4.30 Europe: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 27/30)

Violence from political, social and religious elements continued to be present. Led by I.I. Bolotnikov, a former serf, many landless Cossacks and poor peasants formed a mass movement against not only Shuisky, but all nobles. Although Bolotnikov was killed in the first battle with the forces from Moscow, the rebellion continued, again also involving forces from Poland and Lithuania. Helped by local dissidents Polish forces actually occupied Moscow in 1611 and 1612. Prince Dimitri Pozharsky, after getting an agreement with the disgruntled Cossacks, entered Moscow with his own forces in October 1612 and forced the Poles to surrender. (Ref. 135 )

In 1613 the National Assembly elected Michael Romanov as Czar, starting a new dynasty. Michael was the son of a patriarch Filaret and he re-established the autocracy and the service nobility as rulers of the Russian state. Under Michael peace was obtained with Sweden in the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1618, with Novgorod going to Russia, but other towns in that area to Sweden. All of the first Romanovs sought to exclude foreign influence. Thus, while foreigners were needed as drillmasters, armament makers, merchant contact for furs, etc., they were all enclosed in special ghettos in Moscow and were treated with general suspicion as dangerous heretics. There was a new formulation of law, but actually it merely codified existing laws based on medieval absolutism and orthodoxy. Thus it was a criminal offense to look at a new moon, play chess or not attend church during Lent. As we have noted in the section above, in 1648 the Ukranians and Cossacks revolted against their Polish rulers for both social and religious reasons and, gaining independence, put themselves under Moscow's protection. It should be noted that at this time Russia's commercial ties were still chiefly with the East and there was no real sense of property, industry or individual enterprise. (Ref. 213 )

In this century Moscow was a rich and beautiful city, as large as London. Hundreds of gold domes topped with golden crosses dotted the sky-line, as there were 1,600 churches in the city. Red square was a brawling, open-air market place. Most of the city was of wood, however, and there were great fires in 1611, 1626, and 1671. Even the streets were wooden planks to keep people out of the mud in the spring thaw, although this attempt was often unsuccessful. At noon all Moscovites stopped for a large meal and then a 2 or 3 hours nap. At night few were on the streets but thieves and cutthroats. The Kremlin was on a hill 125 feet above the Moscow River, with walls 12 to 16 feet thick, rising some 65 feet above the surrounding rivers and moat. The whole fortress area included 69 acres.

In 1636 there were more than 40,000 houses in Moscow, but one must not get the idea that Russia was an urban society. In 1630 only 2.5% of the people lived in towns and this had increased only to 3% well into the next century. (Ref. 292 ) The Nenets continued to be the chief inhabitants of Arctic Russia, spreading to all the peninsulae of the Kara and Barents seas. (Ref. 288 ) For 300 to 400 miles north of the Black Sea there was a "no-man's land" between the Ukranian Cossacks to the north and the Black Sea itself and this was the hunting ground of the Crimean Tartars, remnants of the old Mongol conquerors and now vassals of the Ottoman Turks. Sometimes these Tartars raided north, taking thousands of Russians as slaves for the Ottoman slave markets.