In 1700 when Ioakim's successor, Adrian, died, Peter I chose to leave the patriarchal throne vacant, a harbinger of radical changes to come. Looking back over a century of dramatic events, many of the Church's fundamental characteristics had changed little. In spite of attempts to strengthen the office ofpatriarch and the role ofChurch Councils, the tsars' government repeatedly took the initiative in establishing ecclesiastical policy and intervened to settle disputes among the faithful. At their best, the clergy provided the population with spiritual guidance and social and cultural leadership. Yet attempts to create an orderly hierarchical system ofadministration and to respond to the cultural changes in other branches of Eastern Orthodoxy had only limited success. As a wealthy landowner, moreover, the Church attracted popular discontent and was an inviting target for a cash-starved state. And, most dangerously, the Russian Orthodox community had fallen into schism. In competition with the state-supported official Church, the Old Believers had begun to build their own organisations, select their own cadre of leaders and create their own religious culture. Thus, for all its apparent strength, the Russian Orthodox Church soon had to bend before the onslaught of a wilful reforming autocrat.
Cultural and intellectual life
LINDSEY HUGHES
Culture 'in transition'
Modern historians have categorised Russia's seventeenth century as a 'transitional period' (perekhodnyi vek), when tradition vied with innovation, indigenous culture with imported trends. The conceptual framework ofbinary oppositions has proved particularly fruitful.[322] High culture in particular underwent changes that have been explained with reference to Westernisation, modernisation and secularisation. Some scholars have argued that developments in art, architecture and literature constituted a Muscovite version of the Baroque,[323]others, adopting Dmitrii Likhachev's formula, that they represented something 'close to the significance of the Renaissance in the cultural history of Western Europe'.[324] Such phenomena as the illusionistic use of light, shade and perspective in icons, portrait-painting from life, elements of a modified classical order system in architecture and new genres and subjects in literature are treated as curtain-raisers to the eighteenth century, when Russia would begin to fulfil its destiny by catching up with Western Europe with the assistance of Peter the Great.
If we accept the view that Russia had to 'catch up' with the West, with preconceptions about what Russia ought to have been, we may well conclude that, culturally speaking, here was a 'blank sheet' waiting to be filled. By the start of the seventeenth century the Renaissance had made little impact on Muscovy. In the figurative arts there was no free-standing portraiture, still life, landscapes or urban scenes, history painting or domestic genre. There were icons, wood prints and illuminated manuscripts, but no painting in oil on canvas. Sculpture deep chiselled in stone or cast in metal (bell-making excepted) was unknown. Printing (introduced in 1564) was in its infancy. Muscovy had no theatres or universities. It had produced no poets, dramatists, philosophers, scholars or even theologians. It lacked both theoretical concepts of 'the arts' and political theory. Historians who prioritise written records will search in vain for a scholarly rationale of autocracy, for example. If we go on to play the 'great names' game, Muscovy will not figure in the world pantheon. The special emphases and prohibitions of Orthodoxy, a dependent nobility, weak urbanisation and economic backwardness created a climate that distinguished Russian elite culture sharply from that of Protestant and Catholic Europe.
To understand Muscovite high culture (peasant culture and its regional variations are beyond the scope of our survey) we must initially abandon the search for the genres, activities and practitioners defined by Western experience. Political ideology, for example, was expressed first and foremost not in erudite tracts but in images and rituals. The combined efforts of artists and craftsmen created and embellished 'sacred landscapes' in a complex interaction of architecture, iconography, fabrics and vestments, choreography (of processions), and sacred chant. This culture was conservative, but it was not impervious to the contemporary events described elsewhere in this volume. Indeed, in the seventeenth century 'a transformation of cultural consciousness' was to occur.4
Culture after the Time of Troubles
The resolution ofthe Time of Troubles was, on the face ofit, backward-looking. Official rhetoric emphasised the restoration of God's favour and of old values through a universally acclaimed new ruling dynasty with strong links with the old. The violation of the sacred Kremlin by Poles (bearers of demonic culture) was interpreted as punishment for sins. The visible evidence of repentance were rituals that mirrored the harmonious realm with the restored tsar at its divinely ordered centre, enhanced by new churches, icons and religious artefacts.
4 Viktor Zhivov, 'Religious Reform and the Emergence of the Individual in Seventeenth- Century Russian Literature', in Samuel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollmann (eds.), Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997), pp. 184-98.
Muscovite ceremonial customs were revived, for ritual continuity was more necessary than ever as a buttress of royal authority. Michael was crowned in 1613 according to the Byzantine-influenced rite of 1547. Courtly pomp was particularly impressive during the reign of Tsar Alexis (1645-76). Among the annual highlights was the Palm Sunday parade to St Basil's cathedral, when the tsar on foot and the patriarch seated on a colt enacted the 'symphony' of tsardom and priesthood, and the feast of Epiphany on 6 January, when the patriarch blessed the waters of the Moskva River at a sacred spot designated 'the Jordan'.[325] On such occasions the skills of craftsmen were displayed in all their brilliance in icons, crosses, vessels and vestments, banners, ceremonial saddles, harnesses and weapons. Family events were also treated with great solemnity. For example, the name-days of Alexis's numerous relatives were celebrated by processions and liturgies for the feasts of patron saints.[326]
The meticulous records of the tsars' progresses (vykhody) do not dwell on secular diversions. Since women were excluded from most public occasions, the masques and balls of Western court life were out of the question.[327] We should not draw a rigid line between sacred and profane activities, however. After name-day liturgies special pastries were distributed to courtiers and churchmen. Weddings and royal births were marked by lavish banquets with singing and games. Alexis maintained country palaces for summer recreations, for example at Kolomenskoe (seebelow) and Izmailovo, whichboasted gardens with hothouses and a menagerie. He was particularly devoted to hunting and devised a ceremonial book of rules for the 'glorious sport' of falconry.[328]
Michael instituted a programme of building in the historic centre. In the 1630s Russian masters constructed the Kremlin's Terem palace. Not only its numerous chapels but also the royal living quarters were decorated with religious frescos that drewparallels between Moscow's rulers and their biblical predecessors. There was no clear boundary between sacred and secular space.
322
See Iu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskii, 'Binary Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture to the End of the Eighteenth Century', in A. D. and A. S. Nakhimovsky (eds.),
323
See A. I. Nekrasov (ed.),
324
D. S. Likhachev, 'Barokko i ego russkii variant XVII veka',
325
See Robert O. Crummey 'Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Illusion and Reality', in D. C. Waugh (ed.),
326
See Philip Longworth,
327
See Isolde Thyret,