ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRE: GOVERNANCE ON RUSSIA’S EARLY-MODERN FRONTIER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Paul Romaniello, B. A., M. A. The Ohio State University 2003 Examination Committee: Approved by Dr. Eve Levin, Advisor Dr. Geoffrey Parker Advisor Dr. David Hoffmann Department of History Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle ABSTRACT The conquest of the Khanate of Kazan’ was a pivotal event in the development of Muscovy. Moscow gained possession over a previously independent political entity with a multiethnic and multiconfessional populace. The Muscovite political system adapted to the unique circumstances of its expanding frontier and prepared for the continuing expansion to its east through Siberia and to the south down to the Caspian port city of Astrakhan. Muscovy’s government attempted to incorporate quickly its new land and peoples within the preexisting structures of the state. Though Muscovy had been multiethnic from its origins, the Middle Volga Region introduced a sizeable Muslim population for the first time, an event of great import following the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in the previous century. Kazan’s social composition paralleled Moscow’s; the city and its environs contained elites, peasants, and slaves. While the Muslim elite quickly converted to Russian Orthodoxy to preserve their social status, much of the local population did not, leaving Moscow’s frontier populated with animists and Muslims, who had stronger cultural connections to their nomadic neighbors than their Orthodox rulers. The state had two major goals for the Middle Volga Region. First, the region needed to be pacified and secured against internal and external threats. Second, the region needed to produce revenue for the state. This dissertation will examine the ways ii in which the Muscovite government attempted to achieve its goals. Rather than following the concerns of earlier studies on why the tsar conquered Kazan’, this study will explore the mechanisms of the Muscovite government in the century and a half following the conquest of Kazan’, as the structures of the state were slowly and successfully implanted. By the time Peter the Great succeeded to the Russian throne, the borders of the Muscovite empire had expanded far beyond the Middle Volga Region, but the processes employed in the region became the groundwork for later territorial expansion. Muscovite governing strategies in the Middle Volga Region were able to adapt to frontier conditions. Muscovy was developing as an absolute monarchy; Moscow was an imperial capital at the center of an ever-growing empire. Many previous historians have approached Muscovite history as unique when contrasted to its European counterparts, stressing the lack of the common experiences as in the West. However, Muscovy was an early-modern empire, and therefore the institutions and features of other early-modern empires exerted as great an influence over the process of state-building in Muscovy as in England, France, or Spain. iii Dedicated to my parents iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisor, Eve Levin, for her constant support, inspiration, and sage editorial advice. Her insightful comments have guided this project at all stages, and several times have forced me to reevaluate and focus my argument. I must also thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Geoffrey Parker, David Hoffmann, and Nicholas Breyfogle, for their assistance throughout my graduate career as well as during its final stages. Additionally I must also thank Joseph Lynch and Leila Rupp for their support and enthusiasm for my work in its earliest stages. I do not think I could have completed my graduate education without constant support and friendship of my colleagues in the OSU History Department. I would especially like to thank Paul Hibbeln, as well as the other members of our dissertation- writing group: Aaron Retish, Jennifer Waldron, and Matt Masur. Also, I must acknowledge the collegial support of my fellow Russian and East European History students: Lorraine Abrahams, Jennifer Anderson, Basia Nowak, Kate Heilman, Sean Martin, Bill Risch, and Tricia Starks. Finally, my thanks to the revolving cast of characters that have populated Dulles 239 and made graduate student life a bit more pleasant. I owe a great debt to the librarians and archivists who provided assistance at all stages of this project. First and foremost, Predrag Matejic and the staff of the Hilandar v Research Library at the Ohio State University always has provided a welcoming environment to all scholars. During my time in Russia the help of the staffs of the Russian State Library, the Public Historical Library in Moscow, and the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts was invaluable. My shorter research trips to the Public Records Office in Kew and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Library were made profitable by the extraordinary efforts of their staffs. Also, none of my research trips would have been possible without the financial assistance of the Ohio State Graduate School, its History Department, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Office of International Studies. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their ongoing support. vi VITA 20 May 1973 Born – Stamford, CT 1995 . B. A., Brown University, Providence, RI 1998 . M. A., Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 1996 - 1997 . Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of History, Ohio State University 1997 – 1999 . Editorial Assistant, The Russian Review, Ohio State University 1999 – 2002 . Instructor, Department of History, Ohio State University 2002-2003 . Editorial Assistant, The Russian Review, Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Matthew P. Romaniello, “Controlling the Frontier: Monasteries and Infrastructure in the Volga Region, 1552-1682.” Central Asian Survey, 19:3-4 (2000): 429-443. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract . ii Dedication. iv Acknowledgments. v Vita. vii List of Tables. x List of Illustrations. xi Chapters: 1. Introduction . 1 Muscovite Colonialism . 4 Muscovy’s Middle Volga Region . 13 Governing the Russian Frontier . 36 2. Administrative Structures . 42 Muscovite Chancelleries . 46 Voevody, D’iaki, and Bailiffs . 53 Priests, Abbots, and Monastic Privileges . 70 Conclusion . 80 3. Trade and Economic Development . 83 Developing Infrastructure . 86 Regional Trade . 98 International Trade . 112 Conclusion . 124 4. Russian Orthodoxy on the Frontier . 126 viii An Orthodox Conquest . 129 The Metropolitans of Kazan’ . 136 Challenging Russian Orthodoxy. 144 Conclusion . 154 5. Landholding and Muscovite Service . 157 The Pomest’e System . 161 1. Land Grants for Pomeshchiki . 161 2. Land Grants for Monasteries . 169 Grounds for Negotiations . 173 Family Affairs . 183 Conclusion . 192 6. Rebellion and Response . 195 Rebellion and Response before Razin . 197 1. The Problem of Runaway Peasants . 207 2. The Problem of Non-Russian Peasants . 213 The Razin Revolt . 215 Responding to Razin . 224 7. Absolutism and Empire . 234 Bibliography. 243 ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1.1 Middle Volga Towns and Outposts established before 1700 . 22 1.2 Middle Volga Monasteries established before 1700 . 30 1.3 Middle Volga Convents established before 1700 . 33 2.1 Terms in Office of the Middle Volga’s Voevody . 55 2.2 Selected D’iaki of Kazan’ . 64 2.3 Monasteries’ Villages, Households, and People in 1646 . 75 x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrations Page 1.1 The Volga Region; Detail of a map of Russia from Paris (1706) . 15 1.2 Map of the Middle Volga Region . 16 1.3 Map of the Middle Volga Region and Its Defensive Lines . 25 4.1 Icon of Germogen welcoming Kazan’s Mother of God Icon . 142 4.2 Icon of Germogen opening the caskets of Gurii and Varsonofii . 143 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION And with God’s grace, and because of the great faith of the Orthodox Tsar Ivan Vasil’evich, and on account of his heartfelt desire, God turned over to him the godless Tatars of Kazan’, and on account of his faith, desiring the love of God, our pious sovereign destroyed their Muslim faith, and he ruined and demolished their mosques … and established there an archbishopric and many clergymen in the churches.1 Muscovite’s conquest of the Middle Volga Region was the result of centuries of slow territorial advances. The Muscovite government first advanced into the Middle Volga Region with the establishment of Nizhnii Novgorod in the thirteenth century. However, the Mongol conquest, and subsequent political domination of Muscovite territory, retarded Muscovite expansion from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. As the Mongol Empire fragmented, its successor states, such as the Khanate of Kazan’, continued to resist Muscovite incursions. The Muscovite government exerted varying amounts of influence within the Khanate of Kazan’ before Tsar Ivan IV began his active attacks and territorial acquisitions in the 1540s. Ivan IV’s conquest of Kazan’ in 1552 was Muscovy’s first victory against the former Mongol Empire. With the Khanate of Kazan’ defeated, the path to Muscovite settlement of the Middle Volga Region was opened. 1 Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, 37 vols., (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo arkheograficheskoi kommissii, 1862-1928), Vol. 13, Part I, p. 251; and Vol. 20, Part II, pp. 556-557. Hereafter, PSRL. The conquest of the Khanate of Kazan’ was a pivotal event in the development of the Muscovite state. Moscow gained