A history of Russia

measures leading up to Ivan the Terrible's legislation of 1555. In addition to the locally elected judicial and police officials - the so-called gubnye officials - who were already functioning to combat crime, the enactments of that year provided for local zemstvo institutions concerned with finance, administration, and justice. Where the population guaranteed a certain amount of dues to the treasury, locally-elected town administrators - gorodovye prikazchiki - replaced centrally appointed officials; and even where the latter remained, the population could elect assessors to check closely on their activities and, indeed, impeach them when necessary. Unfortunately, although both earlier historians and such contemporary scholars as Nosov have shown the considerable development and broad competence of the institutions of local self-government in sixteenth-century Muscovy, these institutions did not last. After the Time of Troubles self-government appeared no more, and the state relied mainly on its military governors, the voevody. The failure of local self-government, which was also to plague Peter the Great and his successors, points again to a deficiency in social stratification, independence, initiative, and education in old Russia.

The Eastward Expansion. Concluding Remarks

The expansion of the Muscovite state brought under the scepter of the tsar not only ancient Russian lands but also colonial territories to the east and southeast. The advance continued after the conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. It has been estimated that between 1610 and 1640

alone the Russian military line and colonists moved three hundred miles further into the southern steppe, under conditions of continuous struggle with the Crimean Tartars and other nomads. But the most spectacular expansion occurred fin the direction of the more open east, where, in the course of the same three decades, the Russians advanced three thousand miles from the Ob river to the Pacific, exploring and conquering, if not really settling, gigantic Siberia.

In sweep and grandeur the Russian penetration into Siberia resembles the exploration of Africa, or, to find a closer parallel, the American advance westward. To mention a few highlights, in 1639 a cossack, Ivan Moskvi-tianin, at the head of a small group of men, reached the Pacific. In 1648 Semen Dezhnev, another cossack, and his followers sailed in five boats, of which three survived, from the mouth of the Kolyma river, around the northeastern tip of Siberia, and through the strait that was later to be named in honor of Bering. Dezhnev's report, incidentally, attracted no attention at the time and was rediscovered in a Siberian archive only in 1736. Other remarkable explorations during the seventeenth century included expeditions in the Amur river basin and the penetration of the Kamchatka peninsula in 1696 and the years immediately following. In the Amur area the Russians finally reached and clashed with China. The settlement of Nerchinsk in 1689 established the boundary between the two countries along the Argun and Gorbitsa rivers and the Stanovoi mountain range. This settlement lasted until 1858.

Furs presented the main attraction in Siberia, where sable, ermine, beaver, and other valuable fur-bearing animals abounded. It should be emphasized that furs constituted an extremely important item in Muscovite finance and foreign trade. In fact, as mentioned earlier, the government acted as the principal dealer in furs. As Russian rule spread among the thinly scattered natives in Siberia, they were required to pay the iasak, a tax in furs, to their new sovereign. Also the central authorities expended great effort - needless to say, not always successful - to limit the private acquisition of furs by the administrators in Siberia, so that the state treasury would not suffer. In general, although precise calculation remains difficult, the annexation of Siberia was a highly profitable undertaking for the Muscovite state.

The Siberian prikaz in Moscow had charge of that enormous land. Its jurisdiction, however, overlapped with the jurisdiction of several other institutions, not the least of which was the Church, which established an archbishopric in Siberia in 1621. The system, in typical Muscovite manner, provided some mutual supervision and checks, which were especially important in this distant, primitive, and fantastically large territory. Still, both the voevody and lesser administrators exercised great power and often proved difficult to control from Moscow.

As Lantzeff and others have demonstrated, the policy of the Muscovite state in Siberia, as welLas that of the Church, can be considered enlightened. The natives were not to be forcibly baptized. On the other hand, if they became Orthodox, they were treated thenceforth as Russians - a condition which, among other things, excused them from paying the iasak and thus might have given the government second thoughts about the desirability of conversion. The government also tried to extend a paternalistic care to both natives and Russian settlers and made an effort to learn and, if possible, to redress their grievances. It encouraged colonists and tried from an early time to develop local agriculture, a perennially difficult problem in Siberia. But Moscow was very far away, whereas the local situation encouraged extreme exploitation and cruelty on the part of officials and other Russians. Often government edicts and instructions had little relation to the harsh reality of Siberia. Still, Siberian life was not all dark. Of most importance is the fact that, with very few gentry and endless spaces for the fugitive, Siberia escaped serfdom. As Siberian society developed, profiting from an assimilation of natives - for intermarriage was common - as well as from migration from European Russia, it came to represent a freer and more democratic social system than the one across the Urals and to exhibit certain qualities of sturdiness and independence often associated with the American frontier.

In concluding our brief survey of Muscovite government and society, it may be appropriate to point out again the enormous effort which the creation and maintenance of the centralized Russian monarchy demanded. In fact, the main tradition of pre-revolutionary Russian historiography placed extremely heavy emphasis on the state: autocracy, gentry service, obligations and restrictions imposed on other classes, serfdom itself, as well as other major characteristics of Muscovy, all fitted into the picture of a great people mobilizing its resources to defend its existence and assert its independence. Soviet historians, however, shifted the focus of attention to class interests and the class struggle, presenting the history of Muscovite Russia above all in terms of a victory of the gentry over the peasants, not of a national rally. Both interpretations have much to recommend them.

XIX

MUSCOVITE RUSSIA: RELIGION AND CULTURE

The Emperor was seated upon an Imperiall Throne, with Pillars of silver and gold, which stood 3 or 4 stepps high, an Imperiall Crowne upon his Head, his Scepter in his right hand and his Globe in his left. And so he sate without any motion that I could perceave, till such time as I had repeated all the King my Masters titles and his owne, and given him greeting in his Majesties name. And then he stood up, and with a very gratious aspect, asked me how his Loving Brother the King of England did, to which when I had made him Answer, he sate downe agayne. Then the Lord Chancellor who stood upon a strada close by me with a high furred Capp upon his head: told me that the great Lord and Emperor of all Russia did very Lovingly re-ceave that Present which stood all this while before the Emperor, and likewise his Majesties Letters which I had presented; then he looke upon a Paper which he had in his hand and said with a loud voyce: 'Simon Digby, The great Lord and Emperor of all Russia askes you how you do, and desires you to come neere unto him to kiss his Hand.' The first stepp I made towards him upon the state: there stood foure Noble men in Cloth of silver Roabes, with Polates in their hands advanced over me as if they would have knocked me on the head; under which I went, and having stepped up one stepp upon the Emperors throne, it was as much as I could do to reache his Hand, which when I had kissed, I retired unto the Place when I had my first Posture… As I was to goe out of the roome, I observed betwixt 20ty and 30ty great Princes and Councellors of State, sitting upon the left hand of the Emperor, who were all in long Roabes of Cloth of gold, imbrodered with Pearles and Precious Stones, and high Capps either of Sables or Black Foxe about three quarters of a yard high upon their heads. To them, at my going out of the Doore, I bowed myself and they all rose up and putt of their Capps unto me.

SIMON DIGBY TO SIR JOHN COKE