XVII v.; and Period Feodalizma, XVII v.
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  17. Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Istoriia Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo. 4 vols. Moscow: “Kniga,” 1988–1989.
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  19. An older but still relevant general history of Russia up to 1611. While the text may now be as important for its influence on subsequent historiography as for its own interpretative strengths, the extensive notes in it include publications of some sources that have been lost or destroyed after this work was completed. The entire text may also be profitably read as an elegant example of modern Russian literary prose.
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  21. Keenan, Edward L., Jr. “Muscovite Political Folkways.” Russian Review 45 (1986): 115–181.
  22. DOI: 10.2307/130423Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. A classic and synthetic think-piece on the deep structures of Muscovite political culture, focusing particularly on the 15th through the 17th centuries, but extending themes back to Kievan times and forward to that of Stalin. Argues that the roots of Russian political culture can be found in the peasant village, and that kinship and consensus, not class conflict, best characterize the political world of the tsar’s court.
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  25. Martin, Janet. Medieval Russia, 980–1584. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  26. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511811074Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27. Despite the title, this work extends its narrative well into the Early Modern centuries, providing particularly good coverage of the major events and developments in the reigns of Vasilii II, Ivan III, Vasilii III, and Ivan IV (whose reigns cover the period 1425–1584). For aspects of this work that treat royal succession in Muscovy, see Martin 2007, cited under Succession.
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  29. Perrie, Maureen, ed. The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  31. The first of a three-volume set, this work presents twenty-eight thematic chapters, all but the first five of which pertain to the 14th through the 17th centuries. While not a substitute for a textbook, the chapters in this collection together provide a lucidly written and accessible overview of the problems that are currently attracting the attention of scholars in the field of early East Slavic history.
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  33. Solov’ev, Sergei Mikhailovich. History of Russia from Earliest Times. 35 vols. to date. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1976–.
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  35. An English translation of one of the most significant general histories of Russia ever produced. Based on the lectures given by Solov’ev from 1820 to 1879 in the History Department at the University of Moscow, the original twenty-nine volumes of this work have influenced the direction of Russian historiography ever since. The translation is an ongoing project and individual volumes of the planned fifty appear irregularly and nonsequentially. Volumes 4 to 25 treat the 14th through the 17th centuries.
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  37. Reference Sources
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  39. Scholars in both Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union have been publishing historical sources since the beginning of the 18th century; and consequently a sizable portion of the extant source base is available in print for researchers working on topics that deal with the 14th through the 17th centuries, even if the quality of these publications varies enormously. Finding aids are therefore essential to researchers. Among the most basic prerequisites researchers require for their work are published bibliographies (and bibliographies of bibliographies), which include references to published sources. Historical encyclopedias and dictionaries are also essential starting points, especially when their entries include bibliographies “for further reading.” Archival sources are still the mainstay of research into these centuries, however, so scholars must make use of source studies and source descriptions, archival inventories, and web pages, which can direct them to the precise document they might need. This section includes samples of all four of these essential ways to find the sources one needs: bibliographies, historical encyclopedias and dictionaries, source descriptions, and online resources.
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  41. Bibliographies
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  43. No comprehensive bibliography of historical literature for Muscovite history (14th through mid-17th centuries) is available, but specialized bibliographies can, when consulted together, be very helpful to researchers. Three examples of these specialized bibliographies illustrate the kinds of resources available. Crowther 1969 offers an excellent general listing of monographic and article-length English-language works in East Slavic history to 1800, while Egan and Egan 1987 provides a focused bibliography of works on Russia’s rulers from 1462 to 1917. Lobashkova 2008 focuses on the Romanov dynasty (r. 1613–1917) and includes titles published recently. Poe 1995 provides an inventory of foreigners’ accounts of Muscovy, a genre of historical sources that is often consulted by Muscovite specialists as they fill in the many lacunae in the extant native source base.
  44.  
  45. Crowther, Peter A. A Bibliography of Works in English on Early Russian History to 1800. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.
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  47. A useful general bibliography of works on a range of political, social, economic, and biographical topics running the length of East Slavic history to the turn of the 19th century. Though older, the bibliography is remarkably complete for English-language sources.
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  49. Egan, David R., and Melinda A. Egan. Russian Autocrats from Ivan the Great to the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Sources to 1985. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1987.
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  51. The first 290 entries in this volume (of the 2,082 total entries) pertain to the 14th through the 17th centuries. The work is arranged by ruler and each bibliographical entry includes a lucidly written annotation that provides users with much of what they might need to decide if they should hunt down the source.
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  53. Lobashkova, T. A. Dom Romanovykh: Biobibliograficheskii illiustrirovannyi ukazatel’. 2d ed. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Reka Vremeni,” 2008.
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  55. A useful listing of 6,608 published sources on the individual members of the House of Romanov, beginning with first tsar of the dynasty, Mikhail Feodorovich (r. 1613–1645). The introduction provides a useful survey of the literature on the boyar ancestors of the dynasty. Most sources in the bibliography are not annotated, so readers must judge the value of a given source based on its title or, often, the press or journal that published it.
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  57. Poe, Marshall. Foreign Descriptions of Muscovy: An Analytic Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1995.
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  59. Though marred by some errors in the details and format of some entries, this bibliography remains the essential starting point for anyone interested in finding the accounts of foreigners that describe Russia’s land, people, society, religion, and politics from the mid-15th to the end of the 17th centuries.
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  61. Historical Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
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  63. The field of Muscovite history is fortunate to have at its disposal a number of handy and useful encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. Among the most important are the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History (Wieczynski, 1976–) and the Supplement to the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History (Rhyne 1995–), both produced in English and boasting entries written by some of the best authorities on their subjects. Langer 2002 is handier still, and it focuses on East Slavic history up to the turn of the 18th century. One should still consult the by now classic Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia (Zhukov 1961–1976), which includes entries that are omitted in other encyclopedias, particularly biographies, though the work bears the imprint of the ideological concerns of the Soviet academic establishment in nearly every article.
  64.  
  65. Langer, Lawrence. Historical Dictionary of Medieval Russia. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002.
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  67. A mostly biographical dictionary of prominent figures in early Russian history to Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725), though entries also treat some important historical sites and concepts. The sizable bibliography will be of interest to many readers, though individual entries in the dictionary do not include references to it. The detailed chronology at the beginning of the work is likely to prove useful to those unfamiliar with the structure of Russian history.
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  69. Rhyne, George N., ed. Supplement to the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. 10 vols. to date. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1995–.
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  71. Called, appropriately, SMERSH, this title includes entries for persons, concepts, and terms that had been omitted in the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History (MERSH), and, in a few cases, revises and updates its articles.
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  73. Wieczynski, Joseph L., ed. Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. 61 vols. to date. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1976–.
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  75. Known among specialists as MERSH, this is the most comprehensive and authoritative encyclopedia of Russian history in English, and among the best in any language. Articles treat the biographies of figures in Russian history as well as terms and concepts. The most recent volumes are indices, which render the set vastly more valuable as a resource for researchers and students alike.
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  77. Zhukov, Evgenii M., ed. Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia. 16 vols. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Sovetskaia entsiklopediia,” 1961–1976.
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  79. Though naturally concentrating more on recent history—especially the Soviet epoch—this resource includes short articles on many important personages, institutions, and concepts in Russian and world history, many pertaining to the 14th through the 17th centuries. Each article also includes a short bibliography. The short shrift given some topics, deemed at the time of little interest to the Soviet academic establishment, can be vexing for some users, but this resource is, nonetheless, an important starting point for basic facts.
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  81. Source Descriptions
  82.  
  83. Among the most important avenues of access to primary sources that researchers have available are the many source descriptions that were produced by scholars working in discrete fields in the late medieval and Early Modern periods. Source description and textual studies were, in fact, some of the stronger—and politically safer—areas for scholars to work in during the Soviet period, and some of the finest works of scholarship coming from those decades were works of source classification and description. Cherepnin 1948–1951 provides an excellent example of one of the more learned works of source description during the Soviet period, surveying, as it does, the many categories of documentation that survive for Muscovy in the 14th and 15th centuries. Martin 2006 describes and catalogues royal wedding-related documentation in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, RGADA (on this archive, see Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), cited under Archival Resources). Poe 1997 surveys and describes personnel records produced by the Muscovite court that were important for keeping track of military and court appointments.
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  85. Cherepnin, L. V. Russkie feodal’nye arkhivy XIV–XV vekov. 2 vols. Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1948–1951.
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  87. A monumental survey of the rich range of source material generated in Muscovy during the 14th and the 15th centuries, compiled by one of the most experienced archival researchers of the mid-20th century. Cherepnin systematically runs through the sources both chronologically and geographically and provides analysis and dating of many disputed texts.
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  89. Martin, Russell E. “Muscovite Royal Weddings: A Descriptive Inventory of Manuscript Holdings in the Treasure Room of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, Moscow.” Manuscripta 50.1 (June 2006): 77–189.
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  91. A paleographical and textological description of all wedding-related manuscripts in the famed Treasure Room (Drevlekhranilishche—fond 135) of the archive that serves as the main repository for most of the manuscript materials for the medieval and Early Modern periods.
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  93. Poe, Marshall T. “Muscovite Personnel Records, 1475–1550: New Light on the Early Evolution of Russian Bureaucracy.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 45 (1997): 361–377.
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  95. A detailed overview of the varieties of documents that the Muscovite court generated in the 15th through the 17th centuries to list and mobilize its personnel for a variety of functions. The article makes the case for the early and sophisticated elaboration of a culture of record keeping in the scriptoria of the court.
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  97. Archival Resources
  98.  
  99. Historical and cultural materials for Russia in the medieval and Early Modern periods are appearing on the Internet at dizzying rates. This happy development has vastly improved access to sources for researchers around the world; and the quality of the digital images, though varied, is generally very good, obviating the need in many cases for scholars to handle the manuscripts. Three websites demonstrate the range of resources now available to researchers: The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) in Moscow is the largest single repository of archival materials in Russia on the 14th through the 17th centuries, and its website is one of the finest archival resources available in Russia or any country. The website for the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) in St. Petersburg is also large and growing, though it still does not include complete inventories for all collections. A consortium between the Russian State Library in Moscow (formerly the Lenin Library) and the Holy Trinity–St. Sergius Monastery has produced a website with remarkably high-quality images of a large and growing percentage of archival materials from this largest and most important of Russian monasteries.
  100.  
  101. Holy Trinity–St. Sergius Monastery Library.
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  103. The ongoing project to scan and place online all the manuscripts of the extensive library and archive of Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery has reached more than 5,000 manuscripts. The images are high-quality, and they include, in part, materials that are preserved in the Manuscript Division of the Russian State Library (formerly the Lenin Library).
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  105. Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA). Moscow.
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  107. The website for this all-important archive now includes online versions of manuscript inventories (opisi) of nearly all its separate collections (fondy). Formerly, users of the archive had to refer to the frayed copies of typed or even handwritten inventories in the archive’s reading room, making advanced preparation by foreigners for research trips to the archive nearly impossible.
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  109. Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA). St. Petersburg.
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  111. The website’s sensible organization and user-friendliness matches the amenities found in the new and recently opened building for this archive. The site includes detailed descriptions of the archive’s collections (fondy); highly useful name, geographical, and subject indices; and scanned copies of older printed inventories.
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  113. Journals
  114.  
  115. Outside of Russia no journals publish articles, source editions and commentaries, and book reviews exclusively on the 14th through the 17th centuries, but journals published in the United States (Slavic Review, Kritika, Russian History, Russian Review), the United Kingdom (Slavonic and East European Review), France (Cahiers du monde russe), and Germany (Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas)—to give just a sampling—routinely include materials relating to the period. The Russian journal Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik publishes works principally from this period.
  116.  
  117. Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik. 1957–.
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  119. The premier Russian-language publication of source studies and thematic works of historical scholarship. Published by the Archaeographical Commission (originally of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, now of the Russian Federation). Internal sections of each issue include articles, textual analyses, the publications of archival sources, bibliographies, and a regular “chronicle” of news of the profession.
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  121. Cahiers du monde russe. 1959–.
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  123. The leading French journal of Russian studies, publishing works on all periods and disciplines. Articles and book reviews appear in French, Russian, and English. Previously published as Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique (1959–1993).
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  125. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 1936–. New Series since 1953.
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  127. The leading German journal for East European studies, publishing works in history and culture and particularly strong in titles on the Early Modern period. Publishes articles and short book reviews in German, English, and French.
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  129. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 1964–.
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  131. (20 vols. between 1964 and 1984, retrospectively called the “First Series”; Second Series, 2000–present). Originally a journal of lengthy book reviews published by the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, now the Davis Center, and written mostly by Harvard faculty and graduate students, the journal was revived in 2000 as a more conventional platform for high-quality scholarly articles and substantial book reviews.
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  133. Russian History. 1974–.
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  135. Published originally by the University of Pittsburgh and later by other institutions, the journal now is ably published by Brill, a leading journal of Russian history and culture, treating all periods and disciplines. It is particularly noted for publishing lengthy or narrowly focused studies, particularly during the editorship of Richard Hellie.
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  137. Russian Review. 1941–.
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  139. A leading American journal publishing on all aspects of Russian history and culture in all periods as well as book reviews and occasional review essays. Particularly strong on literature and film studies.
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  141. Slavic Review: Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. 1941–.
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  143. The official scholarly journal of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and the leading American journal for Slavic studies. Covers all historical periods and disciplines.
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  145. Slavonic and East European Review. 1922–.
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  147. Published by the University of London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, this venerable journal publishes works in all periods and disciplines as well as book reviews.
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  149. Muscovy’s Rulers
  150.  
  151. The lack of the kind of sources biographers typically need—letters, memoirs, diaries—makes the writing of proper biographies of figures in Muscovy essentially impossible, even when the figure in question is the ruler, for whom and about whom most of the extant written documentation was generated. As a result, few scholars have tried to write biographies; and those works that have titles that give the impression of a biography are really just (but not merely) studies of a reign or of Muscovy during a reign, not an investigation into the personality, motivations, or ideas of a Muscovite ruler. Moreover, not every ruler between 1450 and 1650 has attracted equal attention from those who would attempt a biography or a study of a particular reign. Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1533–1584) has attracted enormous attention from scholars, but his father, Vasilii III, whose reign was, arguably, just as important to the long-term trends in Russian history, has been all but ignored. Even so, this uneven historiography has yielded several important studies that cast light on the rulers in these centuries, even if their personalities remain very much in the dark. Fennell 1961 provides a study of the reign of Russia’s great unifier, Ivan III, who was the first to use the title “tsar” (although his grandson Ivan IV was the first ruler to be crowned with the title). Zimin 1972 is a highly competent and detailed study of Russia in the reign of Vasilii III, which draws many conclusions that hint at what kind of man the grand prince may have been. Pavlov and Perrie 2003 presents one of the best and most accessible treatments of Russia in the reign of Ivan IV and, like most studies of this period, cannot resist offering some speculations about the personality and sanity of Russia’s first crowned tsar. Cherniavsky 1968 gives us another look at Ivan IV, this time as very much a man of the Renaissance. Finally, Panova 2003 looks at perhaps the very best evidence we have about the lives of Muscovy’s rulers and their wives and children: their physical remains, which had been buried in the royal mausolea in several Kremlin churches.
  152.  
  153. Cherniavsky, Michael. “Ivan the Terrible as a Renaissance Prince.” Slavic Review 27.2 (1968): 195–211.
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  155. A source-based study comparing Ivan IV’s views on monarchical power, as seen in the writings attributed to him, with the views on power and authority being produced in northern and southern Europe in the 16th century. The article explores the meaning behind the epithet “the Terrible,” finding that it reflects “a style or function of rulership rather than merely a pejorative” (p. 196).
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  157. Fennell, J. L. I. Ivan the Great of Moscow. London: Macmillan, 1961.
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  159. Though far from new, this work remains an essential starting point for the reign of Muscovy’s first “great” ruler, Ivan III (r. 1462–1505). Internal developments are given far less space here than diplomacy and foreign policy, but the book provides a still unmatched treatment of Muscovy’s place in the comparative history of Europe in the Renaissance centuries.
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  161. Panova, Tat’iana Dmitrievna. Kremlovskie usypal’nitsy. Istoriia, syd’ba, taina. Moscow: Indrik, 2003.
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  163. A comprehensive study of the burial sites and bodies of members of the Muscovite ruling dynasty in the churches of the Moscow Kremlin. Includes appendixes on forensic studies of the bodies of several dynasts, including Sofiia Paleologa (the second wife of Ivan III) and Anastasiia Iur’eva (the first wife of Ivan IV).
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  165. Pavlov, Andrei, and Maureen Perrie. Ivan the Terrible. London: Pearson/Longman, 2003.
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  167. Slender and succinct, this volume provides both a durable history of Ivan IV’s reign (r. 1533–1584), and a handy introduction to many of the historiographical debates about the “terrible tsar.” Includes several useful genealogies and maps and a useful chronology of events in Ivan’s reign and biography.
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  169. Zimin, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich. Rossiia na poroge novogo vremeni. Moscow: Mysl’, 1972.
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  171. No scholarly biography exists for Vasilii III, but this general history of Russia during his reign is as useful as any biography might be in placing the ruler in the context of his family and his highest-ranking servitors at court as well as in his relationships with the rulers and states surrounding Russia at the turn of the 16th century.
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  173. Succession
  174.  
  175. The principalities of northeastern Rus’, including Moscow until 1598, were ruled by the descendants of St. Vladimir of Novgorod and, later, Kiev (r. 972–1015). Despite this long record of dynastic continuity, little agreement exists on how succession among St. Vladimir’s heirs worked, and how that system, if there was a system properly speaking, may have evolved over time. The question of succession becomes even more complex with the failure of the Moscow line of the dynasty in 1598, leading to fifteen years of usurpers, pretenders, and interregnum, called the Time of Troubles, which ended only in 1613 with the election of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the nephew of Anastasiia, the first wife of Ivan IV the Terrible. The author of Martin 2007 imbeds her treatment of Kievan and Muscovite succession in her general history of “medieval” Russia. Ostrowski 2012 situates the Rus’ and Muscovite succession system in a much broader context—that of the Qipchaq Steppe and other Eurasian polities. Nitsche 1972 offers a systematic study specifically of the Muscovite system of succession in the 14th through the late 16th centuries, and Kollmann 1986 looks at one of the most disputed succession crises in Muscovy at the turn of the 16th century. The author of Dunning 2001 integrates his thoughts on the rise of the Romanovs into his general history of the Time of Troubles, while Morozova 2005 explores specifically why Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov won the day in February 1613. All these works show not only the extent of the work being done today and in the recent past on succession, but also the vast disagreement on the topic that still prevails among historians.
  176.  
  177. Dunning, Chester S. L. Russia’s First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
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  179. A detailed description of the events, especially military battles, of the so-called Time of Troubles (1605–1613). The detailed narrative amounts to a long lead up to a consideration of the election of the Romanovs to the throne, and the author’s kinship-politics approach to that question is novel and challenges the received views.
  180. Find this resource:
  181. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. “Consensus Politics: The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered.” Russian Review 45.3 (July 1986): 235–267.
  182. DOI: 10.2307/130110Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183. An innovative study of one of the most disputed succession crises in early modern Russia, applying a kinship-politics lens for the first time to the question of who would succeed Grand Prince Ivan III—his grandson from his first marriage or his eldest son from his second marriage.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Martin, Janet. Medieval Russia, 980–1584. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  186. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511811074Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  187. While a general history of Russia, the title and scope of the book conceals the fact that the author provides some of the most nuanced and considered treatments of several succession crises available in English, including the wars between Moscow and Tver’ (early 14th century), the Muscovite civil wars (1425–1456), and the succession crisis of 1497–1502. As a general history, see Martin 2007, cited under General Overviews.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Morozova, Liudmila Evgen’evna. Rossiia na puti iz Smuty. Moscow: Nauka, 2005.
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  191. A detailed treatment of the election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov as tsar in 1613, containing an analysis of the groupings of boyars and factions in the three years leading up to the February 1613 election by the Assembly of the Land (Zemskii sobor). The more important contribution of this book, however, is the historiographical survey in the (unnumbered) first chapter and the publication of nearly all the relevant archival documents in a lengthy appendix.
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Nitsche, Peter. Grossfürst und Thronfolger: Die Nachfolgepolitik der Moskauer Herrscher bis zum Ende der Rjurikenhauses. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1972.
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  195. A meticulously researched study of the implied and practiced rules of succession in Muscovy, from the reign of Dmitrii Donskoi (r. 1359–1389) through the reign of Ivan IV (r. 1533–1584). Provides particularly detailed analyses of grand princely wills and treaties, the titles of rulers and their heirs, and a set of succession crises that struck during the reigns of Ivan III and Ivan IV.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Ostrowski, Donald. “Systems of Succession in Rus’ and Steppe Societies.” Ruthenica 11 (2012): 29–58.
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  199. A sweeping and comparative analysis of the systems of succession that prevailed in the west Eurasian space, comparing the succession practices in Russia with succession in China, among the Mongols, and in other polities of the Qipchaq Steppe.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Royal Women
  202.  
  203. The study of queenship in the medieval and Early Modern periods in western Europe is quite advanced, but descriptions and analyses of the political, social, religious, and economic lives of Muscovite royal women is still in its infancy. The studies that do exist explore the religious lives of the rulers’ wives (tsaritsy); their roles as mothers; their post-Kremlin lives as, in many cases, nuns; and life generally in the Terem—the female apartments in the Kremlin, which were both separate and parallel to the tsar’s court on the other end of the complex of palaces in the Kremlin. Thyrêt 2001 explores the role of the tsars’ wives as intercessors for their husbands, beseeching God for the welfare and salvation of their family and the entire realm. Martin 2012 analyzes the bride-show custom and the politics of picking a bride for the tsar. Kollmann 1983 examines the origins and purpose of female seclusion—the old and probably borrowed custom of sequestering royal women, and all women in the elite strata of Muscovite society, into their own living spaces separated from men. These studies demonstrate how central royal women were to the political culture in Muscovy and how demanding socially and personally that role must have been on the lives of women who had married men of power in the Kremlin.
  204.  
  205. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. “The Seclusion of Elite Muscovite Women.” Russian History 10.2 (1983): 170–187.
  206. DOI: 10.1163/187633183X00109Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. An innovative study of the place of female seclusion in the larger political world of boyar clans and dynastic politics that characterized the Kremlin in the Early Modern period. The seclusion of elite women is portrayed as a means of assuring female and familial honor in an environment in which marriage was the glue that held together the kinship-based political system at court.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Martin, Russell E. A Bride for the Tsar: Bride-Shows and Marriage Politics in Early Modern Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
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  211. A study of the bride-show custom as an essential element of the Muscovite political system, which was based on kinship and marriage ties linking the ruler with his boyars. The book argues that the bride-show custom reveals monarchical power in Muscovy to be collaborative, not autocratic.
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Thyrêt, Isolde. Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001.
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  215. A cultural history of the significant role played by the tsars’ wives, emphasizing particularly their religious role as intercessors in prayer for their husbands and as mothers of the dynasty. Many events in the tsars’ court and in Church history are given a fresh reexamination by approaching them from the point of view of women’s history.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Ritual and Ceremony
  218.  
  219. Muscovy, like nearly every other polity in the Early Modern period, used elaborate rituals and ceremonies to project an image of itself to the world outside the Kremlin. These rituals can be “read” by historians today for clues about the image of itself—often a fictive image—that the court wanted to broadcast to both domestic and foreign audiences. The study of these rituals and ceremonies has thus become a major concern of cultural historians of Russia, just as they have become a concern of historians of monarchies in the West during the Early Modern period, the Middle East, China, and elsewhere. Zabelin 2000–2003 surveys the broadest array of court rituals and shows how members of the rulers’ family—the wives, sons, daughters, and other collateral kin—played roles in constructing the highly conjured image of the Muscovite monarchy, and Flier 2006 updates the survey in Zabelin 2000–2003 in the light of the new methods and sources utilized by modern cultural historians. Crummey 1983 opens the door to systematic studies of specific court rituals—in this case, the Palm Sunday ritual—and Bushkovitch 1990 offers a modern approach to the study of another religious holiday marked by a court ritual—the Epiphany ceremony. Majeska 1978 looks at the coronation ceremony of Dmitrii Vnuk (the grandson of Ivan III) as an adaptation of a Byzantine ceremony. All these studies depict the range of ways ritual and ceremony was exploited by the dynasty (and by members of the ruler’s court) to project a carefully crafted image of itself as autocratic, pious, and legitimate—an image that may not have always corresponded to the reality.
  220.  
  221. Bushkovitch, Paul. “The Epiphany Ceremony of the Russian Court in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Russian Review 49.1 (January 1990): 1–17.
  222. DOI: 10.2307/130080Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. The Epiphany ceremony of the blessing of the waters was an enduring court ritual that exploited a feast day on the liturgical calendar as an opportunity to project a carefully crafted image of the ruler as autocratic yet pious, and as majestic yet concerned for the souls of his subjects.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Crummey, Robert O. “Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Illusion and Reality.” In Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin. Edited by Daniel Clarke Waugh, 130–158. Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1983.
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  227. A pathbreaking and still important study of symbol and ritual in the Muscovite court, focusing particularly on the Palm Sunday procession, the ceremony during the reception of ambassadors, and the first performance of a secular play at court.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Flier, Michael S. “Political Ideas and Ritual.” In The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Edited by Maureen Perrie, 387–408. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press. 2006.
  230. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521812276Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. A succinct and comprehensive survey of the uses and variety of ritual forms in the Muscovite court, with a useful bibliography of recent works in several languages on ceremonial and ritual studies. An update of Zabelin 2000–2003, this is an ideal starting point for a quick grasp of the complex world of ritual in Muscovy.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Majeska, George P. “The Moscow Coronation of 1498 Reconsidered.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 26 (1978): 353–361.
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  235. An analysis of the first documented Muscovite coronation in 1498, namely, that of Ivan III’s grandson Dmitrii Vnuk. Argues that the ritual was borrowed from Byzantine antecedents as a way to broadcast Ivan III’s choice of Dmitrii (his grandson) as his heir over Vasillii (his son by his second marriage). Disputes the notion that the ritual was devised as a way for Muscovy to lay claim to headship of the Orthodox Christian world.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Zabelin, Ivan [Egorovich]. Domashnii byt russkikh tsarei v XVI i XVII st. Vol. 1, pts. 1 and 2 of Domashnii byt russkogo naroda v XVI i XVII st. Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 2000–2003.
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  239. See also Domashnii byt russkikh tsarist v XVI I XVII st. Vol. 2 of Domashnii byt russkogo naroda v XVI I XVII st. (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 2003), and Materialy (accompanying Domashnii byt russkogo naroda v XVI I XVII st. and Domashnii byt russkikh tsarist v XVI I XVII st.) (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 2003). More than a century old now, this work remains the most important analytical description of the Muscovite court to date. It treats a range of rituals and ceremonies and pays particular attention to those that involved, or required the participation of, the members of the ruler’s family—wives, sons and daughters, and more distant relatives.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Genealogies
  242.  
  243. Rulers were part of dynasties, and one of the challenges for researchers is to figure out who is who among the many similar-sounding names and patronymics found in the primary sources and secondary literature. Genealogies are the best way to get a handle on this. Baumgarten 1934 remains an essential register of members of the Muscovite branch (the Daniilovichi), of the dynasty that descended from St. Vladimir (called the Riurikovichi). The Romanov genealogy, including their ancestors in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, are found in Selifontov 1889–1901.
  244.  
  245. Baumgarten, N. de. “Généalogies des branches régnantes de Rurikides du XIIIe au XVIe siècle.” Orientalia Christiana 35.94 (June 1934): 1–152.
  246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  247. An older but still serviceable genealogical register of descendants of Prince (St.) Daniil of Moscow, the first prince of Moscow and the ancestor of all the grand princes and tsars of Moscow down to 1598 (and of numerous collateral princely lines long after). Each entry lists sources for the author’s reconstruction of dates of birth, death, and marriages (when known).
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Selifontov, N. N. Sbornik materialov po istorii predkov tsaria Mikhaila Feodorovicha Romanova: Genealogicheskii i istoricheskii material po pechantannym istochnikam. 2 vols. St. Petersburg: Kostromskaia gubernskaia uchenaia arkhivnaia kommissiia, 1889–1901.
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  251. Prepared in anticipation of the Tercentenary of the House of Romanov in 1913, this compilation of genealogical and historical material provides information on the ancestors of the Romanovs, and other related families, for the centuries before the dynasty’s ascension to the throne in 1613, when the family was one of many nontitled clans serving the grand prince of Moscow.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. The Ruler’s Court
  254.  
  255. The ruler’s court in the Moscow Kremlin has usefully been described as a set of concentric circles, with the tsar in the center and the various ranks of servitors—boyars, okol’nichie (the second highest court rank), dumnye dvoriane (or Duma courtiers, the third highest rank), state secretaries, and clerks in the chancelleries—occupying, in turn, the more distant circles surrounding the ruler. Historians have for decades been attempting to understand how power, kinship ties, and patronage-clientage networks worked at court among the holders of these ranks. The first task has been to identify the individuals (and their families) who held these ranks, then to describe the relationships among these men, and finally to characterize how power was wielded at court, which, in turn, might help determine the nature of monarchical power in Muscovy. Though the research continues and many questions remain, the titles in this section have tackled all three tasks. Alef 1983 takes on a number of topics, including the composition of Ivan III’s court (r. 1462–1505), and Zimin 1988 and Zimin 1958 together assemble the names of the holders of these ranks for the 15th and the 16th centuries. Kollmann 1987 and Pavlov 1992 attempt to explain the nature of power in these centuries, the former focusing on kinship ties in the 14th through the mid-16th centuries, the latter on patronage and camaraderie among members of elite families who had served together in court and army appointments during Tsar Boris Godunov’s reign (r. 1598–1605). Crummey 1983 reconstructs the composition and political and cultural lives of the boyar elite for the bulk of the 17th century.
  256.  
  257. Alef, Gustav. Rulers and Nobles in Fifteenth-Century Muscovy. London: Variorum Reprints, 1983.
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  259. A collection of eleven seminal articles by the author on the history and composition of the court elite in Muscovy, including a listing of boyars under Ivan III and articles on military reforms, coins, and the adoption in Muscovy of the double-headed eagle.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Crummey, Robert O. Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613–1689. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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  263. A monumental study of the political, religious, economic, and social lives of the several hundred men who were in the so-called Boyar Duma in the 17th century. Argues that promotion to boyar rank depended on a range of factors, such as kinship ties, patronage, and even merit, but that the rank had become more ornamental than substantive following the “inflation of honors” that took place as the 17th century wore on.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Kleimola, Ann. “Reliance on the Tried and True: Ivan IV and Appointments to the Boyar Duma, 1565–1584.” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 46 (1992): 51–63.
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  267. The third in a series of three article-length works (the previous two are cited on the pages of this article) on the composition of the so-called Boyar Duma during the 16th century. More than a listing of who was who, Kleimola attempts to understand the customs and mechanisms for selecting new appointees to the Duma and how these appointments reflect policy changes in Ivan the Terrible’s reign.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987.
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  271. A study of the nature of the Muscovite political system that rejects the received view of the tsar as the boundlessly powerful, autocratic ruler of the land and people of Muscovy in favor of a more oligarchical system in which tsar and boyars ruled collaboratively, in which marriage and kinship, not class loyalties, were the glue holding factions together, and in which consensus, not conflict, characterized relations among the elite at court.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Pavlov, Andrei Pavlovich. Gosudarev dvor i politicheskaia bor’ba pri Borise Godunove. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1992.
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  275. A detailed prosopographical treatment of the court elite during the brief reign of Tsar Boris Godunov (r. 1598–1605). The author establishes who held what rank at court and when, and how court factions formed, some of which supported Godunov and others that helped topple his budding dynasty after his death. The book also includes a good deal of background on the court under Tsars Ivan IV and Fedor Ivanovich.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Zimin, A. A. “Sostav boiarskoi dumy v XV–XVI vekakh.” In Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1957 god. By A. A. Zimin, 41–87. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1958.
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  279. A classic and still valid early study of the size and composition of the Boyar Duma (the ad hoc body of high-ranking servitors that advised the ruler) in the 15th and the 16th centuries, published in the first and perhaps the best issue of the journal. Others followed the path blazed here by Zimin (including Alef, Kollmann, Kleimola, and Crummey), but Zimin’s work has stood the test of time for its accuracy and accessibility.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Zimin, A. A. Formirovanie boiarskoi aristokratii v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XV – pervoi treti XVI v. Moscow: Nauka, 1988.
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  283. A fundamental study of the genealogies of the families that formed the court aristocracy in Muscovy in the second half of the 15th and the early 16th centuries. Zimin argues that the composition of the court elite can be explained and analyzed best by reconstructing the family histories of those clans that played leading roles at court. Most entries for these families include genealogical tables and are extensively documented by reference to (mostly published) sources.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Honor and Precedence (Mestnichestvo)
  286.  
  287. Appointments to positions in the army and at the tsar’s court were regulated by a pervasive but flexible system of precedence called Mestnichestvo. A servitor at court was selected to serve based both on his family’s seniority relative to other court families and on his own position genealogically in his own clan. Servitors whose ancestors had served in a military expedition or court ritual above a courtier from another would never later accept serving below that other family, and when such misaligned appointments were made, the offended courtier had at his disposal extensive legal procedures to adjudicate and (usually) resolve the conflict—procedures that would involve consulting detailed muster records (for military appointments) or other court records (for ceremonial appointments at court, such as seating at banquets or the holding of honorific posts at royal weddings). For centuries historians have tried to crack the code of precedence—to unearth the calculus that determined who won and who lost the litigations as well as the underlying notion in Muscovy of honor and dishonor. Eskin 2009 is the latest attempt to crack this code, based on an enormous database of precedence-related documents found and catalogued by the author. Crummey 1980 assesses the overall importance of precedence to aristocratic families and its origins in family pride and ambition. Kollmann 1999 explores the underlying notions in Muscovy of honor and dishonor, of which precedence was a significant part.
  288.  
  289. Crummey, Robert O. “Reflections on Mestnichestvo in the 17th Century.” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 27 (1980): 269–281.
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  291. A succinct assessment of previous views of the origins and purpose of precedence in Muscovy. Crummey looks at precedence as a feature of noble life and conceptions of familial honor, as duels without bloodshed, rather than as an instrument of state building, as some historians have claimed. Generally argues that precedence has been overemphasized by historians.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Eskin, Iurii Moiseevich. Ocherki istorii mestnichestva v Rossii XVI – XVII vv. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2009.
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  295. The most recent and certainly most thorough attempt at deciphering the meaning and customs of precedence in Muscovy. Demonstrates how concern for family honor—which sometimes elicited disputes about precedence—ran through the various strata of the elite, from boyar to chancellery clerk. Based on a complete set of precedence disputes and legislation previously publish by the author (in 1994) and amended with additional sources found since then.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
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  299. A study of honor more than precedence alone, this work provides a modern interpretation of the underlying culture that gave birth to the system of precedence, as well as the rules for honor and dishonor, which run through Muscovite society—from the highest boyars to even the humblest of peasants.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. State Secretaries, Clerks, and Administration
  302.  
  303. Standing behind the great men of the court; putting on paper all the decrees, diplomatic correspondence, and official charters of every imaginable kind; and choreographing all the vital rituals and ceremonies of the court were the state secretaries and clerks who spent most of their time overseeing and scribbling away in the scriptoria of the Kremlin. This essential class of servitors has long been understudied, but they—and the administrative structure they worked in—have attracted the attention of scholars especially since the 1980s, yielding useful results that help scholars see how the mechanisms of the Muscovite administration during the Early Modern period was assembled over time. Likhachev 1888 launched the study of state secretaries and the chancellery system. Leont’ev 1961 explores the formation and early history of the earliest chancelleries in Moscow in the late 15th and the early 16th centuries. Brown 1983 takes that exploration into the 17th century. Poe 2003 deals with the gradation of ranks in the royal chancelleries that were gradually elaborated over the 16th and the 17th centuries. Gralia 1994 provides an example of what the life of a state secretary was like by examining the career of Ivan Viskovatyi, a senior state secretary during the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1533–1584).
  304.  
  305. Brown, Peter B. “Muscovite Government Bureaus.” Russian History 10 (1983): 268–330.
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  307. A descriptive listing of all the many chancelleries, or here “bureaus,” that existed in Muscovy during the late 16th and the 17th centuries, showing that the transformation of informal scriptoria into elaborated chancelleries happened gradually over time and unevenly across the chancelleries.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Gralia, Ieronom. Ivan Mikhailov Viskovatyi: Kar’era gosudarstvennogo deiatelia v Rossii XVI v. Moscow: Radiks, 1994.
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  311. A reconstruction of the life and career of one of the leading state secretaries of Ivan IV the Terrible, who was tried for heresy and executed, in part because of his opposition to borrowed elements in religious art.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Leont’ev, A. K. Obrazovanie prikaznoi sistemy upravleniia v Moskovskom gosudarstve: Iz istorii sozdaniia tsentralizovannogo gosudarstvennogo apparata v kontse XV – pervoi polovine XVI v. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 1961.
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  315. The essential study of the formation of Muscovite chancelleries at the turn of the 16th century. Argues that the system of bureaus, with dedicated scribal staffs with specialized skill sets appropriate to their posts, was elaborated decades earlier than previously thought—as an outgrowth of the expansion of the Muscovite state.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Likhachev, N. P. Razriadnye d’iaki XVI veka: opyt istoricheskogo issledovaniia. St. Petersburg: B. S. Balashev, 1888.
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  319. Dated but essential. This study blazed the path for all others to follow and many of its conclusions and biographies of important state secretaries remain unrevised and has not been superseded in the more than a century since its publication.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Poe, Marshall T. “The Muscovite State and Its Personnel.” In Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus to 1689. Edited by Maureen Perrie, 435–463. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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  323. An overview of the highest court ranks of the Muscovite court, with particular emphasis on the posts and ranks that took shape in the 17th century.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Cities and Towns
  326.  
  327. The role of cities and towns in Kievan Rus’ (10th through 13th centuries) as political and economic centers is well understood and has been a major concern of historians working in that period, but the history of the early modern Russian city (14th through 17th century) has attracted comparatively less attention among scholars. Those scholars who have worked in this area have focused their attention, in part, on the economic development of cities and towns after the Mongol invasions, the demographics and culture of urban populations, and the relationship between the provincial towns and the central administrative authorities in Moscow. Zimin 1955 describes the cultural and demographic dimensions of the Muscovite city in the 16th century. Rabinovich 1988 explores the cultural life of the inhabitants of Rus’ cities from the 9th century on, paying particular attention to the Early Modern period. Hittle 1979 looks at the relationship between the various social strata, particularly the nascent middle class, residing in the 17th-century Muscovite city and their relationship with the local authorities and with distant Moscow. Bushkovitch 1980 narrows that focus on merchants to the stratum of men and their families who comprised the merchant classes in the late 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries.
  328.  
  329. Bushkovitch, Paul. The Merchants of Moscow, 1580–1650. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  331. A source-intensive analysis of the rise and role of merchants in Moscow. The emphasis is on their economic roles in fostering foreign trade and commerce, but attention is also paid to the social history of this class of residents of Muscovy’s capital.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Hittle, J. Michael. The Service City: State and Townsmen in Russia, 1600–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.
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  335. A careful and well-documented examination of the so-called posadskie liudi, or urban merchants, who, the author shows, played a significant role in the social and political life of provincial towns in the 17th century. The book explores the ways in which this class of early modern merchants began the transformation into a proper middle class.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Rabinovich, M. G. Ocherki material’noi kul’tury russkogo feodal’nogo goroda. Moscow: Nauka, 1988.
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  339. A fundamental and learned overview of the social and cultural life of the inhabitants of Russia’s towns across Russian history. Treats clothing, living spaces, and the customs of urban dwellers, with numerous drawings of the objects of material culture in the city of the late medieval and Early Modern periods.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Zimin, A. A. “Sostav russkikh gorodov XVI v.” Istoricheskie zapiski 52 (1955): 336–347.
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  343. A pioneering work that seeks to establish the number and dimensions of Russian towns in the 16th century. Though expanded upon by others since its publication, this work summaries previous work and helped establish the base parameters for the modern study of Russian cities and towns.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. The Countryside
  346.  
  347. Most people living in Muscovy in the Early Modern period—and well before and after it—were farmers who lived lives lacking in freedom to varying degrees. To study the Muscovite countryside, then, is to study not only farming techniques and peasant culture, but also serfdom and the power of landlords over the farming masses. Smith 2008 provides the latest word on how peasants eked out a living for themselves in the 16th and the 17th centuries. It is a revision, in many ways, of Blum 1972, which treats a much longer swath of time. Hellie 1971 looks particularly at the development of serfdom and the role that changes in military technology had on that institution. Hellie 1982 examines the subject of slavery in Russian history from 1450 to 1725. Taken together, these works provide a well-rounded look at the lives of peasants and the servile world they occupied in Muscovy.
  348.  
  349. Blum, Jerome. Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.
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  351. The work that influenced a generation of scholarship on farming and the families that farmed the land in Russia. The emphasis here is on relations between landlords and peasants rather than on the peasants themselves, and the language borrows liberally from the vocabulary of western feudalism. Still, the work remains a historiographical benchmark in the study of the countryside.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Hellie, Richard. Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
  354. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226326467.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. A landmark study of the evolution of serfdom in early modern Russia, disputing the common view that serfdom was principally an instrument that assisted in the formation of a centralized state. Instead, this work argues that serfdom was an outcome of changes in military technology. Includes an excellent historiographical essay of serfdom on its first pages. As a work on Russian military history, see Hellie 1971, cited under Warfare.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
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  359. A monumental quantitative and comparative study of the lack of freedom in Russia in the Early Modern period, particularly among those bound to others as slaves and living and serving in the countryside. Argues that, in the 15th and 16th centuries, slaves served prominently as officials and military retainers or as domestic servants in the households of the aristocracy, but by the 17th century they were limited to domestic servants or estate managers.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Smith, Robert Ernest Frederick. Peasant Farming in Muscovy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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  363. In many ways a revision of Blum 1972, this study looks at peasant farms rather than the major noble estates and uses evidence from archaeology, ethnography, and written sources to describe in detail the agricultural practices and cultural lives of peasants and their farms in the Early Modern period.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Economy
  366.  
  367. Kievan Rus’ (10th through 13th centuries) was part of a thriving trade network that helped to produce a vibrant and diversified economy for the time; but the combination of changing patterns in trade across the western Eurasian space and the disruptions caused, even if only temporarily, by the Mongol invasion compelled the East Slavic principalities to rebuild their economies on new commodities, new trading partners, and a new dynamic between ruling princes and the city elite that engaged in trade and commerce. The economy that the Muscovites and other Rus’ principalities of the 14th through the 17th centuries built was diverse, expanding, and integrated into the larger European economy, but it was different from the patterns of economic life that preceded it in the west Eurasian space. The works listed in this section explore the various dimensions of that economic life. Martin 1986 focuses on the fur trade as an engine for economic development and integration, even across the chronological divides of Kievan Rus’, Appanage Rus’, and Muscovy. Khoroshkevich 1963 focuses on Novgorod in the 14th and the 15th centuries, especially its links to the Hanseatic League. Kotilaine 2005 moves the discussion of trade and commerce to the 17th century, while Hellie 1999 focuses on the domestic economy, especially prices, also during the 17th century.
  368.  
  369. Hellie, Richard. The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600–1725. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
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  371. A sweeping and encyclopedic quantitative study of the economy of Muscovy in the 17th and the early 18th centuries based on a vast base of economic data and focusing particularly on prices, wages, and other measures of economic well-being. Argues that Russia’s economy followed many of the trends and patterns found in western Europe.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Khoroshkevich, Anna Leonidovna. Torgovlia Velikogo Novgoroda s Pribaltikoi i Zapadnoi Evropoi v XIV–XV vekakh. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1963.
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  375. A classic study of Novgorodian trade in the 14th and the 15th centuries, based largely on Russian sources and revising in important ways older studies, which relied mostly on German-language sources. Argues that Novgorodian trade with the West was extensive, varied, and growing in these centuries, and that this trade enriched Novgorodian elites, which, in turn, enabled them to resist the territorial encroachments of Muscovy until the second half of the 15th century.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Kotilaine, Jarmo T. Russia’s Foreign Trade and Economic Expansion in the Seventeenth Century: Windows on the World. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
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  379. Based on extensive work in archives inside and outside Russia, this book explores and quantifies Russia’s trade with its western European neighbors. It finds evidence of a healthy, dynamic, and growing relationship between Muscovy and its trading partners in the 17th century and argues that pre-Petrine Russia was hardly a stagnant or isolated economy, as some previous economic studies had alleged.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Martin, Janet. Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and Its Significance for Medieval Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  382. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523199Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. A study of the long and significant history of the fur trade for the politics of the East Slavic space from the 10th to the 17th centuries. Argues that the fur trade was a fundamental, even foundational, part of Muscovy’s trade network, which enabled Moscow to expand and integrate new populations and territories.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Law and Legal Structures
  386.  
  387. Scholars of later periods of Russian history often bemoan the late development of a legal culture in Imperial Russia, but studies of Muscovite law reveal a society that employed legal procedures and law codes in sophisticated and practical ways, even if one can still not speak of the rule of law in this space in these centuries. Kaiser 1980 reveals the early Slavic roots of later Muscovite legal codes, particularly secular (criminal) codes. Weickhardt 2001 focuses instead on the early history and antecedents of Muscovy’s canon law down to the mid-16th century; and Weickhardt 2008 looks at the administrative legal techniques for registering deeds. Kleimola 1992 explores women’s legal rights over their dowries. Kollmann 2012 takes the examination of laws and legal procedures into the 17th century, analyzing laws and a vast body of criminal cases. These studies together show not only the deep roots of Muscovite law that run back to Kievan times (10th through 13th centuries), but also the range of uses and applications of the law in society.
  388.  
  389. Kaiser, Daniel H. The Growth of Law in Medieval Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
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  391. An analytical narrative of the evolution of law in the East Slavic space, looking particularly at secular (as opposed to canon) law. Argues that the princely courts in Kievan and Appanage Rus’ were the chief initiators of the legal forms and practices in Rus’ during these centuries.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Kleimola, Ann. “‘In Accordance with the Holy Apostles’: Muscovite Dowries and Women’s Property Rights.” Russian Review 51 (1992): 204–229.
  394. DOI: 10.2307/130695Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. The author describes and explains the remarkable levels of control women had over their dowries, particularly landed estates, but also identifies a contraction of those rights after the mid-16th century, which mirrors trends in western Europe in the Early Modern period.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  398. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139177535Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. A vast social history of the legal system and norms in Muscovy, based on a large set of archival and published legal decrees and case law. The author shows the flexible ways that formal legal principles were applied—sometimes sternly, sometimes mercifully—in different cases, and she situates the Muscovite legal system in the broader world of penal law in Europe in the Early Modern period.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Weickhardt, George G. “The Canon Law of Rus’, 1100–1551.” Russian History 28.1–4 (2001): 411–446.
  402. DOI: 10.1163/187633101X00235Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. Argues that an elaborate legal system had developed in the Russian Orthodox Church by the 1440s, constituting a “law-based ‘state within a state’” (p. 412) in Muscovy, which, along with other influences, chiefly from the West, served as an “example and model for the development of a modem legal system in Russia” (p. 412). The argument is a “counterpoint and supplement” to Kaiser 1980 (Kaiser largely ignored the church in his analysis of the development of Russian law).
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Weickhardt, George G. “Registering Land Titles in Muscovy.” In Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Edited by Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, 441–457. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008.
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  407. Examines the conventions for recording deeds in the Service Land Chancellery (Pomestnyi prikaz) in Muscovy during the 16th century. Argues that many of the conventions used in Muscovy may have been borrowed from the English, particularly the “race” system of registering title to lands (the first to succeed in registering a title had the preferred claim over other, “later” claimants).
  408. Find this resource:
  409. The Russian Orthodox Church and Religious Belief
  410.  
  411. The Orthodox Church—its institutional structures, its artistic modes of expression, its pious customs, and its core beliefs—is arguably the most important formative influence on Russian society, regardless of the period. The Muscovites inherited their church and their faith from their Kievan forebears and, through them, from the Byzantines, but they also developed unique forms for expressing their ancient faith—in the ways they “drew” their icons, in their elaboration of monasteries as centers of economy and culture, in their reflections on Byzantine theology, in their formation at the end of the 16th century of the patriarchate, and so on. Golubinskii 1880–1881 provides a complementary general history of the Russian Orthodox Church down to the mid-16th century. Bushkovitch 1992 provides an updated treatment of Russian Orthodoxy, focusing less on institutional history than on belief and praxis in the 16th and the 17th centuries. Levin 1989 gives a history of sex in the Orthodox world (among the Rus’ and Russians and Balkan Slavs) from the beginning of Christianity among the East Slavs to the turn of the 18th century. Miller 2010 offers a detailed study of Holy Trinity–St. Sergius Monastery in the 15th through the 17th centuries; and Steindorff 1994 examines the Orthodox custom of praying for the dead at the Iosifo-Volokolamsk Monastery. Taken together, Orthodoxy in Muscovy is depicted as the essential and most vital cultural context in which Muscovite society emerged and evolved.
  412.  
  413. Bushkovitch, Paul. Religion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
  414. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195069464.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Traces the evolution of religious practice and belief, showing the transition from a spirituality focused on the monastery in the 15th and the 16th centuries to one based on miracle cults and the sermon in the 17th century. These changes, it is argued, produced a greater emphasis on moral teaching over rigid liturgics.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Golubinskii, E. E. Istoriia russkoi tserkvi. 2 vols. (in 4 books). Moscow: Tipografiia E. Lissner i Iu. Roman, 1880–1881.
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  419. A vintage and influential (if unfinished) institutional history of the Russian Orthodox Church, offering an essential summary of the structure, growth, and practices of the church up to the mid-16th century. Strong on Orthodox praxis, though the underlying theology goes largely untreated.
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  421. Levin, Eve. Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900–1700. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
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  423. A sweeping comparative study of the rules of the Slavic Orthodox Church (in Russia and in the Balkans) on sexuality, marriage, and the family. Argues that even though Orthodoxy exerted control over sexuality (as the western Latin Church did), its approach to it was more pastoral than legalistic.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Miller, David B. Saint Sergius of Radonezh, His Trinity Monastery, and the Formation of the Russian Identity. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010.
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  427. A rigorous study of the Holy Trinity–St. Sergius Monastery and its place in Russian history in the 14th through the 17th centuries. Particular attention is given here to the relationship of the monks and the monastery to the larger, outside world, particularly through donations and the commemoration of the dead.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Steindorff, Ludwig. Memoria in Altrussland: Untersuchungen zu den Formen christlicher Totensorge. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994.
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  431. A groundbreaking work of synthesis and source analysis, this book examines the beliefs and practices of commemorating the dead among the East Slavs (especially the Russians) up to the 17th century. Based particularly on a study of the archives of the Iosifo-Volokolamsk Monastery, the conclusions and claims of the book reach across medieval and the Early Modern periods in Russia.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. The Icon
  434.  
  435. The icon is a central part of Orthodox praxis, displaying on wood, metal, and in paint both theological concepts and cultural expressions of the time and civilization that produced it. Apart from its religious uses, the icon is a “text” that can be “read” by historians to discover attitudes and ideas that are not articulated in the usual manner and forms—ink on paper—and so the icon has taken its place alongside traditional archival documentation as a vital source for early Slavic history. Lazarev 1997 provides a general survey of the history of the Russian icon in the medieval and Early Modern periods. Uspensky 1976 introduces the icon as a text, particularly in the Kievan and Muscovite periods. Hunt 2002–2007 pursues the line of inquiry in Uspensky 1976, focusing on the masterpiece icon of the Holy Trinity (Visitation of Abraham) by Andrei Rublev. These studies together claim the icon as a rich source that historians, not just theologians, can exploit to help understand a period that produced few self-conscious reflections of political, religious, and cultural ideas and values. Other works treating the icon include Hamilton 1983 and Brumfield 1993, both cited under Art, Architecture, and Music.
  436.  
  437. Hunt, Priscilla. “Andrei Rublev’s Old Testament Trinity Icon: Problems of Meaning, Intertextuality, and Transmission.” Symposium 7–12 (2002–2007): 15–46.
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  439. An examination of the way the composition and content of Andrei Rublev’s Holy Trinity icon was interpreted, borrowed, and embellished by other iconographers in Muscovy and Novgorod, often in ways that betray a lack of understanding of the compositional unity and theological sophistication of Rublev’s original icon.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Lazarev, Viktor Nikitich. The Russian Icon: From Its Origins to the Sixteenth Century. Translated by Colette Joly Dees. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997.
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  443. An encyclopedic treatment of the history of icons in the East Slavic spaces from the 11th century to the turn of the 16th century, with discrete and detailed analyses of iconographical forms in Novgorod, Pskov, Moscow, and elsewhere.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Uspensky, Boris. The Semiotics of the Russian Icon. Edited by Stephen Rudy. Lisse, Germany: Peter de Ridder, 1976.
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  447. A cultural history of the forms, symbols, and uses of Orthodox Christian iconography in the Russian Orthodox Church. The book represents an application of the semiotic approach to cultural studies, here “reading” the “text” of the icons—the images themselves, their colors, and the features of the composition—for insights into the theological and cultural messages being sent by the creators of these holy images.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. The Unia
  450.  
  451. The division of the Christian world into Latin/Roman West and Greek/Orthodox East after 1054 was a rift that generations of religious and political leaders sought to heal. In 1439, in Florence, and again in 1596, in Brest, some thought the division between East and West had been healed by the agreements reached in these church councils, and for some it was, as the existence of Eastern Rite Catholics (called Byzantine Catholics in the USA) attests. But these attempts to heal Christian divisions were viewed very differently in Moscow and other places in the Christian Orthodox East during the 15th and the 16th centuries (and later); and Muscovy firmly rejected both attempts. Cherniavsky 1955 provides a specific analysis of the Muscovite view of the Union of Florence (1439), and Halecki 1958 surveys the general movement toward union, with glances toward the Muscovite reaction at appropriate moments. The story of the Unia—the only partially realized union between the Eastern and Western churches—is part of the religious tapestry of the East Slavic spaces, and, therefore, it is part of the story of Orthodoxy in Russia.
  452.  
  453. Cherniavsky, Michael. “The Reception of the Council of Florence in Moscow.” Church History 24.4 (December 1955): 347–359.
  454. DOI: 10.2307/3162004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. Argues that Moscow’s rejection of the union declared at the Council of Florence set the stage for the assumption by Muscovy of a leading position in the Orthodox Christian world, but only after a number of other domestic factors, including the dynastic wars of the second quarter of the 15th century, were resolved.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Halecki, Oskar. From Florence to Brest, 1439–1596. Rome: Sacrum Poloniae Millennium, 1958.
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  459. Though most of this large and detailed work treats places and events outside Muscovy, the Union of Florence and the Union of Brest had reverberations in Moscow for centuries. This work argues that the Union of Brest was a continuation of the work done to unite the eastern and western churches at Florence more than a century before.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. The Old Belief
  462.  
  463. The Old Believer schism in the Russian Orthodox Church takes place at the very end of the era covered in this article, but the run-up to these events is vitally important for later religious conflicts in the 17th century. The schism has been called by some Russia’s Reformation, but it was in fact an anti-Reformation inasmuch as those following the Old Belief were resisting change rather than embracing and attempting to force it on the church (as opposed to Protestant reformers in the West who believed they were restoring Christianity to its lst-century roots). The Old Belief was a very diverse and multifaceted resistance movement, only part of which was rooted in the liturgical reforms that later came to be so much the focus of its adherents. The background of the Old Believer schism is the focus of all three citations in this section. Zenkovsky 1957 is concerned with the changing hierarchy of the church, Michels 1999 with the opposition of believers and communities to church authorities, and Crummey 2011 with the role of belief and custom in the origins of the schism, though the author also extends his treatment of the Old Belief into later centuries.
  464.  
  465. Crummey, Robert O. Old Believers in a Changing World. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011.
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  467. The first six (of twelve) chapters of this collection of the author’s previous writings deal directly with the 17th-century origins and character of the Old Belief. Underlying these (and, indeed, all of his) articles is Crummey’s view that belief, not social or class turmoil, was behind the rise and spread of this movement of opposition to the liturgical and related reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Michels, Georg. At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
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  471. A detailed and heavily archive-based study of religious opposition to liturgical and other reforms in the mid-17th century. Argues that dissent was a common feature of a church that was often morally corrupt and populated with illiterate clerics. The Old Believer schism is depicted as being more about resistance to authority than resistance to reform.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Zenkovsky, S. “The Russian Schism: Its Background and Repercussions.” Russian Review 16.4 (October 1957): 37–58.
  474. DOI: 10.2307/125748Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. Situates the church schism of the mid-17th century into a longer history of liturgical and textual reforms and into the growing role in the Russian Orthodox Church of Ukrainian-born and Ukrainian-trained prelates and clerics. The Old Believer movement was, it is argued, more than one set of grievances against the patriarchal church in Moscow, at least initially.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Witchcraft and Magic
  478.  
  479. As in other parts of Europe in the Early Modern period, Muscovites knew witchcraft and magic. Unlike in other parts of Europe, however, these common but risky practices and beliefs existed in a religious culture that was Orthodox, not Catholic or Protestant, and in a setting that was rural, not urban. Ryan 1999 provides a detailed survey of witchcraft and magic across Russian history—down to the 18th century. Kivelson 2013 situates witchcraft in a social and economic context in the 17th century. Both works show the unique features of Muscovite magic and witchcraft as compared to western Europe, and the vibrant and persistent role it played—discreetly, surreptitiously—in Russian culture in the Early Modern period.
  480.  
  481. Kivelson, Valerie. Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
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  483. A study of witchcraft trials in Russia in comparative perspective, demonstrating that witchcraft in Russia centered less on questions of heresy and Satanism (as they did in the West) than on responses to the harsh social inequities of Russian society in the Early Modern period.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Ryan, W. F. The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
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  487. Encyclopedic in scope, this work surveys the long history of magic, witchcraft, and divination in the East Slavic space from the beginnings of Rus’ history up to the 18th century. Based on an extraordinary range of primary and secondary (including comparative) sources and boasting a bibliography that is impressively orderly and complete.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Art, Architecture, and Music
  490.  
  491. The Muscovites, like other Europeans, imprinted their concerns about power, life and death, God, and merriment in the artistic expressions found in their culture. Hamilton 1983 examines art and architecture in Russia over the course of its many centuries of historical development (see also the Icon). Brumfield 1993 focuses just on architecture, though for the full range of East Slavic history (11th to 20th centuries). Rowland 2008 applies the methods of art history to a study of monarchical power in Muscovy. Findeizen 2008 provides an essential introduction to music in Muscovy down to the 17th century (and further back to Kievan and Appanage Rus’ before it); and Jensen 2009 offers a detailed study of music in its many forms and contexts in the 17th century. Zguta 1972 examines the itinerant minstrels (skomorokhi) in Kievan and Muscovite Rus’. These works together reveal a rich and varied artistic tapestry, as much linked to trends going on outside Russia as to older forms found in the history of the East Slavic spaces.
  492.  
  493. Brumfield, William Craft. A History of Russian Architecture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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  495. An essential introduction to the topic with a systematic treatment of trends and influences in a variety of architectural forms from the 11th century to the 20th century. The 14th through 17th centuries are particularly well treated. Includes drawings and photographs, many taken by the author himself.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Findeizen, Nikolai. History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800. Vol.1, From Antiquity to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century. Edited by Milos Velimirovic and Claudia R. Jensen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
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  499. The first volume of an indispensable and encyclopedic history of Russian music in all its forms and contexts—folk music, liturgical music, instrumental and vocal music—from the earliest centuries of East Slavic history down to the end of the 17th century.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Hamilton, George Heard. The Art and Architecture of Russia. 3d ed. Baltimore: Penguin, 1983.
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  503. A broad and sweeping treatment of art and architecture through the history of the East Slavic space—from Kievan times to the 20th century. Particularly detailed in its treatment of the Moscow schools and conventions of art and architecture, including the artistic and structural techniques of construction with wood.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Jensen, Claudia R. Musical Cultures in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
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  507. A richly documented analysis of music in 17th-century Muscovy, though drawing also on materials for the 16th century as well. Of particular note here is the similar roles music played in both religious (i.e., liturgical) and secular (i.e., celebratory and entertainment) settings. The book exposes to view an entire dimension of cultural expression that has largely been ignored in prior histories of these centuries.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Rowland, Daniel. “Architecture, Image, and Ritual in the Throne Rooms of Muscovy, 1550–1650: A Preliminary Survey.” In Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Edited by Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, 53–71. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008.
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  511. A sensitive and scholarly description of the visual motifs in the throne rooms of the Kremlin. The author “reads” the subjects of the decorative art in the palaces to illuminate the different messages this art was intended to broadcast, especially notions of power and good rulership.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Zguta, Russell. “Skomorokhi: The Russian Minstrel-Entertainers.” Slavic Review 31.2 (June 1972): 297–313.
  514. DOI: 10.2307/2494335Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. A general survey of the role itinerant musicians played in the cultural history of Kievan and Muscovite Rus’, particularly in the formation of secular music, drama, and popular oral epic literature.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Literary Culture
  518.  
  519. Among the major scholarly preoccupations of specialists working on Muscovy is the vastly diverse body of textual monuments produced during the 14th through the 17th centuries. In fact, most historians of the period double as textual scholars because of the need to evaluate the authorship, language, dating, and paleographical features of the manuscript sources they use. Muscovy’s literary culture remains an open and contested field, and the works listed in this section provide a mere taste of the range of issues being investigated. Likhachev 1970 provides the necessary survey of genres and forms. Romanchuk 2007 looks at Muscovite reading and learning at the Kirillo-Belozerskii Monastery. Marker 1982 tackles the influence that the introduction of the printing press had on Muscovite literary culture. Keenan 1971 challenges the authenticity of the correspondence between Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1533–1584) and Prince Andrei Kurbskii, an enormously important corpus of writings from the third quarter of the 16th century. Lenhoff and Kleimola 2011 provides a collection of studies of the first genuine work of Muscovite historical writing, the Book of Royal Degrees of the Royal Genealogy. Rowland 1990 explores how “literary ideology” in the late 16th and the early 17th centuries might have served to limit the power of the Muscovite tsars by creating archetypical notions of good rulership. Taken together, these works offer a panoramic view of literary culture in Muscovy and of the scholarship that attempts to describe key pieces of it. These works also show the parallels in the literary forms, and scholarly approaches to studying them, between western and eastern Europe.
  520.  
  521. Keenan, Edward L. The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the “Correspondence” Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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  523. A controversial work that argues that the well-known correspondence between Ivan IV the Terrible and Prince Andrei Kurbskii, who fled Muscovy for Poland-Lithuania in 1564, is a later, probably early-17th-century “apocrypha.” The work elicited an enormous response by Russian and non-Russian specialists, most of whom rejected the thesis.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Lenhoff, Gail, and Anna Kleimola, eds. The Book of Royal Degrees and the Genesis of Russian Historical Consciousness. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2011.
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  527. A collection of twenty-one articles (plus an introduction and afterword) by leading authorities of the first true work of history produced in Russia, the Book of Royal Degrees of the Royal Genealogy. The collection includes a range of current opinions on the origins, dating, and contents of this important work, and so it serves as an excellent measure of the status of work on this key text.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Likhachev, D. S. Chelovek v literature drevnei Rusi. 2d ed. Moscow: Nauka, 1970.
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  531. An elegant and scholarly survey of the modes, genres, perspectives, styles, and literary “schools” of early Rus’ and Russian literature—from Kievan times to the 17th century. The author links literary works with the times and conditions that produced them. Readable, convincing, and superior in nearly every way from prior attempts to survey and appreciate East Slavic literary monuments.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Marker, Gary. “Russia and the ‘Printing Revolution’: Notes and Observations.” Slavic Review 41.2 (Summer 1982): 266–283.
  534. DOI: 10.2307/2496343Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. A survey of the way Russia fit into the general printing revolution in Europe of the 15th and the 16th centuries. The arrival of the printing press in Muscovy was not accompanied by the same social and economic transformations that its arrival produced in western Europe, nor did it even displace copying of manuscripts by hand. Argues that the experience of printing in Russia may represent an alternative, non-Western model of how printing influences culture.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Romanchuk, Robert. Byzantine Hermeneutics and Pedagogy in the Russian North: Monks and Masters at the Kirillo-Belozerskii Monastery, 1397–1501. 2d rev. ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
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  539. A study of the library and “school” at the Kirillo-Belozerskii Monastery during the 15th century. Argues that the monastery became a center for teaching and learning and that its monks helped create an active and influential center for reading and editing Byzantine texts in early Muscovy. The study invites striking parallels with the role and function of monasteries in Muscovy and in western Europe.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Rowland, Daniel. “Did Muscovite Literary Ideology Place Limits on the Power of the Tsar, 1540s–1660s.” Russian Review 49.2 (April 1990): 125–155.
  542. DOI: 10.2307/130009Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. A detailed and creative study of literary depictions of Muscovy’s rulers and how these depictions may have helped to fashion and limit conceptions of monarchical power in the 16th and the 17th centuries.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Muscovy and the Mongols
  546.  
  547. Few controversies in Russian history still resonate and sting as much as the continuing debate over the role the Mongols played in Russian history. Did the Mongols (and their successor states) derail Russian history, leading the country down a path to despotism and autocracy, lack of individual rights and freedoms, and cultural and technological backwardness? Or were the Mongols a mere menace that looted and lorded over the Rus’ principalities without ever leaving a permanent mark on society and culture? Was it rather something in between these two extremes? The question of the influence of the Mongols on the Rus’ principalities, especially Moscow, is taken up in very different ways in Halperin 1987 and Ostrowski 1998. Beliakov 2011 turns the question around, looking instead at the Chingisid “tsarevichi” that made careers for themselves in Muscovy, many of them converting to Orthodoxy and insinuating themselves into the upper-most ranks of the aristocracy. All three works concern themselves with the exchange of cultural practices, including administrative norms, words in the Russian lexicon, or notions of power and authority.
  548.  
  549. Beliakov, Andrei Vasil’evich. Chingisidy v Rossii XV–XVII vekov: Prosopograficheskoe issledovanie. Riazan’, Russia: Riazan’ Mir, 2011.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. A large-scale prosopographical study of the Chinggisids (agnatic descendants of Chinggis Khan) who entered Muscovite service, some for only short periods before returning to their homelands in the Qipchaq steppe, others setting down roots in the Muscovite lands and sometimes even converting to Orthodoxy and taking Russian wives.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
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  555. A succinct and significant volume that offers an important reevaluation of the relationship between the Rus’ principalities and the Mongols and Golden Horde, or, more properly, the Jochid ulus—the principal successor state in the west Eurasian space. Argues that the relationship was far more dynamic and nuanced (and sometimes collaborative) than the received view contemplates.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Ostrowski, Donald. Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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  559. A broad and eclectic work of scholarship and source study, which situates the Muscovite-Mongol engagement in a larger, Eurasian context. The work elucidates the range of borrowings from the Mongols and describes, through detailed analysis of sources, the evolving attitude and ideologies of the Russian Orthodox Church toward their Mongol overlords.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Muscovy and Byzantium
  562.  
  563. Muscovy’s church was a daughter church of the Byzantines, and the political and cultural worlds of the East Slavs was similarly a descendant of Byzantine forebears. In nearly every aspect of culture—literary forms, ecclesiastical structures, political ideology and rituals, and attitudes toward the West and western Christianity—Byzantium served as a template that the Muscovites followed closely. Meyendorff 1981 provides a sweeping yet penetrating examination of Byzantine influences on Muscovite culture, religion, and politics in the 14th century. Thomson 1999 provides a set of specific studies of the translated texts that transmitted Byzantine culture to Muscovy from Kievan times to the 17th century.
  564.  
  565. Meyendorff, John. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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  567. A classic and still relevant study of the relations between Byzantium and Muscovy at the very moment when Muscovy was forming itself into one of the major principalities in northeastern Rus’. Particularly strong on ecclesiastical ties and monasticism, but also situates Muscovy in the context of the Mongols and Muscovy’s western neighbors.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Thomson, Francis J. The Reception of Byzantine Culture in Mediaeval Russia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.
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  571. A collection of previously published articles by the author, which together provide a focused analysis of the translations of Greek texts, which were a major vehicle for the transmission of Byzantine culture to Muscovy. Particularly useful for evaluating the so-called silence of Muscovy, the perceived absence of original compositions in the East Slavic space.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Borderlands and Expansion
  574.  
  575. Expansion is a fundamental element of Muscovite history since the 14th century. Expansion to the south, into the Qipchaq Steppe, and to the east, into Siberia, brought the Muscovites into contact with new peoples, modes of economic life, environmental conditions, trade opportunities, and military threats. Romaniello 2012 examines Moscow conquest and annexation of the Kazan Khanate in the mid-16th century. Khodarkovsky 2002 and Shaw 1983 each tackle the problem of conquering and controlling the spaces to the south, while Martin 1983 explores the motives for the advance into Siberia. These studies together demonstrate how integral expansion was to the Kievan and Muscovite polities and how that expansion helped to shape the Russians’ own perception of themselves and the state they were creating.
  576.  
  577. Khodarkovsky, Michael. Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
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  579. A sweeping and synthetic chronological treatment of the peoples of the Qipchaq steppe that Russia encountered during the Renaissance centuries. Particularly strong in describing the cultural and religious systems of the indigenous peoples of the steppe and how these changed as a result of contact with the Russian state.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Martin, Janet. “Muscovy’s Northeastern Expansion: The Context and a Cause.” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 24.4 (October–December 1983): 459–470.
  582. DOI: 10.3406/cmr.1983.1990Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. A study of the interplay among religious, economic, and political motivations for the expansion of Muscovy into Siberia. The author argues that economic and political objectives competed with the goal of spreading Christianity as an underlying goal for exploration, settlement, and eventual administration (annexation) of these eastern territories.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Romaniello, Matthew P. The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552–1671. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012.
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  587. A source-based study of Moscow’s conquest of Kazan and subsequent (and resulting) transformation into a genuine empire. Examines the tools and methods used to integrate this important new territory and conquered population into Muscovy, a population of a different religion, diverse languages, and strange (to the Muscovites) customs.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Shaw, D. J. B. “Southern Frontiers of Muscovy, 1550–1700.” In Studies in Russian Historical Geography. Edited by J. H. Bater and R. A. French, 117–142. London: Academic Press, 1983.
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  591. A helpful survey of the varying foreign policy challenges along Russia’s moving southern frontier, exploring Muscovite relations with the peoples and polities that came and went in this space. Foreign policy is depicted as evolving to meet new challenges rather than following a set design for conquest and colonization.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Foreign Relations
  594.  
  595. Muscovy faced some of the most complex foreign policy challenges of any European state in the 14th through the 17th centuries, bordered, as it was, by the Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita, the territories of the Livonian knights, and Sweden on the west, the Ottomans and Crimean Tatars on the south, and other successor states to the Jochid ulus on the southeast and east—each negotiating crisscrossing alliances with the others and each sending and receiving diplomats at regular intervals. No single work treats the full length of this complicated period, but several important works, some recent and some not recent, together provide coverage of these diplomatic relations from the 14th through the 17th centuries. Bazilevich 1952 picks up the narrative as the Muscovites have loosened their bonds to their Tatar masters in the second half of the 15th century. Krom 2010 focuses on relations with the Lithuanians at the turn of the 16th century, while Martin 1983 looks at Muscovite relations with the Tatar khanates in the Crimea and Kazan in this same period. Martin 2008 offers a comparative picture of Muscovite interdynastic marriage politics with Poland-Lithuania and the Tatars at the turn of the 16th century, and Khoroshkevich 2003 carries the narrative of Muscovite foreign relations into Ivan IV’s reign.
  596.  
  597. Bazilevich, K. V. Vneshniaia politika russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva: Vtoraia polovina XV veka. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1952.
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. A chronological treatment of the emergence of Muscovy as a regional power in the west Eurasian space. Charts the deliberate ways the Muscovite state began to emancipate itself in the second half of the 15th century from the successor states to the Mongol Empire and switch its diplomatic and military attentions westward toward Lithuania.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Khoroshkevich, Anna Leonidovna. Rossiia v sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii v seredine XVI veka. Moscow: Drevlekhranilishche, 2003.
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  603. A deeply penetrating study of Russian diplomacy and foreign relations in the mid-16th century, treating the range of diplomatic, military, and foreign policy challenges that Russia faced during the minority and reign of Ivan IV. Argues that many domestic policies and reforms were ultimately rooted in foreign policy objectives.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Krom, M. M. Mezh Rus’iu i Litvoi: Zapadnorusskie zemli v sisteme russko-litovskikh otnowhenii kontsa XV – pervoi treti XVI v. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2010.
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  607. A study of the struggle between Muscovy and Lithuania at the turn of the 16th century, focusing particularly on the landed elites who lived on the border and had to make a choice between supporting one side or the other. Richly documented and illustrated with several useful fold-out color maps.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Martin, Janet. “Muscovite Relations with the Khanates of Kazan’ and the Crimea (1460s to 1521).” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 17.4 (1983): 435–453.
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  611. Unraveling an extremely complex period in Muscovite relations with the Kazan’ and Crimea, this article explores the military, diplomatic, and dynastic relations that crisscrossed between these two successor states to the Jochid ulus and Muscovy.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Martin, Russell E. “Gifts for the Bride: Dowries, Diplomacy, and Marriage Politics in Muscovy.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38.1 (Winter 2008): 119–145.
  614. DOI: 10.1215/10829636-2007-022Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615. A source-based study of the dowries for three Muscovite royal weddings—one between Elena, the daughter of Ivan III, and Alexander of Lithuania; another between Evdokiia, Elena’s sister, to the Chinggisid Tsarevich Peter; and a third between Mariia Saburova and Prince Vasilii Starodubskii. Argues that the dowries show the role of religion and domestic court politics in interdynastic marriages between Muscovy and her neighbors at the turn of the 16th century.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Warfare
  618.  
  619. Because Muscovy was, like much of the rest of Europe in the 14th through the 17th centuries, in a near constant state of war with its neighbors, the subject of warfare has become a major concern for scholars working on this period. Stevens 2007 provides the necessary chronology to begin any serious discussion of Muscovy’s military and wars and Davies 2007 focuses that chronology on the southern steppe region, an area that gave the Muscovites continuous and urgent worries throughout these centuries. Hellie 1971 turns the focus inside, examining the role of the army and warfare on domestic changes in economy and society, particularly the rise of serfdom. Filiushkin 2010 presents a collection of studies on Moscow’s fiery relations with the Baltic region, especially during Ivan IV’s Livonian War, which took place from 1558 to 1583. Poe 1996 introduces a genuinely comparative perspective on the gunpowder revolution and how Muscovy’s adoption of new military technology contrasted with changes wrought by its adoption in other European states.
  620.  
  621. Davies, Brian. Warfare, State, and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500–1700. London: Routledge, 2007.
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  623. Muscovy’s place as a growing power on the Qipchaq steppe is the underlying topic of this expansive book. Particularly strong on the many and shifting military and political alliances Muscovy formed over time with the successor states of the Jochid ulus and other players on the steppe, including Tatars and the Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Filiushkin, A. I., ed. Baltiiskii vopros v kontse XV–XVI v. Sbornik statei. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2010.
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  627. A recent collection of studies by specialists working on foreign policy, military, and diplomatic history of Muscovy’s involvement in the Baltic. The work shows Moscow’s evolving objectives in the region, focusing particularly on the Livonian War, which took place from 1558 to 1583.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Hellie, Richard. Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
  630. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226326467.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. A classic and still very important study of the relationship between the so-called gunpowder revolution and the enserfment of Russia’s peasantry from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Among the most cited books on the history of serfdom. For this book as a study of serfdom, see Hellie 1971, cited under the Countryside.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Poe, Marshall. “The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy: A Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38.4 (1996): 603–618.
  634. DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500020478Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  635. A comparative analysis of the so-called gunpowder revolution in Russia in the Early Modern period. Argues that the introduction of armies dominated by a so-called gunpowder infantry produced a social and cultural transformation in Muscovite society. Poe denies that Russia was “a despotic state imposing its will on a supine society” (p. 604) and thus here contradicts some of his later writings on the nature of power in Muscovy.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Stevens, Carol B. Russia’s Wars of Emergence, 1460–1730. London: Pearson/Longman, 2007.
  638. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. A general history but based extensively on primary and secondary sources. The work is particularly strong on the social history of the Muscovite armies and on the interactions between domestic court politics, foreign policy, and warfare.
  640. Find this resource:
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