Russia A History Read online

  Territorial expansion also brought a larger populace under the direct rule of the Muscovite princes. Moscow’s economic and tax base was, correspondingly, broadened. Retainers of subordinated princes, furthermore, were motivated to transfer their allegiance to Moscow, whose own military force and administrative staffs were thereby enlarged and strengthened. The Muscovite princes were able to collect transit and customs fees from the traffic and commercial transactions conducted along their roads and rivers and in their towns. Their control over segments of the Volga also gave them a greater role in the transport of goods down that river to Bulgar and Sarai, hence in the Mongols’ extensive trade network.

  Even though it was growing, Moscow’s territory was divided into relatively few apanages. During the reign of Dmitrii Donskoi (1362–89), only one apanage principality (Serpukhov) was carved out of Muscovy’s lands for his cousin. After Dmitrii’s death in 1389, his eldest son (Vasilii I) inherited the throne; each of Dmitrii’s other four sons then received an apanage principality. But due to their failure to produce sons of their own, most of their lands eventually reverted to the grand prince. The only one to survive was the apanage principality of Mozhaisk (later divided into two principalities, Mozhaisk and Vereia). At least until the death of Vasilii I (1425), the few apanage princes of Moscow as well as their senior advisers and military commanders (who held the rank of boyar) were loyal supporters of the grand prince. This internal territorial and political cohesion provided a central, unified core for the expanding state of Muscovy.

  The wealth Moscow derived from its increased population, extended lands, and commerce was reflected in the introduction of monumental stone buildings into the wooden town. After the Mongol invasion the princes in north-eastern Rus could not afford to construct major buildings. Tver was the first to accumulate sufficient wealth (by the end of the thirteenth century) to resume the construction of stone cathedrals. Moscow followed: in 1326 its Prince Ivan (the future Grand Prince Ivan Kalita) and Metropolitan Peter co-sponsored the construction of the Church of the Dormition. Soon afterwards four more stone churches were built inside Moscow’s kremlin. Prince Dmitrii rebuilt Moscow’s kremlin fortifications in stone in 1367, fortified some towns and outposts on Muscovy’s frontier, and also ordered the restoration of the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. In conjunction with the renewed construction activity, the arts of fresco- and icon-painting also revived. In the 1340s the walls of the kremlin churches were painted with frescos by Byzantine and Russian artists. Those of the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir were painted with frescos at the commission of Vasilii I by Andrei Rublev, one of the greatest artists of the era.

  Half a century after the Mongols set them on the throne of Vladimir, the princes of Moscow had transformed their realm. In addition to its visual signs, their growing power was manifested in Prince Dmitrii’s military victories first over a challenger from Tver, and then over a general from the Golden Horde itself—Mamai. These confrontations occurred while the discord within the Golden Horde, begun concurrently with his own ascension to the throne, intensified. Dmitrii, indeed, had obtained his patent from Mamai, to whom he had pledged to deliver the tribute gathered from his lands. Yet Dmitrii found it increasingly difficult to make those tribute payments for at least two reasons. As the conflicts in the horde disrupted the Volga markets in the 1360s and 1370s, Moscow’s revenue from commercial customs and transit fees collected from its Volga trade correspondingly declined. Second, Novgorod, whose commercial activities were responsible for importing silver into the Russian lands, was quarrelling with its Baltic Sea trading partners, who restricted the flow of silver to Novgorod and even temporarily suspended trade with Novgorod.

  Mamai gambled on the supposition that he might receive larger tribute payments from another prince, and transferred the patent for the Vladimir throne twice, in 1370 and 1375, to the prince of Tver—Dmitrii’s chief rival. These actions provoked open warfare between Moscow and Tver in 1371–2 and 1375. Despite the fact that Tver received support from Mamai as well as Lithuania, both outbursts of hostility ended in victory for Moscow. In 1375 the prince of Tver agreed to recognize Dmitrii as his ‘elder brother’ and as the legitimate grand prince of Vladimir; Mamai also returned the patent for the throne to Dmitrii.

  Nevertheless, within a few years Dmitrii and his patron Mamai were at war. Because of the mounting discord in the horde and the seizure of Sarai by Tokhtamysh (a Mongol khan from the eastern half of the horde’s territory), Mamai’s own situation had become desperate. To defeat Tokhtamysh he had to obtain supplementary troops, his own forces having been weakened by a bout of bubonic plague. For that he required funds. Mamai, therefore, demanded that Dmitrii pay the tribute in full. But Dmitrii, whose revenues had been reduced, hesitated. Mamai raised an army and, with promises of assistance from Lithuania, advanced upon his former protégé. Dmitrii gathered an army drawn from the numerous principalities over which he and his forefathers had established ascendancy. On 8 September 1380 the two armies fought in the battle of Kulikovo; it was here Dmitrii earned the epithet ‘Donskoi’. Dmitrii’s armies were victorious over Mamai, whose Lithuanian allies failed to arrive. Mamai suffered another defeat in an encounter with Tokhtamysh the following year. Having restored order in the horde, Tokhtamysh launched his own campaign against Dmitrii and the other Russian princes in 1382. He laid siege to Moscow, which had been abandoned by Dmitrii, and restored Mongol authority over the Russian principalities. He reasserted the horde’s demand for tribute and reconfirmed the Rus princes on their thrones.

  The battle of Kulikovo did not terminate the Muscovite princes’ subordination to the Mongol khans, but it did reduce their dependence upon them for legitimacy. The battle demonstrated Moscow’s pre-eminence among the principalities of north-eastern Rus; no other branch of Riurikids ever again challenged the seniority of the Muscovite line and its claim to the position of grand prince of Vladimir. Although the princes of Moscow formally recognized the suzerainty of the khan of the Golden Horde, their practice, begun by Dmitrii Donskoi, of naming their own heirs implicitly minimized the significance of the khan’s right to bestow the patent to rule.

  The Daniilovich success, however, was still incomplete. Although Dmitrii Donskoi had been able to mobilize a large number of northeastern principalities to defeat Mamai in 1380, some important lands remained beyond the range of his authority. One was Nizhnii Novgorod, whose prince refused to place his retainers under Muscovite command at the battle of Kulikovo. Another was Tver; despite its prince’s recent recognition of Dmitrii’s seniority, its forces did not join Dmitrii’s army. A third land, Novgorod, had similarly declined to participate.

  Dmitrii’s successors set about to remedy that situation. Vasilii I gained control over Nizhnii Novgorod and made a concerted, but less successful, effort to take control of parts of Novgorod’s northern empire. Even before his reign, a monk, known as Stefan of Perm, had created a new bishopric for the far north-eastern portion of Novgorod’s realm; the newly converted inhabitants (the Zyriane or Komi tribes) transferred their tribute payments from Novgorod to Moscow. Vasilii I attempted to gain control of another region subject to Novgorod—the Dvina land, rich in fish, fur, and other natural products that constituted major sources of Novgorod’s wealth. Although his repeated efforts to annex the Dvina land failed, Vasilii did acquire Ustiug, which controlled access to both the Dvina and Vychegda rivers. Continuing pressure on its northern empire did, however, gradually undermine Novgorod’s control over its economic resources; Vasilii II then defeated the weakened Novgorod militarily in 1456 and his successor Ivan III finally absorbed it into Muscovy in 1478. Ivan III continued the process by also annexing Tver in 1485.

  The efforts of the Muscovite princes to consolidate their position within their growing realm benefited from the Church, which, already in the fourteenth century, was advocating unity and centralization. The Church’s indirect endorsement of the Daniilovichi of Moscow provided a measure of domestically based legitimacy, whic
h initially supplemented, but ultimately replaced Mongol favour as a justification for holding the throne of Vladimir.

  Church support for the Daniilovichi was neither automatic nor explicit. Indeed, in the early fourteenth century Metropolitan Maxim (d. 1305) used his influence to discourage Iurii of Moscow from challenging the succession of Mikhail of Tver to the Vladimir throne. Although Metropolitan Peter, who succeeded Maxim, had sharp differences with Grand Prince Mikhail, he too did not unambiguously support Moscow. But he did co-sponsor the Church of the Dormition in Moscow, and when he died a few months after its construction had begun, he was buried in its walls; a shrine dedicated to him subsequently arose on the site. The association of Peter (who was canonized in 1339) with Moscow contributed to the city’s growing reputation as an ecclesiastical centre.

  For Metropolitan Peter and his successor Theognostus, however, the political fortunes of various princes were secondary to ecclesiastical concerns, the most pressing of which was maintaining the integrity of the metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus. For the metropolitans of the second half of the fourteenth century, Alexis and Cyprian, that issue became a preoccupation. Just as Alexis became metropolitan in 1354, the Lithuanian prince Olgerd succeeded in establishing a metropolitanate over the Orthodox bishoprics in his realm, including Kiev and western Chernigov. The Lithuanian metropolitan was related to Olgerd’s wife, a princess from the house of Tver. Alexis responded by formally transferring his seat from Kiev to Vladimir (a move made, de facto, by Maxim). Subsequent efforts to reunite his see took him to Constantinople, Sarai, and Kiev (where he was held in captivity from 1358 to 1360). Only in 1361, when the metropolitan of the Lithuanian see died, did he succeed in bringing the south-western Rus bishoprics back under his jurisdiction.

  In 1375 the metropolitanate of Kiev and Lithuania was revived; its metropolitan, Cyprian, was expected to succeed Alexis and reunite the two sees. But when Alexis died in 1378 and Cyprian arrived in Moscow, he was humiliated and expelled by Prince Dmitrii. The prince gave his support to Pimen, who became metropolitan in 1380. Cyprian and Pimen competed for dominance within the Rus Church until the latter, as well as Prince Dmitrii, died in 1389. Cyprian was then able to return to Moscow; he led the Church until his own death in 1407.

  Cyprian, supported by monastic spiritual leaders of northeastern Rus, was an exponent of ecclesiastical unity. That theme was expressed in icons and frescos sponsored by the Church. It was also articulated in literature, which, like architecture and painting, was recovering from the decline it had suffered in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion. The Laurentian Chronicle, copied by the monk Lavrentii in 1377, for example, incorporated the Primary Chronicle and a second component covering events to the year 1305. Its broadly inclusive subject-matter and character, which drew upon sources from northern as well as southern Rus, affirmed the continuity and unity of the Orthodox community in all the lands of Rus.

  Once Cyprian had become the unchallenged head of the Church, he placed even more emphasis on the themes of unity and continuity. His Life of St Peter (the former metropolitan) highlighted Peter’s relationship with Prince Ivan Kalita, whom he praised specifically as the initiator of the process of ‘gathering the Rus lands’. The Trinity Chronicle, compiled at his court, similarly praised Ivan Kalita and his grandson Dmitrii Donskoi. Its underlying premiss was that all the principalities of Rus formed a single ecclesiastical community and that Moscow had replaced Kiev as its centre. Although these themes were meant to relate to the Church, they implicitly promoted the concept of a politically unified secular state as well; such a state was envisioned as a necessary aid in the creation and protection of the ecclesiastical unity of the see.

  By the mid-fifteenth century Church texts characterized Dmitrii Donskoi as the hero of Kulikovo and stressed his role as the prince who had gathered an army drawn from many of the lands of Rus, to oppose the Tatars. They also likened his grandson Vasilii II to Vladimir; the latter had introduced Christianity to Rus and had subsequently been canonized as a saint, while the former was depicted as the protector of the Orthodox faith for rejecting a union with the Roman Church (1439) and supporting the Russian prelates’ decision (1448) to name their own metropolitan without confirmation by the patriarch of Constantinople.

  The deep concern of the Church to preserve the territorial and, after 1439, the spiritual integrity of the metropolitanate enhanced the prestige of the Muscovite princes, whose political policies were compatible with the causes of the Church. The Church, while pursuing and justifying its own ecclesiastical goals, furnished the Daniilovichi with ideological concepts that legitimized their rule.

  By 1425 Muscovy had strengthened both its material and ideological foundations. The new domestic sources of legitimacy, however, remained secondary as long as the Golden Horde continued to be powerful and to support the Daniilovichi. Despite a devastating attack by Timur (Tamerlane) on Sarai and its other market centres in 1395, the horde was able to maintain its dominance over the Rus princes, to collect tribute from them, and even to launch a major campaign and besiege Moscow (1408). Lithuania similarly exerted a strong influence over the lands of Rus. It incorporated Smolensk (1395) and became increasingly involved in Novgorod, Tver, and Riazan. Vasilii I, who had married the daughter of Vitovt, the grand prince of Lithuania, not only met Lithuania’s expansion with relative passivity, but named Vitovt one of the guardians of his son, Vasilii II.

  Shortly after Vasilii I died in 1425, however, the balance of power in the region shifted. Muscovy’s neighbours, Lithuania and the Golden Horde, had imposed internal order and external limits on the Rus lands. But in 1430 the Lithuanian grand prince died, and his realm fell into political disarray. At virtually the same time the Golden Horde, which had never fully recovered from the economic disruptions caused by Timur, began to disintegrate. During the next two decades the Golden Horde split into four divisions: the khanate of Kazan on the mid-Volga, the Crimean khanate, the khanate of Astrakhan, and the remnant core—the Great Horde.

  Once Muscovy’s neighbours had weakened, the Daniilovichi reverted to intradynastic warfare. At issue, as during the Kievan Rus era, was a principle of succession. In the second half of the fourteenth century the princes of Moscow (in the absence of living brothers and eligible cousins) had regularly named their eldest sons as their heirs. Although this practice established a vertical pattern of succession, it was adopted as a matter of necessity, not as a deliberate plan to replace the traditional lateral succession system. When Vasilii I died, however, he left not only his son Vasilii II, but four brothers. As long as his son’s guardians (who included Vitovt of Lithuania and Metropolitan Photius) were alive, no one quarrelled with his succession.

  But in 1430–1, within a year of one another, Vitovt and Photius both died. Shortly afterwards, the eldest of Vasilii II’s uncles challenged his nephew for the throne of Vladimir. He and Vasilii each appealed to the Mongol Khan Ulu-Muhammed. Although Vasilii was awarded the patent, his uncle none the less contested the decision and seized Moscow in 1433. When he died in 1434, his sons continued the war even though, according to the principle of seniority their father had invoked, they had no claim to the throne. The prolonged war was both brutal and decisive. By the time it was concluded, Vasilii had blinded one cousin and had in turn been blinded by another; he had been captured and released by the Tatars of Ulu-Muhammed’s horde (1445) as it migrated to the mid-Volga where it subsequently formed the khanate of Kazan; he had welcomed into his service two of the khan’s sons who assisted him against his cousins; he had established Moscow’s control over the vast majority of the northern Rus lands and increased its authority over Novgorod; and he had subdued his relatives—apanage princes in Muscovy—and restricted succession to his own direct heirs.

  The triumph of Vasilii II over his uncle and cousins enabled him and his heirs to continue, virtually without restraint, the process of consolidating Muscovite authority over the northern Rus lands and forming a centralized, unified state to gover
n them. The principle of vertical succession, confirmed by the war, limited the division of lands to the formation of apanage principalities for the grand prince’s immediate relatives. It correspondingly restricted the proliferation of large, competitive armies under the control of autonomous princes. In addition to subordinating most of the northern principalities to Moscow, the altered succession system served to unify and consolidate the Russian lands around Moscow. By the mid-fifteenth century the princes of Moscow had fashioned a new political structure, centred around their own enlarged hereditary domain and their dynastic line, within which eligibility for the post of grand prince had been narrowly defined. Built upon territorial, economic, military, and ideological foundations that displaced both the traditional heritage of Kievan Rus and Tatar authority, the new state of Muscovy was thus poised to exploit the disintegration of Golden Horde and the reduction of Lithuanian expansion and to become a mighty Eastern European power.

  2. Muscovite Russia 1450–1598

  NANCY SHIELDS KOLLMANN

  Sixteenth-century Muscovy was a diverse ensemble of regions, ethnic groups, cultures, historical traditions, and geographic differences. To rule this expanding empire, Moscow’s sovereigns devised strategies of governance that were flexible, integrating, and minimalist; they used coercion rarely, but ruthlessly. The result was a loosely centralized political system rich in ambition, poor in resources, and resilient in the face of crisis.