Brooks, Jeffrey. (1985). When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lovell, Stephen. (2000). The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras. London: Macmillan.
THIRD PARTY PROGRAM See KHRUSHCHEV,
Third Rome refers to the doctrine that Russia or, specifically, Moscow succeeded Rome and Byzantium Rome as the ultimate center of true Christianity and of the Roman Empire. This is the most generally misunderstood and abused of the several expressions of Russia’s new place in the world re1542 sulting from domestic and international events of the 1430s and 1520s. The monk Filofei of the Pskov-Eliazarov monastery formulated it in one or two epistles, written between 1523 and 1526, which were then reworked during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Neither epistle survives in its original form or a manuscript assuredly from Filofei’s time. The first, probably written in 1523 to 1524 to the state-secretary administrator of Pskov, Mikhail Misiur-Munekhin, attacks astrology, the Roman Catholic Church, and the claims of the Holy Roman Empire, and in this connection asserts that Russia, with Moscow’s Dormition Cathedral at its center, is the third and final Roman Empire according to the prophetic books. Filofei’s unnamed opponent was Basil III’s German physician Nicholas B?lew, who promoted astrology and Church union with Rome. The second epistle, addressed to an unnamed tsar- perhaps Basil III (1524-1526) or possibly Ivan IV (1533-1584)-and conceivably not by Filofei at all, calls upon the addressee to enforce the proper application of the sign of the cross by his subjects; protect church wealth; suppress homosexuality; be an ethical, just, and pious ruler; and, in oblique form, fill hierarchical vacancies.
Third Rome thinking served to elevate Russia’s conception of its place within the Orthodox Christian world and the requirement to preserve the faith and its rituals in unadulterated form. If this potentially messianic doctrine played a role in the establishment of the Russian patriarchate in 1589, and may have helped Russians acquire a sense of responsibility toward the Orthodox and later Uni-ate subjects of Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire, at no time did it figure in aggressive policies toward non-Orthodox or non-Uniate peoples. Modern attempts to enshrine it as an essential element of Russian consciousness since the early 1500s have no basis.
The Christian notion of migrating sacrosanct goes back to the foundation of Constantinople as New Rome (still in the official title of the patriarch of Constantinople) and its subsequent claims to be a New Jerusalem, the center of a messianic kingdom. In the course of competing with Byzantium, even before the Eastern and Western Churches separated (over the course of the 860s to 1054), the German (Holy Roman) emperors also claimed to represent the true Rome. Similarly, while the Byzantine Empire still existed, among the Orthodox Slavs, Bulgarians claimed that their capital, in
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
this case, Trnovo, was the New Imperial City (Constantinople) in the 1300s.
Russians did not seriously dispute Byzantium’s pretenses until after the Council of Ferrera-Florence, from 1438 to 1439, when factions of the Greek and Russian Orthodox church accepted union with Rome. By defending Orthodoxy against Roman Catholicism, the Moscow metropolitans treated first Basil II and then Ivan III as new Constantine. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, Muscovy/Russia became the Orthodox monarchy. As Ivan III discarded the legal and ceremonial remnants of subordination to the Qipchak (Golden Horde) khans during the period of 1476 to 1480, Archbishop Vassian Rylo of Rostov argued the absurdity of an inviolable oath from a genuine tsar to a false one of brigand descent. In presenting new Eastern tables for the years following the year 1492 C.E., which Orthodox calendars considered to be the millennial year 7000 since Creation, Metropolitan Zosima declared Moscow to be the new Constantinople, which itself was the New Rome in one early copy and New Jerusalem in several others. Ivan’s diplomacy vis-?-vis Imperial German pretenses on the 1480s to 1490s and the coronation ceremony of his grandson Dmitry in 1498 emphasized the historic equality of Russia and Byzantium’s rulers. In the 1510s Joseph of Volok, while claiming that the Orthodox Tsar is in power like unto God, asserted that any wavering from Orthodoxy would lead to the fall of Russia, as other Orthodox kingdoms had ended due to apostasy. Historical works produced in the 1520s by this school of thought (Russian Chronograph, Nikon Chronicle) underscored the preeminence of Russia among Orthodox realms, while genealogical inventions used for state diplomacy asserted Roman dynastic origins of Russia’s ruling house.
Filofei was not the only Russian churchman of his time to oppose B?lew’s ideas; so did Metropolitan Daniel and Maksim Grek. Others also asserted a new world-historic claim for Russia. See also: BASIL II; BASIL III; CATHEDRAL OF THE DORMI-TION; IVAN III; IVAN IV; PATRIARCHATE; POSSESSORS AND NON- POSSESSORS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ostrowski, Donald. (1998). Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Poe, Marshall. (2001). “Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and Transformation of a ‘Pivotal Moment.’” Jahrb?cher f?r Geschichte Osteuropas 49:412-29.
The Thirteen Years’ War (1654-1667) consisted of three phases of conflict between Muscovy, Poland- Lithuania, and Sweden. Its roots can be found in Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s Cossack revolt against Poland-Lithuania, which began in 1648. The Russians supported the Cossacks initially with favorable trade contacts and military supplies, and then eventually, following the 1653 Polish invasion of Ukraine, the Russians allied themselves formally with the Cossacks and entered the war in 1654.
Muscovy’s Tsar Alexei led around 100,000 men, including his Zaporozhian Cossack allies, into Polish- Lithuanian territory and thus began the first phase of the war. The Russians enjoyed initial success, overwhelming the Polish forces and taking several important towns, such as Smolensk, Mogilev, and Vitebsk. Russian and Cossack forces regained much of the Ukrainian territories and even invaded Poland as far as the town of Brest. The Polish- Lithuanians counterattacked but could not dislodge the Russians. Poland’s King John II Casimir, who had fled the country, managed to negotiate a truce with the Russians, and hostilities temporarily ended between the two nations with a three-year truce (1656).
At this point, while Sweden was involved in the First Northern War (1655-1660) against Poland and Denmark, Muscovy sought to regain territory it had formerly lost to the Swedes and moved to capture several towns, including Dinaburg, Dor-pat, and Keksholm. The Russians failed, however, to take Riga, which they besieged during the summer of 1656, because they had no naval force and could not cut Riga off from its lines of supply. The Swedes launched a powerful counterattack, scattering the Russian army and forcing the tsar to flee for his life. When the war with Denmark took a turn for the worse in 1657, the Swedes sought peace with Muscovy (Truce of Valiesari, 1658).
The third and final phase of the war began when the truce between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania ended in 1658. The Russians fought a se1543
THREE EMPERORS’ LEAGUE
ries of fierce battles with the Poles in Lithuania and Belarus, defeating them at Vilnius, Kaunas, and Grodno, but losing twice at Mogilev (1661, 1666), and Vitebsk (1664). In the Ukrainian lands, the Russians suffered significant defeats at Konotop (1659), Lubar (1660), and Kushliki (1661). Complicating factors in the south included the defection of the Russians’ Cossack allies under Vyhovsky, which isolated the Russians against the Poles, and Lubomirsky’s Rebellion, which weakened the government of King John II Casimir at a critical moment and forced the Poles to accept peace with Muscovy. Early in 1664, the tsar approached the Poles to begin negotiations, but it was not until 1667 that a provisional peace agreement was signed at Andrusovo. Despite its losses, Muscovy came out of the war with sizeable gains in territory, not least of which included the key cities of Smolensk and Kiev. See also: NEW-FORMATION REGIMENTS; SMOLENSK WAR
