Seventeenth-Century Russia Research Articles

Russian Mass Suicides Reconsidered

Abstract Mass suicides in late seventeenth-century Russia have typically been seen as desperate responses to Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reforms. Convinced of the imminent end of times ordinary men and women took their own lives rather than to succumb to the world of Antichrist. Michels argues that mass suicides can only be understood by probing into the specific religious, social, and administrative environments in which they occurred. He offers a comparative microhistory of self-immolations on both sides of the Russo-Swedish border with very different populations, one Finnish-Lutheran, the other Russian-Orthodox. Both scenarios had several features in common: apocalyptical preachers demonizing official church and religion; flight from village communities and isolation in remote locations; the preponderance of women and children; almost complete illiteracy; and a remarkable heterogeneity of motivations (ranging from enthusiastic embrace to passive obedience). The suicides occurred exclusively in peasant milieux traumatized by radical changes: the horror of the Swedish-Russian War (1656–1658); the fortification of the border (conscription, forced labor, and exorbitant taxes); church-led campaigns against paganism and traditional religious autonomies; and sudden integration into new administrative structures. Few of those who perished in the fires knew anything about Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reforms; as in the mass suicide of American cult members in Jonestown, Guyana (1978) many of the victims died involuntarily.

The Vologda salt market in the 1630s–1650s and the development of commercial knowledge in Russia in the seventeenth century

The article presents the results of an experimental application of complex analysis methods to account books of monasteries: exploiting these documents helps fill in the gaps in the historical sources on trade in seventeenth-century Russia caused by the lack of customs books for a number of large markets. Consideration of the history of salt trade in the compounds of the Solovetskii, Spaso-Prilutskii and Kirillo-Belozerskii monasteries in Vologda and a comparison of these data with each other and with the information provided by the only known fragment of the Vologda customs book of 1634-1635 make it possible to demonstrate both the potential and limitations of such an approach. On the one hand, this approach allows, under certain conditions, to restore some key indicators of commodity markets with a sufficient degree of reliability. On the other hand, it does not give grounds for judging the long-term development of trade in the market of a city or region as a whole since it does not allow us to get an idea of the dynamics of the turnover of various groups of goods. Such work requires other methods which have yet to be created.

“The Prayers of the Sinful Prince Semën Shakhovskoi”

Abstract Prince Semën Ivanovich Shakhovskoi has long been recognized as a significant figure in early seventeenth-century Russia, mostly for his writings in a range of genres (historical tales, letters, theological treatises, liturgical services, and prayers). He has not, however, attracted the level of attention from scholars that his works deserve. This study examines one subset of his corpus, his prayers, for traces of biography and individuality of this important author. It argues that Shakhovskoi’s prayers are both modeled on Orthodox textual traditions and customized to reflect the events and hardships in his life. The study also shows that Shakhovskoi – a warrior and diplomat – was well-versed in biblical and Church sources, making him a rare figure in the intellectual history of Muscovy: a true secular intellectual.

Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe

Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe

Foreign Military Law and Mercenary Contract in Seventeenth-Century Russia: The Сase of the Smolensk War, 1632–1634

Abstract The article aims to discuss how the Russian government dealt with foreign military law based on mercenary contracts while recruiting troops in Germany and Britain for the Smolensk campaign of 1632 to 1634. In the agreements made with foreign colonels that survive in contemporary Russian translations, the Tsar’s officials granted an almost unlimited legal and administrative autonomy to foreign military commanders in order to make service in Russia more attractive for Western mercenaries. While doing so, the Russian government believed that a unified military law and an effective court and administration system existed among the European military communities. However, some essential terms of military service remained unspecified in the documentation, depriving the Russian army commanders of any legal recourse to prevent conflicts within foreign regiments, which ultimately contributed to an administrative disaster at the end of the Smolensk campaign. The article analyzes both the Russian attitudes towards foreign military law and mercenary contracts and how this might have affected European mercenary units in Russian service.

Captive Colonizers: The Role of the Prisoners of War from Poland-Lithuania and the Crimean Khanate in the Russian Subjugation of Eastern Siberia

The article focuses on non-Russians who participated in the Russian conquest of eastern Siberia in the seventeenth century. As a result of recurrent wars fought by seventeenth-century Russia against Poland-Lithuania and the Crimean Khanate, numerous Polish-Lithuanian as well as Tatar nobles and soldiers found themselves as captives or prisoners of war in the tsar's service and willy-nilly participated in the colonial enterprize of the Russian Empire. Their numbers and role in the conquest of eastern Siberia cannot be dismissed as merely anecdotic and should perhaps be explained by their "cultural capital" that was consciously used by their new patrons: military experience and commanding skills, but also literacy and—in the case of Tatars—language competencies. While few of them later returned home after peace treaties and amnesties, and desertions to Manchu China are not unknown either, most of them took local wives, adopted Orthodox Christianity, and their offspring has gradually dissolved in the multiethnic Russian- and Yakutspeaking population of eastern Siberia.

Патронат и клиентела в Московском государстве XVI–XVII вв.: историография и проблематика

Introduction. The paper deals with the phenomenon of patron-client relations in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russia, which until recently has been almost completely neglected by the scholars. Relying on recent publications and his own findings, the author addresses the key issues of the topic including the origins of this phenomenon in Russia, the typology of patron-client relations and their specifics in Muscovy. Methods and materials. The paper combines a survey of the current historiography with examination of selected primary sources (mainly private letters from archival collections) and forays into the theory of patron-client relations elaborated by social scientists. Comparing the Muscovite patronage system to its counterparts in other European countries enables some hypotheses about the peculiarities of patron-client relations in pre-Petrine Russia. Analysis. Addressing the problem of the origins of the Russian patronage the author traces the evolution of social relations and the appearance of the specific language of patronage which leads him to a conclusion that the phenomenon in question might have emerged by the end of the 16th century. Proceeding then to the typology of patron-client relations, the author assumes that, although only aristocratic patronage has been thoroughly studied so far, similar phenomena can be detected in other milieus as well, including the Church, where nepotism and corporate clientelism flourished. Finally, the author isolates some specific features of the Muscovite patronage, especially its depoliticized and decentralized character, as contrasted to the analogous phenomena in Poland-Lithuania, England, and France. Results. Summing up the present-day knowledge of the Muscovite patronage, the author highlights it as a typically early modern phenomenon that evolved within the official state institutions and functioned as an addendum to them.

Cosmological, Astronomical and Astrological Elements in Sermons of Seventeenth-Century Ruthenian Authors

The development of oral preaching and the genre of sermon in seventeenth-century Russia was primarily brought about by Ruthenian authors influenced by the Latin tradition, e.g., Ioannikiy Galyatovsky, Lazar Baranovych and Simeon Polotsky. These authors incorporated their general knowledge of cosmology, astronomy and astrology into their homilies, which present a valuable insight into the intellectual background of the period through the prism of cosmological elements used mostly as parts of rhetoric constructions. While the functions of the particular elements of natural philosophy varied in different authors, they shared certain concepts common to both scholastic thought and Baroque aesthetics. Despite being considerably distant from seventeenth-century science, the homilies also served educational purposes and may be perceived as a step towards the Westernisation and secularisation of Russian culture.

Russia, China, and the universalism of modernity: the “Account of the Reforms of Peter the Great” by Kang Youwei

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes a short essay by Kang Youwei (1858–1927) – one of the intellectual and political protagonists of late imperial and early Republican China. In it, he interpreted the historical experience of Russian modernization under Peter the Great (1672–1725) and used it as a “success story” for the renewal of Chinese monarchical institutions. It was written in 1898 and presented to the Manchu throne under the title “Account of the Reforms of Peter the Great”, and for our purposes will be the departing point for a “global intellectual circuit” through which the following questions will be addressed: Why was seventeenth and eighteenth century Russia considered as a model for China by the author? How did he manage to adapt the historical experience of Russia into a social and political conceptual framework for China? What was Kang’s historiographical method, and what kind of philosophy of history framed his reflections? What does this short essay tell us about Kang’s view on “Westernization”, on the concept of “modernity” itself, and on its use for historiographical purposes?

Humans as Animals, Animals as Humans in Seventeenth-Century Russia

The boundary between human and animal in seventeenth-century Russia was more porous than has been realized. In several witchcraft cases supposedly-bewitched humans were described as speaking like animals. Muscovite hagiography and miracle stories also portrayed the demon-possessed as speaking and acting like animals. This dehumanization of humans as animals constitutes the polar opposite of the anthropomorphizing of animals as humans in bestiaries, which depicted animals as possessing human characteristics. Visual evidence corroborates these connections between the bewitched and demon-possessed on the one hand, and animals on the other, by picturing demons and humans turning to sin with animal characteristics. Early demonic representations featured the eidalon, a Greek-based figure with animal features. This textual and visual material from seventeenth-century Muscovy zoomorphized the bewitched and demon-possessed by categorizing their behavior as beastly, as that of wild animals, and by projecting the attributes and emotions of animals onto human beings. Attributing human traits to an animal might be a compliment but ascribing traits to a human could only be a criticism, thus demonstrating and confirming the Muscovite premise of human superiority over animals.

The Old Believers and Praying for the Tsar in Seventeenth-Century Russia

The opposition of Old Believers to the tsarist state assumed a number of forms: self-immolation; open rebellion; and flight to the periphery of the empire and beyond.1 Another manifestation was non-praying (nemolenie) for the tsar, but this has received comparatively little attention in the literature. Recent Russian scholarship has cast some new light on the issue2 but, in the absence of extensive evidence of liturgical practice in Old Believer communities, much remains obscure. What exactly was meant by ‘non-praying’, and did it have the same meaning in the seventeenth century as it had in the eighteenth century and subsequently?

Eine wichtige Quellenedition der russischen Geschichte des 17. Jahrhunderts

The observations on Russia made by Erik Palmquist in 1674 are a little known and important source that contains drawings, geographical maps, and city plans with descriptions. All of this makes it an important source for the history of seventeenth-century Russia, providing information on military science, diplomacy, law and order, infrastructure, architecture, technology, industry, and clothing. It is not by chance that such a description was made, since the result of this supposedly ‘diplomatic’ mission was the collection of immense amounts of intelligence on Russia. Kept in the National Archive in Stockholm, the manuscript was translated and published in Russian in 1900; an abbreviated edition was released in 1993. The edition reviewed in this article is the first trilingual version which complies with international academic standards, and thus is suitable for scholarly research. However, we still must wait for a version that will be affordable and have the same format as the original. Moreover, academic commentary on the text, illustrations, and maps has not yet been provided.

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia, by Valerie Kivelson

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia, by Valerie Kivelson

The Sacralization of Power and Clericalism in Seventeenth-Century Russia:Tsar Alexei and Patriarch Nikon

The Sacralization of Power and Clericalism in Seventeenth-Century Russia:Tsar Alexei and Patriarch Nikon

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia by Valerie Kivelson (review)

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia by Valerie Kivelson (review)

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia

Kivelson, Valerie. Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia (review)

SEER, 92, 4, OCTOBER 2014 770 Kivelson, Valerie. Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2013. xx + 349 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.95 (paperback). Magic in seventeenth-century Russia, Kivelson argues, was very different from magic in Western Europe and even from magic in latter day Russia. What court records show is that Satanism had nothing to do with Russian witchcraft accusations; magical assaults, though heinous, were akin to physical assaults and not an attack on Christianity. Furthermore, the predominance of female accused characteristic of Europe was not to be found in Russia where most people tried on charges of witchcraft were male, men outnumbering women four to one. After an introduction that seeks to define magic and describe the difficult hierarchical and autocratic social structure of seventeenth-century Russia, Kivelson turns to examining previous witchcraft scholarship in chapter one. Most of what has been written about witchcraft in the past is based on Western Europe and, while some of the findings of Western scholars do apply to Russia, they do so only to a limited extent. For example, while some periods of economic hardship do lead to an increase in accusations of witchcraft, others do not. Chaptertwodealswithdocumentationofwitchcrafttrails.Kivelsondescribes the archival sources she used and underscores the degree to which persecution of suspected witches was centralized. All cases were sent to Moscow through a defined set of steps and action was taken only after receiving instructions from the highest courts. Correspondence with Moscow required extensive repetition and both the practice of copying and the centralization in Moscow led to better preservation of records than might be expected for seventeenthcentury materials. Available documents show a striking dissimilarity between Russia and the West. While magic in Europe was seen as the result of a contract with the devil and, consequently, a threat to Christianity, in Russia the devil did not figure in witchcraft accusations. Heresy is mentioned on occasion, but, as shown in chapter three, courts were interested in the human realm, such as where the accused had learned magic and whom he himself had taught; Satanism was not a judicial concern. Gender, explored in chapters four and five, played a role in witchcraft in both Russia and the West, but in different ways. The belief that women experienced insatiable sexual desire led Europeans to see them as especially susceptible to the temptations of the devil. In Russia, women and men were different, not in terms of desire, but in access to the outside world. Within the Russian power REVIEWS 771 hierarchy, women were subordinate to men at every level. They were largely confined to the home, had limited ability to interact with others, and were thus, to an extent, shielded from accusations of witchcraft. Women used charms and herbs to cure illnesses and to mitigate male mistreatment such as wifebeating . Those who were particularly adept at healing could render assistance outside the home, but this was risky and the roots and herbs used for treatment could become evidence of witchcraft when medicinal ministrations failed. Literacy was also dangerous knowledge, but typical only of men. The written word was believed to be so potent that illiterate men kept scraps of writing for their purported magical efficacy. Whether applied to men or to women, the real crime that led to accusations of witchcraft was noncompliance, or fear of same, and men who did not hold positions that demanded literacy but could nevertheless read and write were especially likely to be brought to trial. As shown in chapters six and seven, wife-beating was not the only form of physical abuse that was considered routine and even necessary. Yet there were limits. Those in power, while allowed harsh treatment of underlings, were expected to be merciful and kind and magic was used to secure a positive attitude toward oneself and concomitant compassionate treatment. Masters were aware of their obligations to their dependents and often their own sense that they had failed to behave properly led them to fear witchcraft and assume that magic was the cause of any misfortune they experienced. Torture was a routine part of the judicial...

Desperate magic: the moral economy of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Russia

Desperate magic: the moral economy of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Russia

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia by Valerie Kivelson (review)

Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia by Valerie Kivelson (review)

On Language Learning and Intercultural Communication in Seventeenth-Century Russia

On Language Learning and Intercultural Communication in Seventeenth-Century Russia