1605-6

05-6]

Fall of the Pretender.-Vasili IV.

499

on the Tsar's death these nobles saw that the prospect was favourable to reaction. Instead of supporting the Tsarevich, Theodore Godunoff, they declared for the Pretender, and through them the whole army took the oath to Dimitri. But the boiars did not believe that he was the son of Ivan. They accepted him merely for the temporary purpose of nipping the Godunoff dynasty in the bud. The Shuiskis showed their hand at once by a premature conspiracy against him, which led to their banishment.

The Pretender's reign at Moscow endured for a year and displayed his incapacity to control a most difficult situation. Surrounded by a circle of foreigners, Poles and Jesuits, who claimed that he owed everything to them, he soon alienated the sympathies of Moscow. He sought to base his power on the support of those families of the nobility which had been kept under by Boris. For instance he recalled the Romanoffs. Feeling that by this policy he was rousing the dissatisfaction of the old princely families, he recalled the Shuiskis, who as soon as they returned began to contrive his overthrow, in conjunction with the Galitsins. The Tsar was also suspected of heresy by the ecclesiastics, though he concealed his conversion; and when he celebrated his marriage with Marina, and Moscow was filled with Polish visitors who permitted themselves every licence, the bigotry of the Moscow populace was thoroughly aroused. The blow was struck a few days later; the Pretender was done to death (May, 1606); and Vasili Shuiski, who had been prominent in organising the plot, was elected Tsar. This reaction represents the last short-lived triumph of that princely class against which the Oprichnina was directed; the "aristocratic" principle was for a few years in the ascendant; and the new Tsar issued a manifesto which meant, not a limitation of his own Imperial prerogative in favour of the boiars, but his intention to return to the old administrative system of the days before the Oprichnina.

Such a policy was impossible. Vasili had against him an important circle in the nobility, to which the Romanoffs and Mstislavski belonged. The Moscow populace had been accustomed by recent events to making their voice heard in politics, and he found it impossible to quiet the mob, which had helped him to the throne, and which was now ready to believe that the late Tsar was really Dimitri. To meet this danger Vasili had the bones of the murdered child brought to Moscow; the son of Ivan was canonised as a martyr; an official declaration was promulgated in the name of the Tsar, the boiars, and Dimitri's mother; and a pamphlet, known as the "Izviet of Varlaam," was issued under Shuiski's inspiration, showing that the Pretender was Grishka Otrepieff. In those days, however, publicistic literature was not effective in Russia. The community was not ready to accept Shuiski's régime. Rebellion, beginning in the south-west, spread to the east and north-east, and to the west, assuming different characters in different regions. The same people who had before been against Boris were now against Vasili. The

500

Social revolution." The Robber."

[1606-10

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

The reaction and the old order seemed thus to win the victory in the first bout. But before Tula had fallen a new Pretender arose in the Sieverski province. His name is unknown; he was generally called "the Robber." His position was entirely different from that of his predecessor. The first "Dimitri" had guided a movement which was primarily in his own personal interests; the second "Dimitri" was a puppet serving the interests of political and social revolution and foreign designs. Supported by Polish adventurers, he gained such a strong following that in the summer of 1608 he won a battle close to Moscow, fortified himself at Tushino, and blockaded the capital. The revolt spread to the whole of the Moscow province, and north-westward to Pskoff. The north of Russia-the Pomore-had been almost untouched by the troubles and ferment which had begun with the Oprichnina. It was now faithful to the Tsar; Prince Skopin Shuiski created at Vologda a military and administrative centre, and, by the end of 1609, having succeeded in uniting forces with the general Sheremetieff from the south-eastern province, he cleared of the Robber's troops the regions north of Moscow. But before this was achieved, the Muscovite Government was confronted by a new enemy. King Sigismund had invaded Russian territory. The success of Skopin and the invasion of Sigismund brought about the fall of the two rival governments at Moscow and at Tushino in the course of 1610. The Robber fled from Tushino, and Sigismund entered into negotiation with the Tushinites, in whose counsels Philaret (Theodore Romanoff), their Patriarch, had a leading voice. A covenant of union was concluded (February, 1610) by which the Tushinites accepted Prince

1610-1]

Prince Wladislaw elected Tsar.

501

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

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

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

502

National movement against the Poles.

[1611-3

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

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

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

1613-53] The Middle Classes.-Michael Romanoff. 503

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

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