Considering the 17th century, events and changes of rulers, historians characterize this period as a “rebellious century,” a century when an “unborn sovereign” could ascend to the royal throne. It was in this century that the dynasty of the last emperor of Russia, the family, began. The Russian economy is still based on agriculture; new territories are being developed in the Volga region, Siberia and on the southern borders. The first manufacture is born.
Trade in a landlocked country is developing poorly. Changes are taking place in cultural life - the spread of secular knowledge; in painting, architecture and sculpture there is a distance from the canons of the church. The church itself is weakened and is being subordinated to the state. Speaking about the 17th century, the events of the internal and external activities of the state, we should turn to a somewhat earlier period - the death and ascension to the reign of Boris Godunov.
Boris Godunov
Boris Fedorovich Godunov, after the death of his father in 1569, was raised by his uncle, the landowner Dmitry Godunov. He served as an oprichnik for Grigory (Malyuta) Skuratov, who headed the “oprichnina investigation” under Ivan IV, and was married to his daughter. Having become a boyar in the fall of 1580, Boris Fedorovich and his relatives, gaining influence, acquired a significant position among the nobility of Moscow. Smart, cautious, able to choose the right moment for action, Godunov possessed the necessary qualities of a politician.
Boris Fedorovich, in the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, was close to the tsar and influenced his court. After the death of Ivan IV, Fedor, his son, was crowned on the throne. The king, suffering from dementia, needed an adviser, a country to govern. A guardian council was drawn up from among the boyars, and Godunov was included among these boyars. Thanks to his skillful actions, the council collapsed, Boris Godunov's opponents were subjected to various repressions. Actual power in the state passed to Boris Fedorovich.
In 1581, under strange circumstances (from a knife wound), the young Tsarevich Dmitry died, in 1589, Fyodor Ioannovich died. Amid the crowd's cries of “Boris for the Tsar,” Godunov was crowned the Tsar. This is how the Rurik dynasty ended. Strengthening state foundations was the core of Boris Fedorovich’s policy, which he pursued within the country. The introduction of the patriarchate in 1859 strengthened the position of the tsar. Thanks to the adherence to the line, the internal policy of the tsarist government was productive.
On the outskirts of Rus', fortifications and fortresses are appearing, urban construction is underway, and “Yuriev Day” is being restored. Boris Fedorovich was the first to invite foreign specialists to work and send noble offspring to study abroad. In order to unite society, he stopped repressions against the boyars. He began to develop the Volga region. Godunov's foreign policy characterizes him as a skilled diplomat. He was able to conclude a successful peace treaty with Sweden, returning the captured Russian lands. The lean years of 1601–1603 and the onset of famine caused massive discontent among the population and led to a riot led by Cotton in 1603 – the first mass uprising of the “rabble,” which was soon suppressed.
False Dmitry I
The year 1603 was marked not only by the rebellious performance of Cotton. This year, “Tsarevich Dmitry” appears - the fugitive monk Otrepiev, known as. Wanting to get Western Russian lands, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund III decides to use the impostor for his own purposes. The king gives the money necessary for the army and allows the nobility to participate in the campaign. The impostor promises to marry the daughter of the Sambir elder Mniszek - Marina, give the western territories to the Poles and promote the introduction of Catholicism in Rus'.
In the summer of 1604, a four-thousand-strong combined detachment, led by False Dmitry I, landed near the Dnieper. The detachment is replenished with villagers and townspeople, False Dmitry advances to Moscow. In May 1605, fate presented a gift to the impostor - Tsar Boris Fedorovich suddenly died. Part of the government troops went over to his side and in June 1605, False Dmitry I occupied the capital, where he was crowned on the throne. By making concessions to the nobility, the impostor increases the period of search for fugitive peasants, but “Yuriev Day”, promised to the people, was not returned. He quickly emptied the state treasury, giving gifts to the gentry, however, he was in no hurry to spread Catholicism. The dissatisfied mood of the Moscow nobility and among the common people intensified after his wedding to M. Mnishek. On May 17, 1606, in Moscow, under the leadership of the Shuisky boyars, an uprising began - and False Dmitry I was killed.
Vasily Shuisky
In 1606, the Zemsky Sobor elected Vasily Shuisky, who had previously distinguished himself in battles and campaigns, as king. During his reign, an uprising broke out under the leadership of a Polish mercenary with the goal of elevating Tsar Dmitry to the throne. In October 1606, rebel troops even besieged Moscow. The uprising itself was suppressed in October 1607, Bolotnikov was executed. In the same year, False Dmitry II appears with Marina Mnishek as his wife. The impostor's attempt to ascend the throne failed - he was killed in 1610. Dissatisfied with Shuisky's rule, the nobles, led by Procopius Lyapunov, overthrow him and in July 1610 hand him over to King Sigismund. Subsequently, Shuisky was tonsured a monk.
"Seven Boyars" and the Polish intervention
The leadership of the state passes to a group of boyars (“seven boyars”), headed by Fyodor Mstislavsky. As a result of intrigues and disagreements over who should rule the state, a decision was made to “call to the throne” Prince Vladislav, the son of King Sigismund III. Being a Catholic, Vladislav did not intend to change his faith to Orthodox - as tradition required. Having agreed to come to the “bride” in Moscow, where he arrived with the army. It was possible to defend the independence of the country only with the help of the people. The first independent militia was assembled in Ryazan in the fall of 1611 by Prokopiy Lyapunov - but he was killed after entering into conflict with the Cossacks.
Second militia. Minin and Pozharsky
The second militia was assembled at the end of 1611, in Nizhny Novgorod under the leadership of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and with money collected by the merchant Kuzma Minin. The militia, commanded by Pozharsky, moved to Yaroslavl - where in the spring, in 1612, a new government was created. After staying in Yaroslavl for four months, determining tactics and recruiting people, the militia began active operations. The fighting on the outskirts of Moscow, and in the city itself, continued throughout the summer and until October 26, 1612. The Poles fled.
Mikhail Romanov
At the Zemsky Sobor, which took place at the beginning of 1613 with the representation of broad sections of the population, under pressure from the Cossacks, sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar. The Romanovs were related to Ivan IV through his first wife. Mikhail's father, Metropolitan Philaret, was in captivity among the Poles, and his mother took monastic vows. Upon the return of Father Mikhail from captivity in 1619, dual power sets in in the country - with the formal rule of Mikhail and the practical leadership of the country by Filaret.
This situation continued until 1633 - until the death of Filaret. During Mikhail's reign, taxes were reduced, the activity of foreign entrepreneurs intensified, who were allowed to build factories, and the growth of the metallurgical and metalworking industry began. Foreign policy was balanced, with virtually no wars. Mikhail Romanov died in 1645.
Alexey Romanov
After the death of his father, his son, Alexei, ascends to the throne. And during his reign, Alexey Mikhailovich, nicknamed “The Quietest,” carried out a number of transformations and reforms, incl. church and city. In 1645, the Council Code was published. The Code consolidated the inviolability of the power of the monarch, finally formalized serfdom and strengthened the role of the nobles. Thanks to church reform, Alexei Mikhailovich was able to take control of the church. For this purpose, he legislated:
- the church is obliged to pay taxes to the treasury;
- the king was the judge of the church;
- deprived monasteries of the right to acquire land.
Patriarch Nikon, who also dealt with issues of church reformation - introducing foreign experience into Russian Orthodoxy, spoke out against the rise of secular power over spiritual power. caused opposition from supporters of the old church traditions, led by Archpriest Avaakum. And the church schism began. As a result:
- for opposition to strengthening the influence of the monarch, Patriarch Nikon was defrocked and imprisoned in a monastery prison;
- Archpriest Avaakum, for refusing to follow the official line of the church, was defrocked and cursed at the cathedral.
The city reform established:
- being recognized as free, the townspeople were assigned to their place of residence;
- peasants could now sell their goods only wholesale, and townspeople could conduct retail trade.
Period of Sophia's regency
In 1676, after the death of Alexei Mikhailovich, his sick son Fyodor was crowned to the throne; power was practically in the hands of relatives on his mother’s side. After his death, in 1682, the actual management of the state passed to Princess Sophia - due to the minority of princes Ivan and Peter and lasted until 1689. Results of her reign:
liberation of the townspeople from mandatory attachment to the city;
unsuccessful Crimean campaigns allow us to conclude that it is necessary to find a direct access to the sea.
Results
The 17th century is a time of unrest and contradictions in the history of the Russian state. With the dominant position of the feudal structure in the country's economy, the emergence of a capitalist economic system begins. Serfdom was being formalized, but given the general difficult situation of the people, it was he who could help the contender to the royal throne ascend, to ascend the throne.
Troubled times. The 17th century brought numerous trials to Russia and its statehood. After the death of Ivan the Terrible in 1584, the weak and sickly Fyodor Ivanovich (1584-1598) became his heir and tsar.
A struggle for power within the country began. This situation caused not only internal contradictions, but also intense attempts by external forces to eliminate the state independence of Russia. Throughout almost the entire century, it had to fight off the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, raids of the Crimean Tatars - vassals of the Ottoman Empire, and resist the Catholic Church, which sought to turn Russia away from Orthodoxy .
At the beginning of the 17th century. Russia went through a period called the Time of Troubles. XVII century marked the beginning of the peasant wars; This century saw the revolts of cities, the famous case of Patriarch Nikon and the schism of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, this century V.O. Klyuchevsky called it rebellious.
The Time of Troubles covers 1598-1613. Over the years, the Tsar's brother-in-law Boris Godunov (1598-1605), Fyodor Godunov (from April to June 1605), False Dmitry I (June 1605 - May 1606), Vasily Shuisky (1606-1610), False Dmitry II ( 1607-1610), Seven Boyars (1610-1613).
Boris Godunov won the difficult struggle for the throne between representatives of the highest nobility and was the first Russian Tsar to receive the throne not by inheritance, but by election at the Zemsky Sobor. During his short reign, he pursued a peaceful foreign policy, resolving controversial issues with Poland and Sweden for 20 years; encouraged economic and cultural ties with Western Europe.
Under him, Russia advanced into Siberia, finally defeating Kuchum. In 1601-1603 Russia was hit by a “great famine” caused by crop failures. Godunov took certain measures to organize public works, allowed slaves to leave their masters, and distributed bread from state storage facilities to the hungry.
However, the situation could not be improved. The relationship between the authorities and the peasants was aggravated by the annulment in 1603 of the law on the temporary restoration of St. George's Day, which meant the strengthening of serfdom. The discontent of the masses resulted in an uprising of serfs, which was led by Cotton Crookedfoot. Many historians consider this uprising to be the beginning of the Peasant War.
The highest stage of the Peasant War at the beginning of the 17th century. (1606-1607) there was an uprising of Ivan Bolotnikov, in which serfs, peasants, townspeople, archers, Cossacks, and the nobles who joined them took part. The war engulfed the South-West and South of Russia (about 70 cities), the Lower and Middle Volga regions. The rebels defeated the troops of Vasily Shuisky (the new Russian Tsar) near Kromy, Yelets, on the Ugra and Lopasnya rivers, etc.
In October-December 1606, the rebels besieged Moscow, but due to disagreements and betrayal of the nobles, they were defeated and retreated to Kaluga, and then to Tula. In the summer and autumn of 1607, together with the detachments of the slave Ilya Gorchakov (Ileika Muromets, ?–ca. 1608), the rebels fought near Tula. The siege of Tula lasted four months, after which the city was surrendered and the uprising was suppressed. Bolotnikov was exiled to Kargopol, blinded and drowned.
At such a critical moment, an attempt was made at Polish intervention. The ruling circles of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Catholic Church intended to dismember Russia and eliminate its state independence. In a hidden form, the intervention was expressed in support of False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II.
Open intervention under the leadership of Sigismund III began under Vasily Shuisky, when in September 1609 Smolensk was besieged and in 1610 a campaign against Moscow and its capture took place. By this time, Vasily Shuisky was overthrown by the nobles from the throne, and an interregnum began in Russia - the Seven Boyars.
The Boyar Duma made a deal with the Polish interventionists and was inclined to call the young Polish king Vladislav, a Catholic, to the Russian throne, which was a direct betrayal of the national interests of Russia. In addition, in the summer of 1610, a Swedish intervention began with the goal of separating Pskov, Novgorod, and the northwestern and northern Russian regions from Russia.
- End of the intervention. The fight for Smolensk
- The Council Code of 1649 and the strengthening of autocracy
- Foreign policy
- Domestic political situation
- Economy of Russia in the 17th century.
An estate in Russia in the 17th century was a social group that had rights and responsibilities assigned to it, which were inherited from generation to generation. At the time under review, the final formation of the social structure of society took place in our country thanks to government policies and the adoption of a number of decrees, in particular, the famous Council Code, which essentially fixed the established traditional hierarchy of social strata.
Boyars
The estate in Russia in the 17th century was very often called “rank,” but it meant not so much belonging to one or another service, but inclusion in one or another social corporation. At this time, the bureaucratic apparatus of power, primarily zemstvo councils and orders, finally took shape in our country. The privileged class in Russia in the 17th century had the right to serve in these representative bodies. The last category included secular and spiritual feudal lords.
The boyars were considered the top of society. It included several groups: representatives of the lateral branches of the Rurik dynasty, Tatar and Horde princes who went over to the service of the Moscow sovereign, as well as nobility from Moldavia and Wallachia, the old Moscow boyars, as well as close appanage princes, rulers of the principalities, who at different times were annexed to Moscow. This privileged class in Russia in the 17th century had the right to own votchina - hereditary land ownership, transmitted by inheritance and the right to own serfs. The boyars occupied a special place in the Duma under the prince and the tsar. It was they who made up the main management elite in the administration. The okolnichy were of prominent importance - people who accompanied the ruler on the road, received ambassadors from foreign countries, and also commanded regiments and held the positions of governor.
Nobles and servants
The next level was occupied by the nobility. It was also divided into categories. Moscow nobles enjoyed special honor: solicitors, stewards. In second place were the city nobles - the provincial nobility. These people, like the boyars, had the right to own land and serfs, however, unlike the former, this ownership was inherited only if the son continued to serve after his father.
The main classes of Russia in the 17th century took shape precisely in this century, when the social structure that had developed in the previous time received legislative registration. Another important category were military people. They were divided into several categories: archers, gunners, blacksmiths and Cossacks. They were considered a dependent category of the population.
City dwellers
This group was also highly dependent on the state. The fact is that she was the main supplier of taxes to the royal treasury, and therefore the government was especially interested in assigning these people to their permanent place of residence. The townspeople were subject to the so-called tax, tribute, and in the event of the escape or departure of any townsman, his share fell on the rest. Therefore, the government assigned the population to a permanent place of residence. However, many found a way out in that they began to move into which they were exempt from taxes, mortgaging for their owners and masters, while losing personal freedom.
Peasants
Characteristics of the estates of the 17th century in Russia include an analysis of the situation of the bulk of the country's population. We are talking about peasants who were also not a homogeneous mass. They were divided into black-sown ones (which belonged to the state or were personally free), landowners, which were in the personal property of landowners, and palace ones, which belonged to the royal family. They carried out various kinds of duties, primarily corvée (in-kind labor) and quitrent (cash or in-kind contribution to the landowner). introduced an indefinite search for fugitive peasants, which finally consolidated their existence in Russia.
Merchants
The estates of the 17th century in Russia, the table of which is presented in this article, shows how great a degree of differentiation Russian society has achieved. Merchants belonged to a separate group. Among them stood out the most noble and wealthy guests, who held prominent positions in financial management and had the right to own estates and were exempt from taxes. Members of the living room and cloth hundred also belonged to the privileged part of the merchants. They had the right to self-government and their internal affairs were managed by elected heads and elders. The rest of the merchants paid customs duties to the state.
Clergy
A diagram of the estates of Russia in the 17th century shows the place of each social group in the hierarchy. The clergy was divided into two parts: black and white. The first category included monks. The monasteries also owned land with registered peasants. Parish priests had a family, property, and were in charge of education. So, based on the above, we can conclude that in Russia in the 17th century the hierarchical
Economy and estates. After the expulsion from Russia and the election of a new Tsar “from natural roots” The restoration of the destroyed life, especially the economy, began. This took more than a decade.
17th century is a turning point, including in the development of the economy. It was to this time, as Russian historians of the 19th century noted, that the beginning “new time”. IN Russian economy the first shoots of new bourgeois relations appear (in industry, trade, and partly in agriculture). True, opinions among experts on this issue differ. Some attribute the beginning of capitalist relations to the 16th century, others to the 17th century; finally, the third - by the second half of the 18th century, when these relations took shape into a special, independent structure in the Russian economy.
In this regard, Russia lagged behind a number of countries in Western Europe, where the emergence of capitalism began in the 14th - 15th centuries, and the capitalist era proper - from the end of the 16th - mid-17th centuries. (Netherlands, England). But still she walked, albeit belatedly, along the same path. The first shoots, the beginnings of capitalism in Russian industry and trade appeared precisely in the 17th century.
Agriculture of Russia XVII century
Russian people clear and plow overgrown and dead fields and forest clearings. The Zamoskovny region, the center of European Russia, and the districts around the Russian capital in the west and northwest, northeast and east are coming to life. The Russian peasant is moving to the outskirts - south of the Oka River, in the Volga region and the Urals, in Western Siberia. New settlements are springing up here.
It did not recover quickly; the reasons for this were the low capacity of small peasant farms, low yields, natural disasters, and shortages. The main way of development of agriculture at that time was extensive: farmers are including an increasing number of new territories into economic turnover.
Rye and oats were sown most of all. Next came barley and wheat, spring rye (egg) and millet, buckwheat and spelt, peas and hemp. The same in Siberia. More wheat was sown in the south than in the north. Turnips and cucumbers, cabbage and carrots, radishes and beets, onions and garlic, pumpkins and even watermelons were grown in the gardens. In the gardens there are cherries, red currants, gooseberries (kryzh-bersen), raspberries, strawberries, apple trees, pears, and plums.
Productivity was low. Crop failures, shortages, and famines recurred frequently. The reasons lay in the feudal nature of the economy, climatic conditions (freezing and soaking of crops in the center and north of the country, drought and locust invasions in the south).
The basis for the development of livestock farming was peasant farming. From it the feudal lords received draft horses for working in their fields and table supplies: meat, live and killed poultry, eggs, butter, etc. Among the peasants there were, on the one hand, those with many horses and many cows; on the other hand, deprived of any livestock. Cattle breeding especially developed in Pomerania, the Yaroslavl region, and the southern districts.
Fish were caught everywhere, but especially in Pomerania. In the northern regions, the White and Barents Seas, cod and halibut, herring and salmon were caught; hunted seals, walruses, and whales. On the Volga and Yaik, red fish and caviar were of particular value.
Industry and manufacturing in Russia in the 17th century
Unlike agriculture industrial production in Russia it developed faster. The most widespread domestic industry: throughout the country, peasants produced canvas and homespun cloth, ropes and ropes, felted and leather shoes, a variety of clothes, dishes and towels, bast shoes and washcloth, tar and resin, sleighs and matting, rendered lard and bristles, much more. Through buyers, these products, especially canvases, reached the market. Gradually, peasant industry outgrows the domestic framework and turns into small-scale commodity production. Masters of Yaroslavl canvas, Vazh cloth, Reshma matting, Belozersk spoons, Vyazma sleighs, etc. follow this path.
Crafts developed on a fairly large scale into commercial production. This was the case, for example, in metalworking. It was based on the extraction of swamp ores, which produced low-grade iron and steel (structure). Metallurgy centers have long been established in the districts south of Moscow: Serpukhovsky, Kashirskoye, Tula, Dedilovsky, Aleksinsky. Tula iron and the Serpukhov way of life spread throughout the country; local craftsmen who worked for the treasury, in particular, manufactured weapons for the Tsar's Armory, at the same time provided many products for sale on the market.
The second center of metal production was located northwest of Moscow: Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya, Tikhvin, Zaonezhye. Ustyugen openers, frying pans, nails and other household items were sold not only in nearby villages and cities, but also in distant ones, for example in Moscow, Smolensk, Yaroslavl. The same can be said about the products of craftsmen from Nizhny Novgorod, Galich and their environs.
The noticeable growth of Russian crafts in the 17th century, the transformation of a significant part of it into small-scale commodity production, consolidation, the use of hired labor, the specialization of certain regions of the country, and the emergence of a labor market created the conditions for development manufacturing.
The number of manufactories has increased- large enterprises based on the division of labor, which remains predominantly manual, and the use of mechanisms driven by water. This indicates the beginning of the transition to early capitalist industrial production, which was still heavily entangled in serf relations.
At this time, old manufactories were expanded, for example, the Cannon Yard - they built “forge mill” so that “Forging iron with water”, stone buildings (instead of old wooden ones). Two state-owned gunpowder mills appeared in Moscow. The workshops of the Armory, Gold and Silver Chambers continued to operate, as well as the sewing manufactories - the Tsarskaya and Tsaritsyn workshops. A weaving factory appeared - Khamovny Dvor in Kadashevskaya Sloboda (Zamoskvorechye), a silk factory - Velvet Dvor (it died out quite quickly).
These manufactories were state or palace. Forced labor was used on them. They had no connections with the market.
Another group of manufactories are merchant ones: rope yards in Vologda, Kholmogory (emerged in the 16th century), in Arkhangelsk (in the 17th century). These were relatively large enterprises: Vologda alone employed about 400 hired Russian workers. The Kholmogory yard provided so many ropes that they could equip a quarter of the ships of the English fleet, one of the largest in the world at that time.
Near Moscow, the Dukhaninsky glass factory of E. Koist, a native of Sweden, appeared. The most important areas of manufacturing production are in the Urals, in the Tula-Kashira, Olonets regions. These are iron-making, copper-smelting and other factories.
Manufactories played a leading role in the production of weapons. In the manufacture of agricultural implements and household items, small peasant crafts and urban artisans successfully competed with them.
In the 17th century, up to 60 different manufactories arose; not all of them turned out to be viable - almost half survived until Peter’s time. It is not surprising that serf labor was used here. More indicative is the gradual expansion of civilian labor, both in manufactories and on water transport (Volzhsky, Sukhono-Dvinsky and other routes), the salt mines of Totma, Vychegda Salt and Kama Salt (in the latter, by the end of the century, there were more than 200 varnishes, extracting annually up to 7 million poods of salt), fisheries and salt fields of the Lower Volga (at the end of the century in Astrakhan and around it there were several tens of thousands of hired workers only in the summer).
The hirelings included townspeople, black-sown and privately-owned peasants, slaves, including runaways, and any free, walking people. Peasants, as a rule, went to temporary work and then returned to their farms. Even then, a category of more or less permanent hired workers began to form from the hirelings.
From large merchants grow entrepreneurs involved, for example, in salt making: G. A. Nikitnikov and N. A. Sveteshnikov, V. G. Shorin and Ya. S. Patokin, O. I. Filatiev and D. G. Pankratiev, Shustov brothers and others. Since the 16th century. The Stroganovs gained strength, and from the end of the 17th century - the Demidovs.
The enterprise is a 17th-century manufactory; production of artillery pieces.
Trade in Russia in the 17th century
In the grain trade, Vologda, Vyatka, Veliky Ustyug, and Kungur district acted as important centers in the north; southern cities - Orel and Voronezh, Ostrogozhsk and Korotoyak, Yelets and Belgorod; in the center - Nizhny Novgorod. By the end of the century, a grain market appeared in Siberia. Salt markets were the same Vologda, Sol Kama, Lower Volga; Nizhny Novgorod served as a transshipment and distribution point.
A number of cities, first of all, of course, Moscow, had trade relations with all or many regions of the country. Quite a few traders who made up a special “merchant rank”, conducted their business without doing anything else.
The dominant position in trade was occupied by the townspeople, primarily guests and members of the Living Room and Cloth Hundreds. Large traders came from wealthy artisans and peasants.
They traded in many different goods and in many places; trade specialization was poorly developed, capital circulated slowly, free funds and credit were absent, usury had not yet become a professional occupation; the scattered nature of trade required many agents and intermediaries.
Foreign trade operations with Western countries were carried out through Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Putivl, and the Svensk Fair. 75% of foreign trade turnover came from Arkhangelsk, the only and also inconvenient port connecting Russia with Western Europe. Astrakhan played a leading role in eastern trade.
According to the Trade Charter of 1653, many small customs duties remaining from the time of feudal fragmentation were eliminated in the country. In return, a single ruble duty was introduced - 10 money per ruble, i.e. 5% of the purchase price of the goods (a ruble is equal to 200 money). They took more from foreigners than from Russian merchants. And the New Trade Charter of 1667 further strengthened protectionist tendencies in the interests of the Russian commercial and industrial class.
Estates of Russia in the 17th century
Feudal lords. Among all classes, the dominant place certainly belonged to the feudal lords. In their interests, the state government took measures to strengthen the ownership of the boyars and nobles to land and peasants, to unite the layers of feudal lords, their “nobility”. The authorities strictly and consistently sought to preserve their estates and estates in the hands of the nobles. The demands of the nobles and the measures of the authorities led to the fact that by the end of the century the difference between an estate and a fiefdom was reduced to a minimum.
Throughout the century, the government, on the one hand, distributed huge tracts of land to the feudal lords; on the other hand, part of the possessions, more or less significant, was transferred from the estate to the estate.
The census books of 1678 counted 888 thousand tax households throughout the country, of which about 90% were in serfdom. The palace owned 83 thousand households, or 9.3%; churches - 118 thousand (13.3%); boyars—88 thousand (10%); most of all to the nobles - 507 thousand households, or 57%.
Peasants and slaves. The peasants worked for the benefit of the feudal lords in corvée ( “product”), paid dues in kind and in cash. Regular size “products”- from two to four days a week, depending on the size of the lordly household and the wealth of the serfs.
“Table stocks”- bread and meat, vegetables and fruits, hay and firewood, mushrooms and berries - were transported to the owners' yards by the same peasants. Nobles and boyars hired carpenters and masons, brickmakers and painters, and other craftsmen from their villages. Peasants worked in the first factories and factories that belonged to feudal lords or the treasury, made cloth and canvas at home, etc.
Serfs, in addition to work and payments to the feudal lords, also bore duties to the treasury. In general, their taxation and duties were heavier than those of the palace and black-mown peasants. After 1649, the search for fugitive peasants took on wide proportions. Thousands of them were captured and returned to their owners.
To survive, the peasants went into retreat, to “farmers”, to earn money. They were hired by artels. Impoverished peasants moved into the category of peasants.
Feudal lords, especially large ones, had many serfs, sometimes several hundred people (for example, the boyars N. I. Romanov, B. I. Morozov had 300-400 people each). These are clerks and servants for parcels, grooms and tailors, watchmen and shoemakers, falconers and “singing guys”. They did not run an independent household; they were completely supported by the owner. Some nobles began to transfer their slaves to the land, provided them with equipment, and they paid them quitrents, performed corvée work, but, unlike peasants, did not bear the state tax. However, the tax reform of 1678-1681 equalized both. By the end of the century, there was essentially a merger between serfs and peasants.
The average level of well-being of the Russian peasant in the 17th century. decreased compared to previous centuries. For example, peasant arable farming has decreased. Some peasants had half a tithe, about a tithe of land, others did not have even that. And the wealthy had several dozen tithes.
Rich peasants became merchants and industrialists. Such, for example, are the Fedotov-Guselnikovs - black-growing peasants of the Ustyug district, the Oskolkovs and Shangins from the Komi region. They all got rich from trading operations with Siberia. And there were many of them. The feudal lords and the treasury received large incomes from them.
Posad people. By the middle of the century, there were more than two and a half hundred cities in the country, and, according to incomplete data, there were more than 40 thousand courtyards in them. Of these, there are 27 thousand households in Moscow.
The population of cities in the first half of the century increased by more than one and a half times. Despite the modest share of traders and artisans in the total population of Russia, they played a very significant role in its economic and political life. Among the townspeople we see Russians and Ukrainians, Belarusians and Tatars, Mordovians and Chuvashs, etc.
The leading center of handicraft, industrial production, and trade operations is Moscow. Here in the 40s. masters of many specialties worked. Metalworking centers, in addition to Moscow, were Tula, Yaroslavl, Tikhvin, Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya, Ustyug Veliky, Kholmogory, Sol Vychegodskaya; leatherworking - Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan.
To a lesser, but quite noticeable extent, the craft developed in other cities of Russia. A significant part of the artisans worked for the state and the treasury. Some of the artisans served the needs of the palace (palace artisans) and the feudal lords living in Moscow and other cities (patrimonial artisans). The rest were part of the townspeople communities of the cities, bore (pulled, as they said then) various duties and paid taxes, the totality of which was called tax. Craftsmen from posad drafts often switched from working on consumer orders to working for the market, and the craft thus developed into commodity production.
Hired labor was used. Poor townspeople and peasants became mercenaries for the rich blacksmiths, boilermakers, grain makers and others. The same thing happened in transport, river and horse-drawn.
The development of handicraft production, its professional, territorial specialization brings great revitalization to the non-economic life of cities, cake connections between them and their districts. It was by the 17th century. refers to the beginning of the concentration of local markets, the formation of an all-Russian market on their basis.
Guests and other wealthy merchants appeared with their goods in all parts of the country and abroad. During the Time of Troubles and after it, they repeatedly lent money to the authorities. The government convened meetings with the participation of merchants to solve pressing economic and financial problems. They also became deputies of Zemsky Sobors. They were entrusted with the collection of taxes and duties - customs, taverns, salt and others.
What was education like in Russia in the 17th century? If we talk about the education system on a national scale (we did not make a reservation, we are talking specifically about the system), then it was elementary.
Valuable material for the study of school education in Russia in the 17th century is contained in the alphabet books studied by D. L. Mordovtsev (handwritten in 1660 and printed in 1679). These ABC books provide reading guides for children who have already acquired the basics of literacy, as well as guides for teachers themselves. They outline teaching methods, give rules for students, and instructions on how to behave at school, in church, at home and on the street. From the contents of the alphabet books it is clear that Russian schools of the 17th century were private educational institutions, and teachers, who were clergy, were rewarded for their work mainly with natural products. The students did not live at the schools, but attended them in the morning and then again in the afternoon; the rest of the time they were at home. The children of people “of every rank... and dignity, the glorious and the ill-born, the rich and the poor, even down to the last farmers,” studied.
The prefects played a major role in the life of the school. They issued books, appointed people on duty to heat the school and clean the premises, and monitored discipline. Sometimes elders replaced teachers, which was important for the training of teaching staff. This feature of the form of education adopted in our country at that time turned out to be so stable that it became part of the practice of the higher school created later, the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy.
Schools had their own special ethics, which also presupposes the need for a fairly long tradition. The rules of conduct required students to take care of books and school property, maintain cleanliness and order. Unwritten laws prohibited slander, giving offensive nicknames to comrades, and established norms of a kind of corporate solidarity:
"Bring good speech to school,
Don’t take away the verbal rubbish from it.
When you go home, don’t tell me about your school days,
Punish this and every one of your comrades."
Judging by the alphabet books, discipline in the Russian school of the 17th century was strict. However, from the praises of the rod, we have no right to conclude that in teaching at that time, immoderate harsh treatment of students prevailed. In this regard, D. L. Mordovtsev notes that “severity with the necessary companions - a rod, a belt, a whip, a vine and a rod, and in addition a terrifying school goat, was expressed in skillfully woven doggerel, and every descriptor. textbook, he fantasized about this topic as much as his heart desired; it was simple verbal intimidation, which, of course, was not always and not carried out to the fullest extent, although it was carried out.”
As for the subjects studied in our elementary school at that time, they are completely analogous to what was studied in the corresponding schools in Greece and Western Europe. This is reading, writing, singing, counting. In addition, elementary schools in Rus' informed students of the basics of religion, some information on Sacred History, and gave an idea of the seven free sciences that then made up the course of university education (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy). ABC books written in verse - students learned them by heart - provided examples of versification and letters addressed to high-ranking officials and benefactors.
Thus, the alphabet books of the 17th century, which set out the same “statutory rules” and recorded a uniform form of education, allow us to speak quite definitely about the presence of a system, a unified educational methodology, widespread throughout the state and, possibly, dating back to the period of pre-Mongol Rus'.
Primary education in Rus' was of a church character. School classes began and ended with prayer. As already mentioned, the clergy was involved in education. And this is quite understandable, since the clergy saw their important mission in spreading literacy and knowledge, which were necessary to instill in the flock the concepts of Christian faith and morality. It was important for him to give believers the opportunity to read the Holy Scriptures themselves and understand the true meaning of the Gospel teaching. It is no coincidence, of course, that the establishment of schools everywhere followed the introduction of Christianity.
The very nature of church education implied the solution of two tasks - to give the younger generation the basics of literacy and knowledge and to educate them in the spirit of Christian morality. Knowledge and morality did not come into conflict with each other, were not separated from each other, but represented two sides of the same phenomenon.
Russian society of the pre-Petrine era is obliged, mainly. Church in that it received knowledge, and knowledge that went beyond the narrow framework of utilitarian needs. Moreover, the Church opened up the prospect of an unlimited deepening of this knowledge and unlimited moral improvement. Thanks to her, Russian society rose to the heights of divinely inspired thought, embodied in the works of St. John Climacus and St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Abba Dorotheus and Simeon the New Theologian, Isaac the Syrian and Gregory of Sinaite. That this was so is evidenced by many lists of their creations in manuscripts of the 14th-17th centuries. They were copied and read voraciously; they awakened a living thought. Without them it is impossible to understand the depths of the creativity of Theophanes the Greek, St. Andrei Rublev and Dionysius. And such figures as the Venerable Joseph of Volotsky and Nil of Sorsky stand at the level of the ancient Fathers of the Church. These, of course, are the pinnacles of Russian spiritual life and Russian culture. But they created and preached among their compatriots and contemporaries,” from whom their thoughts and their creations found understanding and response.
The education system in pre-Petrine Rus' not only allowed Russian people to achieve deep theological knowledge, but also to acquire sufficient knowledge in the field of so-called external wisdom.
In Rus', for example, there was an interest in logical knowledge. Such complex works as “Dialectics” by St. John of Damascus and “Logic of Aviasaph,” which are fragments from the works of the Arab thinker al-Ghazali, were translated into Russian. Already at the end of the 15th century, an independent system of terms existed in Rus', capable of adequately presenting the concepts of Aristotelian logic. A large number of copies of the work of Maimonides, revised in Rus', entitled “The Book of Verb Logic,” have been preserved. The margins of the lists in this book contain glosses that explain certain logical terms. This means that our ancestors carefully studied the “Book of Logic.”
An important source of astronomical and geographical knowledge in medieval Rus' was the “Sixth Day” of John, Exarch of Bulgaria, which was widespread among us until the 18th century. Considering the questions of the structure of the Earth and the Universe, Exarch John proceeds from the idea of the spherical shape of the Earth, resting in. the center of the spherical vault of heaven. Following Aristotle, on the basis of the lunar phases, he proves the sphericity of the Earth's satellite, and then, by analogy, extends this shape to the sun and stars. The author of “Six Days” explains the ebb and flow of the sea with the phases of the moon. The dimensions of our planet he gives quite accurately correspond to the data of modern research. Exarch John gives concepts about the climate zones of the Earth. The information provided in this unique natural science encyclopedia corresponded to the level of science in Western Europe in the 16th - 17th centuries, where the heliocentric concept of Copernicus and Galileo had not yet received recognition.
In the field of practical mechanics, Russian builders were hardly inferior to their Western contemporaries. The builders not only made plans for the future structure, but also planned the technological process. They knew the conditions of strength and loading of individual structures - walls, columns, vaults, took into account the condition of the soil, the properties of materials, on which, as the researchers assume, random tests were carried out. The masterpiece of fortifications was the Solovetsky Kremlin, an impregnable fortress for that time. Builders achieved optimal results when solving problems of room acoustics.
From the middle of the 16th century, manufactories emerged for the production of linen, velvet, leather, glass, and paper. Complex lifting devices, printing, oil and coin presses, and weaving machines are created. He was an outstanding engineer. Metropolitan Philip of Moscow and All Rus', who, when he was abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery, created a number of technical machines for processing food using conveyors. Energy was produced by water mills, for which a special water system was created.
In the 16th-17th centuries, the formation of “mechanized” metallurgy took place in Rus', in particular in the Urals. Drainage work is being carried out, drainage systems, dams and bridges are being built. And all this was impossible without sufficiently high knowledge in the field of practical mechanics.
According to researchers, the culture of mathematical calculus and instrumental calculation in Rus' was quite high.
In the 16th century, Russians became acquainted with the biological and medical works of Abu Bekr Razi (Razes) and Maimonides. At the same time, Hippocrates’ teaching on embryological development penetrated into Rus'. A huge literature has been preserved from that time - various herbalists and healers. In 1620, the Pharmacy Prikaz was created in Moscow. In the 17th century, the microscope was already known in Russia. “Natural History” by M. Scott and “Problems” of Pseudo-Aristotle were translated into Russian.
The latest research has made it possible to reconsider the significance of the pre-Petrine era in the history of biological knowledge in Russia. Many biological terms that have survived to this day date back to this era: “ovary,” “graft,” “petiole,” etc.
The development of connections with Western countries necessitated the study of foreign languages, primarily Latin and Polish, and the expanding Western influence, which we will discuss below, affected the way of life of Russian society, especially the nobility. The style of the era began to change. In the new conditions, education becomes a prestigious factor and acquires a certain social value. Russian nobility begins to invite foreign teachers into their homes and send their children to study in Ukraine and Poland.
To summarize, we can conclude: the basis of Russian education in the patriarchal period was the primary school, but it was supplemented by private education in monasteries, from private teachers (including foreign ones), as well as in the sphere of material production. An important element of education was independent study of theological, natural science and fiction literature. This education system generally satisfied the interests of the Russian state and Church, at least until the second half of the 17th century, when changing historical conditions made it necessary to establish a “correct” higher school in Russia.
