The ‘rebellious century’ was not limited to urban revolts: in 1670–1 peasants joined the greatest rebellion of the seventeenth century—a mass insurrection that began on the periphery under the leadership of Stepan (‘Stenka’) Razin. The rebellion sprang from the ranks of the Don Cossacks, who lived south of Muscovy’s ever-expanding border and had their own autonomous military order (military council as well as the election of the ataman as chief and other officials). Through the influx of fugitive peasants, bondsmen, and petty townsmen, the Cossacks had multiplied to the point where they had their own ‘proletariat’—some ten to twenty thousand Cossacks who could no longer support themselves by tilling the land. Their plight was aggravated by Moscow’s decision to reduce its paid ‘service Cossacks’ to a mere 1,000 persons. War with Poland in 1654–67 increased the flight of people to the untamed southern steppes (dikoe pole). Although the government was not unhappy to see the strengthening of barriers against the Crimean Tatars, it promulgated a statute of limitations on fugitives and ordered the forcible return of 10,000 fugitives. Amidst this unrest, in 1667 Stepan Razin summoned Cossacks to join a traditional campaign of plunder and led some 2,000 Cossacks to the lower Volga, ultimately reaching the Persian coast in 1668–9. Over the next two years, however, the expedition turned into a popular rebellion against landowners and state authorities. With some 20,000 supporters, Razin prepared to strike at Moscow itself. Although he did establish a Cossack regime in Astrakhan and issued radical promises to divide all property equally, he had no coherent political programme and explicitly declared autocracy inviolable. In Simbirsk his forces attracted peasants, some non-Russian peoples, and petty townsmen and service people from the middle Volga. In the spring of 1671, however, Razin was betrayed by his own Cossack superiors: handed over to tsarist authorities, he was later executed in Moscow.
Cossacks and Borderland Politics
Cossacks, certainly those on the Dnieper, exerted a major influence on Alexis’s foreign policy. Indeed, together with the Moscow uprising, their actions made 1648 a watershed in Russian history: under the leadership of hetman Bohdan Khmelnitskii, they rebelled against their Polish-Lithuanian authorities. They had several main grievances: the oppression of Ukrainian peasants by Polish magnates and their Jewish stewards, discrimination against the Orthodox Church by Roman Catholicism, and a reduction in Cossack registration (i.e. the number of Cossacks in the paid service of the Polish king). Khmelnitskii hoped to achieve his goal—formation of a separate Cossack republic of nobles—with the aid of the Moscow tsar. The latter, while sympathetic to the idea of protecting his Orthodox brethren, was nevertheless exceedingly cautious: support for the Cossacks clearly meant war with Poland-Lithuania. Although Moscow yearned to settle old scores (dating back to its defeat in 1634 and above all the forfeiture of Smolensk), as yet it did not feel strong enough for such an undertaking. It was the Orthodox Church, particularly after Nikon’s elevation to the Patriarchate in mid-1652, that induced Moscow to support the Cossacks in February 1653.
For Moscow, of course, this co-operation was conceivable only if it entailed Cossack recognition of the tsar’s sovereignty, and Khmelnitskii duly complied, taking a unilateral vow of loyalty in Pereiaslavl on 8 January 1654. Russian and Soviet historians subsequently portrayed this oath as a merger of Ukraine with Muscovy, even a ‘reunification’ of Muscovy with Kiev Rus. By contrast, Ukrainian historiography depicts this oath as the beginning of an independent ‘hetman state’, which lasted until the time of Catherine the Great. In reality however, the oath merely signified nominal subordination and guaranteed the hetman and his followers a social and legal order with a considerable autonomy, even in foreign affairs (except for relations with Poland and the Ottomans). Although Alexis henceforth proclaimed himself ‘Autocrat of All Great and Little Rus’, incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Empire did not actually come until the eighteenth century.
The anticipated war, which commenced immediately in 1654 and lasted until 1667, was waged in western Russia. The very first year Moscow reconquered the long-sought Smolensk, and the next year its forces captured Minsk and Vilna as well. For Moscow, the only dark cloud was the fact that their quick victories had tempted the Swedes to intervene and attempt to seize the Polish ports in the Baltic. In 1656 Moscow opened hostilities against Sweden and by the following year had conquered most of Livonia. But Reval (Tallin) and Riga withstood the Russian siege; confronted with new military hostilities with Poland, Moscow concluded the Peace of Cardis with Sweden in 1661 on the basis of status quo ante bellum. In 1667 Moscow and Poland agreed to the armistice of Andrusovo, with a compromise partition of Ukraine: Poland renounced its west Russian gains of 1618, Moscow its claims to right-bank Ukraine (i.e. west of the Dnieper), with the exception of Kiev. The armistice was of considerable significance: it marked the beginning of the end for Poland’s status as a great power in Eastern Europe but also brought an epoch-making reversal in Moscow’s relationship to the Turks.
Initially, the driving force behind foreign policy was Ordin-Nashchokin, the Western-oriented ‘foreign minister’. As the district governor (voevoda) of Pskov in the first half of the 1660s he had excelled in reducing social tensions, and he was also responsible for the ‘New Commercial Statute’ (1667), which strengthened the merchant class on the basis of mercantilistic ideas. His Western orientation contributed significantly to the Europeanization of Russia, which now became still more pronounced. In 1671 he was succeeded as head of the foreign chancellery by A. S. Matveev, who had married a Scottish woman (Lady Hamilton) and who was still more open-minded about the West. In contrast to Ordin-Nashchokin, who was interested chiefly in the Baltic Sea, Matveev was far more concerned about the southern border. In 1672, in the wake of Andrusovo, Moscow reversed a centuries-old tendency and now urged the West to support Poland against the Turks. The reason for this shift was simple: Moscow itself now shared a common border with the Ottoman Empire.
Western Influence and Church Schism
Acquisition of left-bank Ukraine was important for yet another reason: it brought an influx of learned men, and their new ideas, from that region. One was F. M. Rtishchev, who introduced polyphonic music, founded the first poorhouse and first hospital, and brought Ukrainian educational influence to Moscow (with the establishment of a school at Andreev Monastery). For the first time the state began to take up social tasks, in effect embarking on the path of Western absolutism. Similarly, it also began to require more education of those in civil service, created state economic monopolies, and established a ‘Secret Chancellery’ (originally just the tsar’s private chancellery, but after 1663 a kind of economic administration that foreigners often regarded as a supervisory or police organ). Beginning in 1649 it refurbished its ‘troops of the new order’ and in 1668 even attempted to construct the first naval fleet (its five ships, however, being torched during the Razin rebellion in Astrakhan).