In the reign of Michael's successor, Alexius (1645-76), the country recovered its strength so rapidly that the tsar was
Alexius, 1645-76.
tempted to revive the energetic aggressive policy and put forward claims to Livonia, Lithuania and Little Russia, but he was obliged to moderate his pretensions. Livonia continued to be under Swedish rule, and Lithuania remained united with Poland. Some advantages, however, were obtained. Smolensk and Chernigov were definitely incorporated in the tsardom of Muscovy, and great progress was made towards the absorption of Little Russia.
Roughly speaking, Little Russia, otherwise called the Ukraine, may be described as the basin of the Dnieper southward
The Ukraine.
of the 51st parallel of latitude. In the 16th century it was a thinly populated region inhabited chiefly by Cossacks, speaking the so-called Little Russian dialect, and until 1569 it formed nominally part of Lithuania, but was practically independent. In that year, when Lithuania and Poland were permanently united, it fell under Polish rule, and the Polish government considered it necessary to tame the wild inhabitants and bring them under regular administration. For this decision there were good reasons, for those turbulent sons of the steppe paid no taxes and were much given to brigandage, and their raiding propensities occasionally created international difficulties with the khan of the Crimea and the sultan of Turkey. It was proposed, therefore, in 1576, that 6000 families should be registered as a militia under a Polish Hetman for the protection of the country against Tatar raids, and that the remainder of the inhabitants should be assimilated to the ordinary peasants of Poland. This arrangement was very distasteful to all classes. The registered Cossacks objected to being placed under a Hetman not freely chosen by themselves, and those who were not included in the militia objected still more strongly to the prospect of being reduced to the miserable condition of Polish serfs. To escape this danger many of them moved down the river and settled on the waste lands beyond the rapids. Here, about 1590, was founded an independent military colony called the Setch , the members of which, recognizing no authority but that of their own elected officers, lived by fishing, hunting and making raids on the Tatars, and were always ready to assist their less fortunate countrymen in resisting Polish aggression. For half a century the struggle between the two races went on with varying success, but on the whole the Polish government proved stronger than its insubordinate subjects, and about 1638 it seemed to have attained its object. Polish proprietors settled in large numbers on the Cossack territory, and great efforts were made, with the assistance of the Jesuits, to bring the Orthodox population under papal authority. But for both proprietors and Jesuits a surprise was in store. Threatened seriously in their liberty and their faith, the people rose with greater enthusiasm than before, and a general insurrection, in which the peasants joined, spread over the whole country under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki or Khmelnitski ( q.v. ), whose name is still remembered in the Ukraine. As in all previous insurrections the Poles proved stronger in the field, and Khmelnitski in desperation sought foreign assistance, first in Constantinople and then in Moscow. For some time Tsar Alexius hesitated, because he knew that intervention could entail a war with Poland, but after consulting a National Assembly on the subject, he decided to take Little Russia under his protection, and in January 1654 a great Cossack assembly ratified the arrangement, on the understanding that a large part of the old local autonomy should be preserved. In the expected war with Poland, which followed quickly, the Russians were so successful that the arrangement was upheld; but it was soon found that the Cossacks, though they professed unbounded devotion to the Orthodox tsar, disliked Muscovite, quite as much as Polish, interference in their internal affairs, and some of their leaders were in favour of substituting federation with Poland for annexation by Russia. In these circumstances the tsar was induced to accept a compromise, and signed in 1667 the treaty of Andrussovo, by which the territory in dispute was partitioned and the middle course of the Dnieper became the frontier between Russia and Poland.
In the reign of Alexius a conflict took place between the tsar and the patriarch, which is often described as a conflict
The tsar and the patriarch.
between Church and State, and which illustrates the relations between the temporal and the spiritual power in Russian state-organization. Until the beginning of the 17th century the Byzantine tradition that in all matters outside the sphere of dogma the ecclesiastical is subordinate to the civil power had been observed in Russia; but the traditional conceptions had been to some extent undermined during the reign of Michael, when the metropolitan Philaret, who was the tsar's father ( vide supra ), became patriarch and was associated with this son in the government on a footing of equality. Like the tsar, he had the official title of “Great Lord” ( veliki gosudár ), and he had his palace, his court-dignitaries, his retinue, his boyars and his officials all organized on the model of those of the sovereign. Without his assent and blessing no important decisions were taken, all state documents emanating from the highest authority bore his signature, and he was regarded, both in the official world and by the public generally, as the tsar's equal in rank and dignity. His immediate successors, being men of humble origin and submissive character, made no pretensions to such an exalted position, but when the haughty, ambitious and energetic Nikon, who enjoyed in large measure the affection and favour of the devout Tsar Alexius, became patriarch, he took Philaret as his model, and propounded, like the popes in western Europe, the doctrine that the spiritual is higher than the temporal power, the former corresponding to the sun and the latter to the moon in the firmament. In accordance with this view he declared that the patriarch was the image of Christ, the head of the Church, and was therefore subject to no earthly authority, and he complained of the tsar's interference in ecclesiastical affairs. His pretensions and his haughty dictatorial manner at last exhausted the tsar's patience, and he was formally deposed and exiled to a monastery. As no voice was raised in his defence and the decision of the ecclesiastical council which condemned him was universally accepted without protest, we must conclude that the conflict was not really between Church and State but simply between the haughty, ambitious Patriarch Nikon and the devout, long-suffering Tsar Alexius. The incident afforded a new proof, where no proof was required, that the autocratic power in Russia was supreme. In order to prevent such incidents in future, Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate altogether, and entrusted the administration of the Church to a synod entirely dependent on the government.