Content

Introduction
I. Reforms of Peter I
1.1. Economic transformation
1.2. Church reform
1.3. Changes in the field of culture, science and life
II. Reforms of Catherine II
Conclusion

Introduction
In the reign of Peter the Great, reforms were carried out in all areas of the state life of the country. Many of these transformations go back to the 17th century. The socio-economic transformations of that time served as the prerequisites for Peter's reforms, the task and content of which was the formation of the nobility and bureaucracy of absolutism.
Peter turned Russia into a truly European country (at least, as he understood it) - it is not for nothing that the expression “cut a window to Europe” has become so often used. Milestones on this path were the conquest of access to the Baltic, the construction of a new capital - St. Petersburg, active intervention in European politics.
Peter's activity created all the conditions for a wider acquaintance of Russia with the culture, lifestyle, and technologies of European civilization.
Another important feature of Peter's reforms was that they affected all sectors of society, in contrast to the previous attempts of the Russian rulers. The construction of the fleet, the Northern War, the creation of a new capital - all this became the business of the whole country.
The reforms of Catherine II were also aimed at creating a powerful absolute state. The policy pursued by her in the 1960s and early 1970s was called the policy of enlightened absolutism. This policy brought the moment of transition of public life to a new, more progressive formation.
The time of Catherine II was the time of the awakening of scientific, literary and philosophical interests in Russian society, the time of the birth of the Russian intelligentsia.

I. Reforms of Peter I

Economic transformation
During the Petrine era, the Russian economy, and above all industry, made a giant leap. At the same time, the development of the economy in the first quarter of the XVIII century. It followed the path outlined by the previous period. In the Muscovite state of the XVI-XVII centuries. There were large industrial enterprises - Cannon Yard, Printing Yard, arms factories in Tula, a shipyard in Dedinovo, etc. Peter's policy in relation to economic life was characterized by a high degree of command and protectionist methods.
In agriculture, opportunities for improvement were drawn from the further development of fertile lands, the cultivation of industrial crops that provided raw materials for industry, the development of animal husbandry, the advancement of agriculture to the east and south, as well as the more intensive exploitation of the peasants. The increased needs of the state for raw materials for Russian industry led to the widespread use of crops such as flax and hemp. The decree of 1715 encouraged the cultivation of flax and hemp, as well as tobacco, mulberry trees for silkworms. The decree of 1712 ordered the creation of horse breeding farms in the Kazan, Azov and Kiev provinces, sheep breeding was also encouraged.
In the Petrine era, the country was sharply divided into two zones of feudal economy - the lean North, where the feudal lords transferred their peasants to quitrent, often letting them go to the city and other agricultural areas to earn money, and the fertile South, where the nobles - landowners sought to expand corvee .
The state duties of the peasants also increased. Cities were built by their forces) 40 thousand peasants worked for the construction of St. Petersburg), manufactories, bridges, roads; annual recruiting was carried out, old fees were increased and new ones were introduced. The main goal of Peter's policy all the time was to obtain the largest possible financial and human resources for state needs.
Two censuses were carried out - 1710 and 1718. According to the 1718 census, the male “soul” became the unit of taxation, regardless of age, from which the poll tax was levied in the amount of 70 kopecks per year (from state peasants 1 ruble 10 kopecks per year). This streamlined the tax policy and sharply raised state revenues.
In industry, there was a sharp reorientation from small peasant and handicraft farms to manufactories. Under Peter, at least 200 new manufactories were founded, he encouraged their creation in every possible way. State policy was also aimed at protecting the young Russian industry from Western European competition by introducing very high customs duties (Customs Charter of 1724).
The Russian manufactory, although it had capitalist features, but the use of mainly the labor of peasants - possession, ascribed, quitrent, etc. - made it a serf enterprise. Depending on whose property they were, manufactories were divided into state, merchant and landowner. In 1721, industrialists were granted the right to buy peasants to secure them to the enterprise (possession peasants).
State state-owned factories used the labor of state peasants, bonded peasants, recruits and free hired craftsmen. They mainly served heavy industry - metallurgy, shipyards, mines. The merchant manufactories, which produced mainly consumer goods, employed both sessional and quitrent peasants, as well as civilian labor. Landlord enterprises were fully provided by the forces of the serfs of the landowner.
Peter's protectionist policy led to the emergence of manufactories in various industries, often appearing in Russia for the first time. The main ones were those who worked for the army and navy: metallurgical, weapons, shipbuilding, cloth, linen, leather, etc. Entrepreneurial activity was encouraged, favorable conditions were created for people who created new manufactories or rented state ones.
There are manufactories in many industries - glass, gunpowder, paper, canvas, paint, sawmill and many others. A huge contribution to the development of the metallurgical industry of the Urals was made by Nikita Demidov, who enjoyed the special favor of the king. The emergence of the foundry industry in Karelia on the basis of the Ural ores, the construction of the Vyshevolotsky Canal, contributed to the development of metallurgy in new areas, brought Russia to one of the first places in the world in this industry. At the beginning of the XVIII century. About 150 thousand poods of cast iron were smelted in Russia, in 1725 - more than 800 thousand poods (from 1722 Russia exported cast iron), and by the end of the 18th century. - more than 2 million pounds.
By the end of the reign of Peter in Russia there was a developed diversified industry with centers in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the Urals. The largest enterprises were the Admiralty shipyard, Arsenal, St. Petersburg powder factories, metallurgical plants of the Urals, Khamovny yard in Moscow. There was a strengthening of the all-Russian market, the accumulation of capital thanks to the mercantilist policy of the state. Russia supplied competitive goods to world markets: iron, linen, potash, furs, caviar.
Thousands of Russians were trained in Europe in various specialties, and, in turn, foreigners - weapons engineers, metallurgists, locksmiths were hired into the Russian service. Thanks to this, Russia was enriched with the most advanced technologies in Europe.
As a result of Peter's policy in the economic field, a powerful industry was created in an extremely short period of time, capable of fully meeting military and state needs and not dependent on imports in anything.

1.2. Church reform

Peter's church reform played an important role in establishing absolutism. In the second half of the XVII century. The positions of the Russian Orthodox Church were very strong; it retained administrative, financial and judicial autonomy in relation to the royal power. The last patriarchs Joachim (1675-1690) and Adrian (1690-1700) pursued a policy aimed at strengthening these positions.
Church policy of Peter, as well as his policy in other areas of public life. It was aimed primarily at the most efficient use of the church for the needs of the state, and more specifically, at squeezing money out of the church for state programs, primarily for the construction of the fleet. After Peter's journey as part of the great embassy, ​​he is also occupied with the problem of the complete subordination of the church to his authority.
The turn to the new policy took place after the death of Patriarch Hadrian. Peter orders to conduct an audit for the census of the property of the Patriarchal House. Taking advantage of the information about the revealed abuses, Peter cancels the election of a new patriarch, at the same time entrusting Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky of Ryazan with the post of "locum tenens of the patriarchal throne." In 1701, the Monastery Order was formed - a secular institution for managing the affairs of the church. The church begins to lose its independence from the state, the right to dispose of its property.
Peter, guided by the enlightening idea of ​​the public good, which requires the productive work of all members of society, launches an offensive against monks and monasteries. In 1701, the royal decree limited the number of monks: for permission to be tonsured, now you need to apply to the Monastic order. Subsequently, the king had the idea to use the monasteries as shelters for retired soldiers and beggars. In the decree of 1724, the number of monks in the monastery is directly dependent on the number of people they look after.
The existing relationship between the church and the authorities required a new legal formalization. In 1721, Feofan Prokopovich, a prominent figure in the Petrine era, drew up the Spiritual Regulations, which provided for the destruction of the institution of the patriarchate and the formation of a new body - the Spiritual College, which was soon renamed the "Holy Government Synod", officially equalized in rights with the Senate. Stefan Yavorsky became president, Feodosy Yanovsky and Feofan Prokopovich became vice presidents.
The creation of the Synod was the beginning of the absolutist period of Russian history, since now all power, including church power, was concentrated in the hands of Peter. A contemporary reports that when Russian church leaders tried to protest, Peter pointed them to the Spiritual Regulations and said: “Here is the spiritual patriarch for you, and if you don’t like him, then here you are (throwing a dagger on the table) a damask patriarch.”
The adoption of the Spiritual Regulations actually turned the Russian clergy into state officials, especially since a secular person, the chief prosecutor, was appointed to supervise the Synod.
The reform of the church was carried out in parallel with the tax reform. Records and classification of priests were carried out, and their lower layers were transferred to the capitation salary. According to the consolidated statements of the Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan provinces (formed as a result of the division of the Kazan province), only 3044 priests out of 8709 (35%) were exempt from tax. A stormy reaction among the priests was caused by the Resolution of the Synod of May 17, 1722, in which the clergy were charged with the obligation to violate the secrecy of confession if they had the opportunity to communicate any information important to the state.
As a result of the church reform, the church lost a huge part of its influence and turned into a part of the state apparatus, strictly controlled and managed by secular authorities.

1.3. Changes in the field of culture, science and life.
The process of Europeanization of Russia in the era of Peter the Great is the most controversial part of the Petrine reforms. Even before Perth, the prerequisites for broad Europeanization were created, ties with foreign countries were noticeably strengthened, Western European cultural traditions gradually penetrate into Russia, even barbering goes back to the pre-Petrine era. In 1687, the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy was opened - the first institution of higher education in Russia. Yet Peter's work was revolutionary. V.Ya. Ulanov wrote: “What was new in the formulation of the cultural issue under Peter the Great was that now culture was called upon as a creative force not only in the field of special technology, but also in its broad cultural and everyday manifestations, and not only in application to the chosen society ... but also in relation to the broad masses of the people.
The most important stage in the implementation of the reforms was the visit of Peter as part of the Great Embassy of a number of European countries. Upon his return, Peter sent many young nobles to Europe to study various specialties, mainly to master the marine sciences. The tsar also took care of the development of education in Russia. In 1701, in Moscow, in the Sukharev Tower, the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences was opened, headed by a professor at the University of Aberdeen, a Scot Forvarson. One of the teachers of this school was Leonty Magnitsky, the author of "Arithmetic ...". In 1711, an engineering school appeared in Moscow.
Peter sought to overcome as soon as possible the disunity between Russia and Europe that had arisen since the time of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. One of its appearances was a different chronology, and in 1700 Peter transferred Russia to a new calendar - the year 7208 becomes 1700, and the celebration of the New Year is postponed from September 1 to January 1.
In 1703, the first issue of the Vedomosti newspaper, the first Russian newspaper, was published in Moscow; in 1702, the Kunsht troupe was invited to Moscow to create a theater.
There were important changes in the life of the nobles, which remade the Russian nobility “in the image and likeness” of the European one. In 1717, the book “An Honest Mirror of Youth” was published - a kind of textbook of etiquette, and from 1718 there were Assemblies - noble assemblies modeled on European ones.
However, we must not forget that all these transformations came exclusively from above, and therefore were quite painful for both the upper and lower strata of society.
Peter aspired to make Russia a European country in every sense of the word and attached great importance to even the smallest details of the process.

II. Reforms of Catherine II

As a result of the latter in the XVIII century. The palace coup, carried out on June 28, 1762, the wife of Perth III, who became Empress Catherine II (1762-1796), was elevated to the Russian throne.
Catherine II began her reign with the confirmation of the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility and generous gifts to the participants in the coup. Having proclaimed herself the successor of the cause of Peter I, Catherine directed all her efforts to create a powerful absolute state.
In 1763, the Senate reform was carried out in order to streamline the work of the Senate, which had long turned into a bureaucratic institution. The Senate was divided into six departments with clearly defined functions for each of them. In 1763-1764. the secularization of church lands was carried out, which was associated with a reduction (from 881 to 385) in the number of monasteries. Thus, the economic viability of the church was undermined, which from now on became completely dependent on the state. The process of turning the church into a part of the state apparatus begun by Peter I was completed.
The economic base of the state has been significantly strengthened. In 1764, the hetmanship in Ukraine was liquidated, management passed to the new Little Russian Collegium, located in Kiev and headed by Governor-General P.A. Rumyantsev. This was accompanied by the transfer of the mass of ordinary Cossacks to the position of peasants, serfdom began to spread to Ukraine.
Catherine received the throne illegally and only thanks to the support of noble officers, she sought support in the nobility, realizing the fragility of her position. A whole series of decrees expanded and strengthened the class rights and privileges of the nobility. The Manifesto of 1765 on the implementation of the General Land Survey for the nobility was assigned a monopoly right to own land, it also provided for the sale to the nobles of 5 kopecks. for a tithe of lands and wastelands.
The nobility was assigned super-preferential conditions for promotion to officer ranks, and funds for the maintenance of class noble educational institutions increased significantly. At the same time, the decrees of the 60s consolidated the omnipotence of the landowners and the complete lack of rights of the peasants. According to the Decree of 1767, any, even just, complaint of the peasants against the landowners was declared the gravest state crime.
So the landowner's power under Catherine II acquired wider legal boundaries.
Unlike her predecessors, Catherine II was a major and intelligent politician, a clever politician. Being well educated, familiar with the works of the French enlighteners, she understood that it was no longer possible to rule by the old methods. The policy pursued by her in the 60s - early 70s. called the policy of enlightened absolutism. The socio-economic basis of the policy of enlightened absolutism was the development of a new capitalist order that destroyed the old feudal relations.
The policy of enlightened absolutism was a natural stage in state development and, despite the half-heartedness of the reforms carried out, brought the moment of transition of social life closer to a new, more progressive formation.
Within two years, Catherine II drafted a program of new legislation in the form of a mandate for the convened commission to draw up a new Code, since the Code of 1649 was outdated. The "mandate" of Catherine II was the result of her previous reflections on enlightenment literature and a peculiar perception of the ideas of the French and German enlighteners. The “mandate” concerned all the main parts of the state structure, administration, supreme power, the rights and obligations of citizens, estates, and to a greater extent legislation and the court. In Nakaz, the principle of autocratic rule was substantiated: “The Sovereign is autocratic; for no other, as soon as the power united in his person, can act similarly to the space of such a great state ... ”A guarantee against despotism, according to Catherine, was the assertion of the principle of strict legality, as well as the separation of the judiciary from the executive and the continuous transformation associated with it legal proceedings, liquidating obsolete feudal institutions.
The program of economic policy inevitably brought to the fore the peasant question, which was of great importance under the conditions of serfdom. The nobility showed itself as a reactionary force (with the exception of individual deputies), ready to defend the feudal order by any means. Merchants and Cossacks thought about acquiring privileges to own serfs, and not about softening serfdom.
In the 1960s, a number of decrees were issued that dealt a blow to the prevailing system of monopolies. By decree of 1762, calico factories and sugar factories were allowed to open freely. In 1767, the freedom of urban crafts was declared, which was of great importance. Thus, the laws of the 60-70s. created favorable conditions for the growth of peasant industry and its development into capitalist production.
The time of Catherine II was the time of the awakening of scientific, literary and philosophical interests in Russian society, the time of the birth of the Russian intelligentsia. And although it covered only a small part of the population, it was an important step forward. In the reign of Catherine, the first Russian charitable institutions also appeared. Catherine's time is the heyday of Russian culture, this is the time of A.P. Sumarokova, D.I. Fonvizina, G.I. Derzhavin, N.I. Novikova, A.N. Radishcheva, D.G. Levitsky, F.S. Rokotova, etc.
In November 1796, Catherine passed away. Her son Pavel (1796-1801) reigned on the throne. Under Paul I, a course was established to strengthen absolutism, maximize the centralization of the state apparatus, and strengthen the personal power of the monarch.

Conclusion
The main result of the totality of Peter's reforms was the establishment of absolutism in Russia, the crown of which was the change in 1721 of the title of the Russian monarch - Perth declared himself emperor, and the country began to be called the Russian Empire. Thus, what Peter was going for all the years of his reign was formalized - the creation of a state with a coherent system of government, a strong army and navy, a powerful economy that had an impact on international politics. As a result of Peter's reforms, the state was not bound by anything and could use any means to achieve its goals. As a result, Peter came to his ideal state structure - a warship, where everything and everything is subject to the will of one person - the captain, and managed to bring this ship out of the swamp into the stormy waters of the ocean, bypassing all the reefs and shoals.
The role of Peter the Great in the history of Russia can hardly be overestimated. No matter how one relates to the methods and style of carrying out transformations, one cannot but admit that Peter the Great is one of the most famous figures in world history.
All the reforms of Catherine II were also aimed at creating a powerful absolutist state. The policy pursued by her was called "the policy of enlightened absolutism."
On the one hand, Catherine proclaimed the progressive truths of enlightenment philosophy (especially in the chapters on legal proceedings and economics), on the other hand, she confirmed the inviolability of the autocratic-serf system. While strengthening absolutism, it preserved autocracy, introducing only adjustments (greater freedom of economic life, some foundations of the bourgeois legal order, the idea of ​​the need for enlightenment), which contributed to the development of the capitalist way of life.
The undoubted merit of Catherine was the introduction of widespread public education.

Bibliography.
1. Soloviev S.M. On the history of the new Russia. - M.: Enlightenment, 1993
2. Anisimov E.V. Time of Peter's reforms. - L .: Lenizdat, 1989
3. Anisimov E.V., Kamensky A.B. Russia in the 18th - the first half of the 19th century: History. Document. - M.: MIROS, 1994
4. Pavlenko N.I. Peter the Great. - M.: Thought, 1990

Reasons for popular uprisings in the second halfXVIIcentury

It was not by chance that contemporaries called the 17th century the "rebellious age": it was during this period that two Peasant Wars, archery uprisings, city riots, and the Solovetsky seat fell. Despite the heterogeneous composition of the participants in the movements - peasants, townspeople, Cossacks, Old Believers - the reasons for their speeches had common roots:

- the policy of enslavement of the authorities. During the second half of the XVI - first half of the XVII centuries. a system of serfdom was formed. A series of decrees progressively limited the rights of freedom of the peasant and townspeople and ended with the adoption in 1649 of the Cathedral Code of Alexei Mikhailovich.

- abuse of power. V 40sXVIIv. the government increased the price of salt 3-4 times. Salt was the product without which it was not possible to prepare food for the future. Expensive salt was sold less than before, and the treasury suffered significant losses. The people began to starve, while thousands of poods of fish rotted on the Volga: the fish merchants, because of the high cost of salt, could not salt it. At the end of 1647, the salt tax was abolished, but the government could not prevent the Salt Riot. In the same 1647, it announced the collection of arrears from the population for the previous 3 years.

V 50sXVIIcentury the tsarist government waged machinations with grain: it transferred the grain reserves of Sweden to pay off Russian debts.

V 60sXVIIcentury in the context of protracted hostilities with Poland, the government carried out an inept monetary reform. Having no reserves of silver, the authorities issued a copper coin with a forced exchange rate for silver money. At first, copper money enjoyed complete confidence, but then the reform turned into a real scam: money masters from the Mint could not stand the temptation, they bought copper and produced coins for themselves. "Thieves" money filled the country, began to fall in their prices. At the beginning of 1662, 4 copper rubles were paid for a ruble of silver, in the middle of 1663 - 15 copper rubles. From the sharply depreciated money, first of all, people who received monetary salaries, soldiers and archers, as well as artisans and merchants, suffered.

- wars in the second halfXVIIv., which were inevitably accompanied by a deterioration in the economic situation in the country, an increase in taxes, an increase in the recruitment of "subject" people into the army.

- church schism which caused the movement of the Old Believers and schismatics as a kind of social protest against the authorities.

Urban uprisings

Moscow was the center of the movement of townspeople. June 3, 1648 v Moscow struck Salt Riot. The people stormed the gates of the Kremlin, plundered the courtyard of the head of the tsarist government and the initiator of the monetary reform, the boyar B.I. Morozov, demanding reprisals against him. The Kremlin decided to sacrifice L. Pleshcheev, head of the Zemsky order, who on June 4 was taken by the executioner to Red Square and torn to pieces by the crowd. The king managed to save only B.I. Morozov, urgently sending him into exile in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

The uprising in Moscow acquired a great resonance - a wave of movement in the summer of 1648 swept many cities: Kozlov, Salt Vychegodskaya, Kursk, Ustyug the Great, and others.

The most implacable and prolonged uprisings broke out in the summer of 1650 in Pskov and Novgorod, known as "bread riots". In both cities, power passed into the hands of zemstvo elders. However, the elected authorities in Novgorod showed neither steadfastness nor decisiveness and opened the gates to the punitive detachment of Prince I.N. Khovansky. The people of Pskov put up resistance to the government forces. The siege of Pskov lasted three months. The Zemskaya hut operated in the city, distributing among the townspeople the bread confiscated from the boyar granaries. In connection with the uprisings, a special Zemsky Sobor was convened, which approved the composition of the delegation to persuade the Pskovites. They stopped resisting only after they had achieved forgiveness for all participants in the uprising.

uprising in Moscow in 1662 city, known as copper riot, was also accompanied by pogroms of the houses of boyars and wealthy merchants. An excited crowd of townspeople, soldiers and archers laid siege to the village of Kolomenskoye, where the tsar was. Three archery regiments, which defended the tsar and carried out reprisals against the rebels, became a kind of guard and in subsequent years enjoyed various royal awards.

Peasant war led by S.T. Razin (1670-1671)

Urban uprisings testified to the crisis state of the country. Its pinnacle was Peasants' War under the leadership of Stepan Timofeevich Razin (1670-1671). The initiators of peasant wars and their leaders since that time were representatives Don Cossacks.

The way of life on the Don had its own characteristics. There was no land ownership, and consequently, no landlords. There were also no governors: the army was ruled by the elected. Don freemen attracted the attention of fugitives from the southern and central districts of the Russian state. The government, needing the services of the Don Cossacks, avoided conflicts with them and put up with the unwritten law: “ There is no extradition from the Don ”, that is, runaway peasants were not returned to their owners.

The Cossacks drew their vital resources from fishing and hunting. In addition, they received grain salaries and gunpowder from the government. It was a kind of payment for the defense of the borders - the Cossacks took the blows from the raids of the Crimean Tatars and Nogais. The Cossacks widely used another source of replenishment of their resources: they organized "Campaigns for zipuns". The objects of their attacks were the Crimean peninsula and the southern coast of the Black Sea. In the second half of the XVII century. opportunities for "zipun trips" became much less. After the departure of the Cossacks from Azov, which they owned for five years (1637-1642), the Turks made the fortress impregnable and closed the exit to the Azov and Black Seas. In the 50-60s. In the 17th century, the Cossacks tried to transfer their raids to the Volga, the Caspian Sea, where they robbed government and merchant caravans, as well as Iranian possessions. Yes, in June 1669 Cossacks led by S.T. Razin defeated the Iranian fleet. Derbent, Baku, Rasht, Farabat, Astrabat became their prey. The captured valuables were exchanged by the Razintsy for Russian prisoners who joined their ranks.

Actions of Razin on the Volga and the Caspian in 1667-1669. were spontaneous actions of the Cossacks for the purpose of material enrichment. However, from the end of 1669 they acquire an organized character. Campaign of the Don Cossacks in 1670 turned into Peasants' War against the boyars and the "primary people", but not against the tsar: the tsarist illusions among the rebels were still strong. Razin himself spread rumors that Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich and Patriarch Nikon, who was then in disgrace, were allegedly with him.

April 13, 1670 The 7,000th detachment of S. Razin captured Tsaritsyn. June, 22 as a result of the assault took Astrakhan."Starting people", governors, nobles were killed; documents of the Astrakhan province were burned. The management of the city was organized according to the Cossack model: at the head of the administration stood Vasily Us, Fedor Sheludyaka and other atamans.

From Astrakhan, through Tsaritsyn, the Cossacks moved up the Volga. Saratov and Samara surrendered without a fight. Dispersed throughout the Volga region "lovely letters" Razin with a call to exterminate the boyars, governor, clerks, "worldly bloodsuckers." September 04, 1670 Razin approached Simbirsk. The siege lasted a month. City led by Voivode Prince Ivan Miloslavsky withstood four rebel assaults. On October 3, government troops approached Simbirsk from Kazan under the command of Yuri Baryatinsky and dealt a blow to the razintsy. The leader of the Peasant War went to the Don to gather a new army, but was captured by the Cossacks and handed over to the government. June 04, 1671 he was taken to Moscow and executed two days later on Red Square. The name of Razin has become a legend - the people's memory of him has preserved many songs and epics.

The uprising continued after the execution of Razin, but under the onslaught of superior forces of the government, it waned. In the spring and summer of 1671, the detachment Fedora Sheludyaki tried to capture Simbirsk. The attempt was unsuccessful. He also failed to keep Astrakhan, which passed into the hands of the government in November 1671. The peasant war was defeated - the participants in the movement were subjected to cruel repressions.

Solovetsky uprising (1668-1676)

After the suppression of the Peasant War, the resistance of the masses continued in different parts of the country. Many people went to distant schismatic sketes. It was during these years that terrible self-immolations began, when schismatics preferred martyrdom to imprisonment in the royal jails. In the Solovetsky Monastery, which refused to recognize Nikon's reform, the schismatic movement acquired a mass character.

The abbot of the monastery is a schismatic Nicanor accepted all the fugitives. Thick stone walls, cannons and squeaks guarded the monastery - all the attacks of the royal troops were unsuccessful. The monastic peasants also opposed them; quite a few among the participants in the Solovki sitting were former Razintsy. The siege lasted 8 years. Solovki fell because of betrayal: the monk Feoktist ran over at night to the side of the enemy and pointed out the secret entrance to the monastery. The archers entered the monastery and after a fierce battle occupied it.

Characteristic features and causes of the defeat of popular movements

The popular uprisings of the second half of the 17th century had common features that ultimately determined their defeatist outcome. The most characteristic of them were:

Local character of movements;

The superiority of government forces;

spontaneity;

Insufficient organization of the masses;

Weak weapons;

The heterogeneous composition of the rebels and differences in interests and demands;

Lack of a program of action;

Betrayal;

The naive consciousness of the rebels: faith in a good king.

The origins of the social upheavals of the "rebellious age"

A difficult situation at the end of the 16th century developed in the central districts of the state and to such an extent that the population fled to the outskirts, abandoning their lands. For example, in 1584, only 16% of the land was plowed up in the Moscow district, and about 8% in the neighboring Pskov district.

The more people left, the harder the government of Boris Godunov put pressure on those who remained. By 1592, the compilation of scribe books was completed, where the names of peasants and townspeople, owners of yards were entered. The authorities, having conducted a census, could organize the search and return of the fugitives. In 1592–1593, a royal decree was issued to abolish the peasant exit even on St. George's Day. This measure extended not only to the owner's peasants, but also to the state, as well as to the townspeople. In 1597, two more decrees appeared, according to the first, any free person who worked for six months for a landowner turned into a bonded serf and did not have the right to redeem himself for freedom. According to the second, a five-year period was set for the search and return of the runaway peasant to the owner. And in 1607, a fifteen-year investigation of the fugitives was approved.

The nobles were given "obedient letters", according to which the peasants had to pay dues not as before, according to the established rules and sizes, but as the owner wants.

The new “township building” provided for the return of fugitive “taxers” to the cities, the assignment to the townships of the owner’s peasants who were engaged in crafts and trade in the cities, but did not pay taxes, the elimination of courtyards and settlements inside the cities, which also did not pay taxes.

Thus, it can be argued that at the end of the 16th century, a state system of serfdom, the most complete dependence under feudalism, actually took shape in Russia.

Such a policy caused great dissatisfaction among the peasantry, which at that time formed the overwhelming majority in Russia. Periodically, unrest broke out in the villages. An impetus was needed in order for discontent to turn into "distemper".

The impoverishment and ruin of Russia under Ivan the Terrible meanwhile did not pass in vain. Masses of peasants left for new lands from fortresses and state burdens. The exploitation of the rest intensified. The farmers were entangled in debts and duties. The transition from one landowner to another became more and more difficult. Under Boris Godunov, several more decrees were issued that strengthened serfdom. In 1597 - about a five-year term for the search for fugitives, in 1601-02 - about limiting the transfer of peasants by some landowners from others. The desires of the nobility were fulfilled. But social tension from this did not weaken, but only grew.

The main reason for the aggravation of contradictions in the late XVI - early XVII centuries. there was an increase in serf burden and state duties of peasants and townspeople (posad people). There were great contradictions between the Moscow privileged and the outlying, especially the southern, nobility. Made up of fugitive peasants and other free people, the Cossacks were a combustible material in society: firstly, many had blood grievances against the state, boyars-nobles, and secondly, they were people whose main occupation was war and robbery. There were strong intrigues between various groups of boyars.

In 1601–1603 an unprecedented famine broke out in the country. First there were heavy rains for 10 weeks, then, at the end of summer, frost damaged the bread. Another crop failure next year. Although the king did a lot to alleviate the situation of the hungry: he distributed money and bread, brought down the price of it, arranged public works, etc., but the consequences were severe. About 130,000 people died in Moscow alone from the diseases that followed the famine. Many, from hunger, gave themselves up as slaves, and, finally, often the masters, unable to feed the servants, expelled the servants. Robbery and unrest of runaway and walking people began (the leader of Khlopko Kosolap), who operated near Moscow itself and even killed governor Basmanov in a battle with the tsarist troops. The rebellion was crushed, and its participants fled to the south, where they joined the troops of the impostor, Bolotnikov and others.

"Salt" and "copper" riots in Moscow. Urban uprisings

The "salt" riot, which began in Moscow on June 1, 1648, was one of the most powerful actions of Muscovites in defense of their rights.

The "salt" rebellion involved archers, lackeys - in a word, those people who had reasons to be dissatisfied with the government's policy.

The rebellion began, it would seem, with a trifle. Returning from a pilgrimage from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the young Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was surrounded by petitioners who asked the Tsar to remove L.S. there was no response from the sovereign. Then the complainants decided to turn to the queen, but this also did not work: the guard dispersed the people. Some were arrested. The next day, the tsar staged a religious procession, but even here complainants appeared demanding the release of the first number of petitioners arrested and still resolving the issue of cases of bribery. The tsar asked his “uncle” and relative, the boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, for clarification on this matter. After listening to the explanations, the king promised the petitioners to resolve this issue. Hiding in the palace, the tsar sent four ambassadors for negotiations: Prince Volkonsky, deacon Volosheinov, Prince Temkin-Rostov, and roundabout Pushkin.

But this measure did not turn out to be a solution to the problem, since the ambassadors behaved extremely arrogantly, which greatly angered the petitioners. The next unpleasant fact was the exit from the subordination of the archers. Due to the arrogance of the ambassadors, the archers beat the boyars sent for negotiations.

On the next day of the rebellion, forced people joined the tsar's disobedient. They demanded the extradition of the bribe-taking boyars: B. Morozov, L. Pleshcheev, P. Trakhanionov, N. Chisty.

These officials, relying on the power of ID Miloslavsky, who was especially close to the tsar, oppressed the Muscovites. They "created an unfair trial", took bribes. Having taken the main places in the administrative apparatus, they had complete freedom of action. By slandering ordinary people, they ruined them. On the third day of the “salt” riot, the “mob” defeated about seventy courtyards of especially hated nobles. One of the boyars (Nazarius Pure) - the initiator of the introduction of a huge tax on salt, was beaten and chopped to pieces by the "mob".

After this incident, the tsar was forced to turn to the clergy and opposition to the Morozov court clique. A new deputation of the boyars was sent, headed by Nikita Ivanovich Romanov, a relative of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The inhabitants of the city expressed their desire that Nikita Ivanovich began to rule with Alexei Mikhailovich (it must be said that Nikita Ivanovich Romanov enjoyed confidence among Muscovites). As a result, there was an agreement on the extradition of Pleshcheev and Trakhanionov, whom the tsar, at the very beginning of the rebellion, appointed governor in one of the provincial towns. Things were different with Pleshcheev: he was executed the same day on Red Square and his head was handed over to the crowd. After that, a fire broke out in Moscow, as a result of which half of Moscow burned out. It was said that Morozov's people set the fire in order to distract the people from the rebellion. Demands for the extradition of Trakhanionov continued; the authorities decided to sacrifice him just to stop the rebellion. Streltsy were sent to the city where Trakhanionov himself commanded. On June 4, 1648, the boyar was also executed. Now the look of the rebels was riveted by the boyar Morozov. But the tsar decided not to sacrifice such a “valuable” person and Morozov was exiled to the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery in order to return him as soon as the rebellion subsided, but the boyar would be so frightened by the rebellion that he would never take an active part in state affairs.

In an atmosphere of rebellion, the top tenants, the lower strata of the nobility sent a petition to the tsar, in which they demanded the streamlining of the judiciary, the development of new laws.

As a result of the petitioned authorities, concessions were made: the archers were given eight rubles each, the debtors were freed from beating money, the stealing judges were replaced. Subsequently, the rebellion began to subside, but not everything got away with the rebels: the instigators of the rebellion among the serfs were executed.

On July 16, the Zemsky Sobor was convened, which decided to adopt a number of new laws. In January 1649, the Council Code was approved.

Here is the result of the "salt" rebellion: the truth triumphed, the people's offenders were punished, and to top it all off, the Council Code was adopted, which was designed to alleviate the people's lot and rid the administrative apparatus of corruption.

Before and after the Salt Riot, uprisings broke out in more than 30 cities of the country: in the same 1648 in Ustyug, Kursk, Voronezh, in 1650 - "bread riots" in Novgorod and Pskov.

The Moscow uprising of 1662 (“Copper Riot”) was caused by a financial catastrophe in the state and the difficult economic situation of the working masses of the city and countryside as a result of a sharp increase in tax oppression during the wars of Russia with Poland and Sweden. The mass issue by the government of copper money (since 1654), equated to the value of silver money, and their significant depreciation against silver (6–8 times in 1662) led to a sharp rise in the price of food, huge speculation, abuse and mass counterfeiting of copper coins ( in which individual representatives of the central administration were involved). In many cities (especially in Moscow), famine broke out among the bulk of the townspeople (despite good harvests in previous years). Great dissatisfaction was also caused by the decision of the government on a new, extremely difficult, extraordinary tax collection (pyatina). Active participants in the "copper" rebellion were representatives of the urban lower classes of the capital, and peasants from villages near Moscow. The uprising broke out in the early morning of July 25, when leaflets appeared in many districts of Moscow, in which the most prominent leaders of the government (I. D. Miloslavsky; I. M. Miloslavsky; I. A. Miloslavsky; B. M. Khitrovo; F. M. Rtishchev ) were declared traitors. Crowds of rebels went to Red Square, and from there to the village. Kolomenskoye, where Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was.

The rebels (4-5 thousand people, mostly townspeople and soldiers) surrounded the royal residence, handed over their petition to the tsar, insisting on the extradition of the persons indicated in the leaflets, as well as on a sharp reduction in taxes, food prices, etc. Taken by surprise, the tsar, who had about 1,000 armed courtiers and archers, did not dare to take reprisals, promising the rebels to investigate and punish the perpetrators. The rebels turned to Moscow, where, after the departure of the first group of rebels, a second group formed and the destruction of the courtyards of large merchants began. On the same day, both groups united, arrived in the village. Kolomenskoye, again surrounded the royal palace and resolutely demanded the extradition of government leaders, threatening to execute them even without the tsar's sanction. At this time in Moscow, after the departure of the second group of rebels in the village. With the help of archers, the Kolomenskoye authorities, by order of the tsar, switched to active punitive actions, and 3 archery and 2 soldier regiments (up to 8 thousand people) were already pulled into Kolomenskoye. After the rebels refused to disperse, the beating of mostly unarmed people began. During the massacre and subsequent executions, about 1 thousand people were killed, sunk, hanged and executed, up to 1.5-2 thousand rebels were exiled (with families up to 8 thousand people).

June 11, 1663 was followed by a royal decree on the closure of the yards of the "money copper business" and the return to the minting of silver coins. Copper money was redeemed from the population in a short time - within a month. For one silver kopeck they took a ruble in copper money. Trying to benefit from copper kopecks, the population began to cover them with a layer of mercury or silver, passing them off as silver money. This trick was soon noticed, and a royal decree appeared on the prohibition of tinning copper money.

So, the attempt to improve the Russian monetary system ended in complete failure and led to a breakdown in monetary circulation, riots and general impoverishment. Neither the introduction of a system of large and small denominations, nor an attempt to replace expensive raw materials for minting money with cheaper ones failed.

Russian monetary circulation returned to the traditional silver coin. And the time of Alexei Mikhailovich was called "rebellious" by his contemporaries

Peasant war led by S. Razin

In 1667, after the end of the war with the Commonwealth, a large number of fugitives poured into the Don. Famine reigned in the Don.

Back in March 1667, Moscow became aware that many residents of the Don "selected to steal to the Volga." The Cossack Stepan Timofeevich Razin stood at the head of the mass of unorganized, but brave, determined and armed people. He showed his willfulness by recruiting his detachment from the Cossack goal and alien people - fugitive peasants, townspeople, archers, who were not part of the Donskoy army and were not subordinate to the Cossack foreman.

He conceived a campaign in order to distribute the captured booty to the needy, feed the hungry, clothe and shoe the undressed and undressed. Razin, at the head of a detachment of Cossacks of 500 people, did not go to the Volga, but down the Don. It's hard to tell what his intentions were at that moment. It seems that this campaign was aimed at lulling the vigilance of the Volga governors and attracting supporters. People came to Razin from different places. Lead your troops to him.

In mid-May 1667, the Cossacks and the fugitive peasantry crossed over the crossing to the Volga. Razin's detachment grew to 2000 people. First, the Razints met a large trade caravan on the Volga, which included ships with exiles. The Cossacks seized goods and property, replenished stocks of weapons and provisions, took possession of the plows. Streltsy commanders and merchant clerks were killed, and exiles, most of the archers and rivermen who worked on merchant ships voluntarily joined the Razintsy.

Cossacks clashed with government troops. As the events of the Caspian campaign developed, the rebellious nature of the movement became more and more manifest.

Avoiding a clash with government troops, he in a short time and with small losses spent his flotilla at sea, then moved to the Yaik River and easily captured the Yaitsky town. In all battles, Razin showed great courage. The Cossacks were joined by more and more people from the huts and plows.

Having entered the Caspian Sea, the Razintsy headed to its southern shores. Some time later, their ships stopped in the area of ​​the Persian city of Rasht. The Cossacks sacked the cities of Rasht, Farabat, Astrabad and wintered near the "amusing palace of the Shah", setting up an earthen town in his forest reserve on the Miyan-Kale peninsula. Having exchanged the captives for the Russians in the ratio of "one to four", in this way they replenished with people.

The release of Russian captives languishing in Persia and the replenishment of the Razin detachment with the Persian poor goes beyond the scope of military predatory actions.

In a naval battle near Pig Island, the Razintsy won a complete victory over the troops of the Persian Shah. However, the trip to the Caspian Sea was marked not only by victories and successes. Razintsy had heavy losses and defeats. The fight with large Persian forces near Rasht ended unfavorably for them.

At the end of the Caspian campaign, Razin gave the governors a bunchuk, a sign of his power, and returned some of the weapons. Then the Razintsy, having received the forgiveness of Moscow, returned to the Don. After the Caspian campaign, Razin did not disband his detachment. On September 17, 1669, 20 versts from the Black Yar, Razin demanded that the archers' heads come to him, and renamed the archers and feeders into his "Cossacks".

The reports of the governors of the southern cities about the independent behavior of Razin, that he “became strong” and was again plotting “distemper”, alerted the government. In January 1670, a certain Gerasim Evdokimov was sent to Cherkassk. Razin demanded that Evdokim be brought in and interrogated him, from whom did he come: from the great sovereign or the boyars? The messenger confirmed that from the king, but Razin declared him a boyar scout. The Cossacks drowned the royal envoy. In the town of Panshin, Razin gathered the participants of the upcoming campaign in a large circle. The ataman announced that he intended to "go from the Don to the Volga, and from the Volga to go to Russia ... so that ... from the Muscovite state bring the boyars and duma people as traitors and in the cities the voivodes and clerks people" and give freedom to "black people".

Soon 7000 Razin's army moved to Tsaritsyn. Having captured it, the Razintsy remained in the town for about 2 weeks. The battles in the lower reaches of the Volga in the spring and summer of 1670 showed that Razin was a talented commander. On June 22, Astrakhan was captured by the Razintsy. Without a single shot, Samara and Saratov passed to the Razintsy.

After that, the Razintsy began the siege of Simbirsk. At the end of August 1670, the government sent an army to suppress the Razin uprising. A month's stay near Simbirsk was Razin's tactical miscalculation. It made it possible to bring government troops here. In the battle near Simbirsk, Razin was seriously wounded, and later executed in Moscow.

Apparently, one of the main reasons for the failure of the Simbirsk was the lack of a permanent staff in the rebel army. Only the core of the Cossacks and archers remained stable in the Razin army, while numerous peasant detachments, which made up the bulk of the rebels, kept coming and going. They did not have military experience, and during the period that they were not in the ranks of the Razintsy, they did not have time to accumulate it.

schismatic movement

An important fact of Russian history of the XVII century. there was a church schism, which was the result of the church reform of Patriarch Nikon.

The most significant of the innovations adopted by Patriarch Nikon and the church council of 1654 was the replacement of baptism with two fingers with three fingers, the pronunciation of the doxology to God “aleluia” not twice, but three times, the movement around the lectern in the church not in the course of the Sun, but against it. All of them dealt with the purely ritual side, and not with the essence of Orthodoxy.

The schism of the Orthodox Church took place at the council of 1666-1667, and from 1667 the schismatics were put on trial by the "city authorities", who burned them for "blasphemy against the Lord God." In 1682, Archpriest Avvakum, the main opponent of Patriarch Nikon, died at the stake.

Archpriest Avvakum became one of the brightest personalities in Russian history. Many considered him a saint and a miracle worker. He participated together with Nikon in correcting liturgical books, but was soon dismissed due to ignorance of the Greek language.

On January 6, 1681, the tsar went with a large number of people to consecrate the water. At this time, the Old Believers committed a pogrom in the Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals of the Kremlin. They smeared royal vestments and tombs with tar, and also placed tallow candles, which were considered unclean in church use. At this time, the crowd returned, and an associate of the rebels, Gerasim Shapochnik, began to throw “thieves' letters” into the crowd, which depicted caricatures of the tsar and the patriarchs.

The schism brought together a variety of social forces that advocated the preservation of the traditional character of Russian culture intact. There were princes and boyars, such as the noblewoman F. P. Morozova and princess E. P. Urusova, monks and the white clergy, who refused to perform the new rites. But there were especially many ordinary people - townspeople, archers, peasants - who saw in the preservation of the old rites a way of fighting for the ancient folk ideals of "truth" and "freedom". The most radical step taken by the Old Believers was the decision taken in 1674 to stop praying for the tsar's health. This meant a complete break of the Old Believers with the existing society, the beginning of the struggle to preserve the ideal of "truth" within their communities.

The main idea of ​​the Old Believers was "falling away" from the world of evil, unwillingness to live in it. Hence the preference for self-immolation over compromise with the authorities. Only in 1675-1695. 37 fires were registered, during which at least 20 thousand people died. Another form of protest of the Old Believers was the flight from the power of the tsar, the search for the "secret city of Kitezh" or the utopian country Belovodie, under the protection of God himself.



Russian history. Factor analysis. Volume 2. From the end of the Troubles to the February Revolution Nefedov Sergey Alexandrovich

1.10. Traditions and Westernization in the Second Half of the 17th Century

Returning to the description of the role of the technological (diffusion) factor, it is necessary, first of all, to give a brief description of the ratio of Eastern and Western components in Russian society of the 17th century, in its social and material culture. Europeans who visited Russia during this period were struck by the difference between Russian customs and practices from those familiar to them. “To this day, they have few European features, and Asian ones predominate,” noted the Tuscan ambassador Jacob Reitenfels in 1680. “The cut of clothes, the pomp at public celebrations, the usual way of housekeeping, the methods of government, the whole system of life, finally, resonates with them with more Asian unbridledness than European education ... ”Reitenfels describes the eastern customs of Russians: they tend to sleep after dinner, take food from the dish with their fingers, when they meet they kiss each other or make deep bows, they constantly practice horseback riding and archery, they spend their free time, like the Persians, playing checkers. “Neglecting stone houses, they quite rightly believe that it is much healthier, due to severe and constant cold, to lock themselves in wooden ones, like the Tatars and Chinese.” The Dutch traveler Jan Streis wrote that there are many public baths in Moscow, similar to Turkish and Persian ones, that, due to the dress law, everyone must dress according to the pattern assigned to him, that “they write on their knees, even if there is a table in front of them”, that women “ kept locked up, almost like Turkish women.” The court physician of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Samuel Collins, adds that “they revere the beauty of women for their fatness,” that women, in order to please their husbands, blacken their teeth and the whites of their eyes.

The veneration of the king also belonged to the Eastern customs. “Greeting the king, they usually prostrate themselves with their whole bodies on the ground,” notes J. Reitenfels: this was the Chinese custom of “petition”, “kou tou”. The same kneeling was demanded from Western ambassadors, giving them fur coats in return, according to Eastern custom. The Muscovites revered the tsar on an equal footing with God: “Moskhi constantly openly declare everywhere that everything is possible and everything is known to God and the tsar, that only to God and the tsar they are ready to give everything that they have the best, and even life itself.”

At the beginning of the 17th century, the customs of the royal court did not differ from those of the people, and Muscovites reacted sensitively to cases of their violation: when it became known that False Dmitry did not sleep after dinner, a rumor immediately spread that the tsar was “replaced”. For Mikhail Fedorovich, Italian craftsmen built a stone palace, but he preferred to live in wooden mansions, finding them healthier. Alexei Mikhailovich was so pious that he stood in the service for 5-6 hours and beat off a thousand prostrations. In 1648, the tsar officially forbade working on Sundays and holidays, obliged everyone to go to church and fast, and also forbade playing cards and chess, ordered the destruction of musical instruments, etc. At the same time, smoking, growing and selling tobacco were banned . In 1675, Alexei Mikhailovich ordered to announce to the courtiers that they "do not adopt foreign German and other izvychay, do not cut their hair on their heads, and also do not wear dresses, caftans and hats, and therefore they did not order their people to wear." The summer palace built by the tsar in Kolomenskoye looked like a Russian tower: it was decorated with carvings and weathervanes and painted inside by the Russian icon painter Fyodor Ushakov and the Armenian Ivan Saltanov. The royal throne of Alexei Mikhailovich was made by Persian craftsmen, and the crown was brought from Constantinople. However, the palace was full of mirrors and clocks - these were the first signs of European cultural influence.

European cultural influence made its way through economic innovations. Under Aleksei Mikhailovich, B. I. Morozov acted as the initiator of these innovations; in his vast economy, he experimented with various crops and mastered new trades for those times: he raised fish in artificial ponds, was engaged in gardening, and created horse factories. The innovative spirit of this entrepreneur is well reflected in the case that occurred in 1651: having learned that Colonel Crafoord had seeds of a new Pancake week brought from Europe, Morozov offered him the best lands and sent several peasants to study with Crafoord. With the help of German monks, winemaking was started in Astrakhan, and in 1658 more than a thousand buckets of red wine were delivered to the court from there. In 1659, Morozov met the famous Slavic educator Yuri Krizhanich, who in his treatise "Politics" gives a lot of socio-economic recommendations in the spirit of the Enlightenment. “Why am I not young, what else could I learn!” Morozov exclaimed after a conversation with Krizhanich.

A. I. Zaozersky believes that Morozov passed on the spirit of innovative entrepreneurship to his pupil, Tsar Alexei: Alexei had repeatedly visited the Pokrovskoye estate of Morozov and was aware of the economic experiments being carried out there. In those days, botanical gardens were all the rage in Europe. Marselis brought the king a gift from the Duke of Holstein - garden roses from the Gottford garden; Vinius took out seedlings of peach, apricot, almond, Spanish cherry. In 1662, ambassadors on their way to England were ordered to bring "all sorts of seeds" from there. In 1664–1665, the tsar founded his own experimental farm, the Izmailovo estate; messengers were sent out to bring from various places seeds or seedlings of grapes, mulberries, cotton, madder dye grass, walnuts, and many other crops. Attempts to breed mulberries and cotton, of course, ended in failure, but the experiments continued: manufactory production of linen fabrics was mastered, a morocco factory, two glass and three iron factories were built.

Experiments and innovations soon went beyond the tsarist economy. Back in 1657, the king ordered his Dutch emissary Gebdon to hire "the most learned alchemists, silver, copper and iron miners." Starting in 1666, the hired "miners" went on expeditions to explore ores in various regions of the country. Trade projects were put forward, as early as 1663 the Moscow ambassador tried to negotiate with the Duke of Courland on sending ships to India. The negotiations ended in failure, then the Moscow government began to look for trade routes in the south. The trade route through the Caspian Sea has long attracted the attention of Western merchants, who asked Moscow for permission to organize the transit of Persian silk to Europe. In 1663, with the "great embassy" a large trading expedition was sent to Persia, which brought goods worth 80 thousand rubles.

In 1665–1667, A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, “the boyar of royal and state embassy affairs,” became the head of the Moscow government. Ordin-Nashchokin arranged for the Posolsky Prikaz to regularly translate foreign newspapers (from time to time they had been translated before) and send a large number of books. At this time, translations of Polish books were published in a multitude; if in the first half of the 17th century only 13 books were translated from European languages, then in the second half - 114 books. Following the translated fiction, the first Russian novels appear, for example, "The Story of the Russian Nobleman Frol Skobeev."

One of Ordin-Nashchokin's closest associates was the Dutch merchant Johann van Sweden, who lived in Moscow. Van Sveden built the first paper mill in Russia and the first cloth factory. In 1665, Ordin-Nashchokin entrusted van Sweden with the organization of a regular postal service, and in 1667 with the construction of the first ship for the Caspian fleet. Previously, antediluvian “royal beads” floated in the Caspian, the lining of which was knitted with a bast, without nails, so these boats were only suitable for one or two voyages. Now it was supposed to start a real merchant fleet, and the first ship of this fleet, the Eagle, was built in the spring of 1669; he went down the Volga to Astrakhan, but was captured here by Razin's Cossacks. Nevertheless, Ordin-Nashchokin signed an agreement with an Armenian company on the transit of Persian silk through Russia, and over time this trade became quite significant. During the reign of Sophia, Prince V.V. Golitsyn built two frigates that delivered silk from Shemakha to Astrakhan.

The second person in the government of the 1660s was the devious Bogdan Matveyevich Khitrovo, a friend of the tsar and the closest attorney for his personal affairs. Like Ordin-Nashchokin, Khitrovo was a "Westernizer" and was said to receive a lot of money from the Dutch. Under the influence of Khitrovo, the tsar appointed the West Slavic educator Simeon of Polotsk as an educator of his children, who taught them Latin and Polish, and even writing poetry. Polotsky was one of the first Russian church philosophers and poets (he wrote in Church Slavonic), at one time he ran a school in the Spassky Monastery, which introduced young diplomats and officials from the Secret Order to Polish culture. Polotsky also contributed to the spread of Western painting, at that time the first royal ceremonial portraits and landscapes appeared, which decorated not only houses, but also park alleys.

After the death of Alexei Mikhailovich, the disciple of Simeon of Polotsk, Tsar Fedor Alekseevich (1676–1682), ascended the throne. The young Tsar Fedor was married to the Polish noblewoman Agafya Grushetskaya, he knew Latin and Polish and was a fan of Polish culture. Fedor ordered the courtiers to wear Polish caftans; it was a symbolic act of cultural reorientation from East to West, and the tsarist chronicler Adamov clearly conveyed the ideological meaning of the reform: "He ordered the Russian people to wear excellent clothes from the Tatars." The new tsar tried to force the Muscovites to build stone houses, ordered the restoration of the Slavic-Latin school in the Spassky Monastery and appointed another student of Polotsky, Sylvester Medvedev, as its head.

In 1682, the death of Tsar Fedor, the serious illness of his brother Ivan, and the infancy of another heir, Peter, caused a crisis of autocracy. Boyar groups again entered the arena, starting a struggle for power under the guise of supporting Tsar Peter or Tsar Ivan. Moscow streltsy intervened in this struggle, dissatisfied with the abuses of their initial people and fearing the dissolution of the streltsy army (streltsy regiments outside Moscow had already been converted into soldiers). Prince Khovansky, exciting the archers, shouted that "both you and us will be given into captivity to a foreign enemy, Moscow will be destroyed, and the Orthodox faith will be destroyed." It was traditionalist reaction, directed against military reform, carried out according to a foreign model.

The only representative of the royal family who was able to maintain the authority of the authorities in the situation of the beginning of anarchy was Princess Sophia. She took refuge with her brothers in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, called for help from the local militia and led the archers to obedience. Thus, at a critical moment, the monarchy found support in the nobility; Sophia's other support was the boyar aristocracy. Due to her position, Sophia could not exercise autocracy and therefore sought the support of the nobility, distributing large numbers of duma ranks. Contemporaries testify that Sophia ruled together with the boyars.

The boyars, like the archers, were not interested in preserving the regiments of the “foreign system”. The government was forced to make concessions to the traditionalists: about four hundred foreign officers (about a third) were fired, and only Russified "Germans" who were accepted "by choice" remained in the service. On the other hand, the nobility took advantage of the weakness of the central government and, already during the gathering at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, presented it with their estate demands, primarily related to strengthening the investigation of fugitive serfs. Another concession to the nobility was the decree of 1684, which established that estates (even large ones) after the death of their owner remain in the family and are divided among the heirs in addition to their local salaries - despite the fact that the heirs did not earn this increase. The decree of 1688 allowed the sale of patrimonial peasants without land; decrees in 1688 and 1690 authorized the right of owners to exchange both fiefdoms and estates. By the end of the 17th century, the distinction between the estate and the estate was almost erased; estates were inherited through the male line, given to widows and unmarried girls "to feed" and sometimes even sold.

Sophia's traditionalist policy was forced. Like her brother, Tsar Fedor, Sophia studied with Simeon of Polotsk; according to some reports, the princess spoke Polish. After the death of Polotsky, the place of Sophia's confessor and mentor was taken by another supporter of rapprochement with the West, Sylvester Medvedev. Sophia's first assistant in public affairs (and her lover) was the head of the Ambassadorial Department, the well-known "Westernizer" Prince V.V. Golitsyn. According to de la Neuville, Golitsyn knew the Polish language, he allowed foreigners free entry into Russia, allowed the nobles to send their children to study in Poland, allowed the Jesuits into the country and often talked with them. There were rumors that Golitsyn intended to make Sylvester Medvedev patriarch in order to unite the Greek and Latin churches. These plans (or rumors about them) aroused the furious protest of Patriarch Joachim, who became the main enemy of Golitsyn and Sophia.

In 1687-1689, during the war with Turkey, Golitsyn was forced to turn again to hiring foreign officers in order to complete the 75,000-strong army of the “foreign system”. The nobility (according to the Polish model) was assigned to regular companies headed by captains and cornets. Protesting against these innovations, princes B. F. Dolgorukov and Yu. A. Shcherbatov appeared at the review, dressed together with their people in a black mourning dress. Later, Patriarch Joachim joined the protest of the nobility, who publicly predicted the misfortune of the army, infected by the presence of officers of other faiths. The campaign really ended in failure - and the patriarch immediately recalled his prophecy.

The failure of the Crimean campaigns shook the position of Sophia and Golitsyn. When a conflict broke out between Sophia and Tsar Peter in 1689, Patriarch Joachim and many princes (including the Dolgorukovs and Shcherbatovs) immediately went over to the side of the young tsar. Thus - oddly enough - Peter's victory was due to the support of the traditionalist party. According to M. M. Bogoslovsky, the tsar "in this struggle was still much more a symbol than an active person with his own initiative." Absorbed by his amusements, the tsar did not engage in state affairs, and power ended up in the hands of Patriarch Joachim and traditionalist boyars, relatives of Peter's mother Natalia Naryshkina. De la Neuville wrote that "those who rejoiced at the fall of Golitsyn soon repented of his death, since the Naryshkins, who are now ruling them, being uneducated and rude, began ... to destroy everything that this great man introduced new ..." Sylvester Medvedev was executed, the Jesuits had to leave Russia, the regiments of the "foreign system" were disbanded, and most of the foreign officers were fired.

Ultimately, boyar rule had a severe impact on the discipline of the nobility and the condition of the regiments of the “foreign system”. In 1695, during the first campaign against Azov, only 14,000 soldiers were on alert; the rest of the 120,000th army consisted of warriors of the "Russian system", that is, from archers and local militia. Subsequently, in 1717, Prince Ya. F. Dolgoruky told Peter that his father, by organizing regular troops, showed him the way, “yes, according to him, all his senseless institutions were ruined,” so Peter had to do everything again and in a better condition lead.

Thus, the weakening of the autocracy was due mainly to random factors, but it opened the way for a traditionalist reaction and led to the fact that the results of the second military revolution were partly lost.

This text is an introductory piece. From the book General History. History of the New Age. 7th grade author Burin Sergey Nikolaevich

§ 13. England in the second half of the 17th century The period of the Cromwellian RepublicThe monarchs of Europe took hostility to the revolutionary events in England, especially the execution of the king. Even the republican Netherlands provided shelter to the son of the executed Charles I. And in distant Russia, Tsar Alexei

From the book Book 2. The Secret of Russian History [New Chronology of Russia. Tatar and Arabic languages ​​in Russia. Yaroslavl as Veliky Novgorod. ancient english history author

7. In the second half of the 17th century, the Romanovs cleared Russian cemeteries of old tombstones that had been destroyed or used as building stone.

From the book Jewish Moscow author Gessen Julius Isidorovich

Ilya Kunin JEWS IN MOSCOW IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY In the 80s and 90s of the last century, the Moscow Merchant Administration published in nine volumes "Materials for the History of the Moscow Merchants". These "Materials", despite the great value of the information contained in them, are still

From the book Expulsion of Kings author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

4.5. Cleaning of Russian cemeteries from old tombstones in the second half of the 17th century Excavations in 1999–2000 in the Luzhetsky Monastery in Mozhaisk Streltsov, who drew our attention to the facts that will be discussed in this section. In Mozhaisk there is

From the book History of the Middle Ages. Volume 2 [In two volumes. Under the general editorship of S. D. Skazkin] author Skazkin Sergey Danilovich

2. GERMANY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 16th AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURIES. THE ECONOMIC DECLINE OF GERMANY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 16TH CENTURY. v. deep decline resulting from

From the book New History of Europe and America in the 16th-19th centuries. Part 3: textbook for universities author Team of authors

Italy in the second half of the XVI-XVII centuries. Devastating wars, increased political fragmentation, the establishment of foreign domination had the most negative impact on the socio-economic development of Italian society. For a short time setting

From the book History of Russia [for students of technical universities] author Shubin Alexander Vladlenovich

Chapter 3 RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XV - FIRST HALF OF THE XVII C. temperatures and humidity increased in Eastern Europe. This allowed the population of North-Eastern Russia to start developing

From the book World History: in 6 volumes. Volume 3: The World in Early Modern Times author Team of authors

UNDER THE MANCH RULE: THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY OF THE QING DYNASTY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY In October 1644, Fulin was proclaimed emperor of the new Celestial Empire, the Qing, whose capital was Beijing. The Manchus immediately tried to introduce their own rules in the city,

From the book History of Georgia (from ancient times to the present day) the author Vachnadze Merab

Kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti in the second half of the 17th century 1. Bakhtrion uprising. At the end of the 50s of the 17th century, an extremely difficult situation developed in Kakheti. The Iranian Shah Abbas II (1642-1666), like his ancestor Abbas I, began to populate Kakheti with Turkmen tribes. It was

From the book History of Ukraine from ancient times to the present day author Semenenko Valery Ivanovich

Peculiarities of cultural development in Ukraine in the second half of the 16th - first half of the 17th century The influence of Western culture on Ukraine, which began partly in the first half of the 16th century, increased significantly after the Union of Lublin and continued almost until the end of the 18th century. On the edge

From the book Reader on the history of the USSR. Volume1. author author unknown

183. JAN STREIS. SHEMAKHA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY An excerpt from Streis' work, devoted to the description of Shemakha, is quoted from the publication "Three Journeys" (see No. 160). On the 8th we entered the famous Persian 2 trading city of Shemakha. It lies at 40°50? latitudes in the Shirvan or Midia valley.

From the book History author Plavinsky Nikolai Alexandrovich

From the book The Great Past of the Soviet People author Pankratova Anna Mikhailovna

3. Popular movements against the serfdom in the middle and in the second half of the XVII CENTURY Stepan Razin The Polish and Swedish intervention seriously affected the internal state of the Russian state. The economic life of the country was in complete disorder. Trade

From the book General History. History of the New Age. 7th grade author Burin Sergey Nikolaevich

§ 13. England in the second half of the 17th century The period of the Cromwellian RepublicThe feudal monarchs of Europe took hostility to the revolutionary events in England, especially the execution of the king. Even bourgeois Holland provided shelter to the son of the executed Charles I. And in distant Russia, the tsar

From the book Joan of Arc, Samson and Russian History author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

14. In the second half of the 17th century, the Romanovs cleared Russian cemeteries of old tombstones, which were either destroyed or used as building stone.

From the book Russian-Lithuanian nobility XV-XVII centuries. Source study. Genealogy. Heraldry author Bychkova Margarita Evgenievna

Polish traditions in Russian genealogy of the 17th century Russian genealogy of the second half of the 17th century. was greatly influenced by Polish literature. This was due both to the general interest in Polish authors, which manifested itself in the official activities of the Ambassadorial Order.

I. Introduction. Socio-economic conditions prevailing in Russia by the middle of the 17th century

II. The economic situation in Russia in the second half of the XVII century

III. The social structure of Russia in the second half of the XVII century

IV. Conclusion. Russia on the threshold of the 18th century

Introduction. Socio-economic conditions prevailing in Russia by the middle of the 17th century

Russia at the beginning of the 17th century - centralized feudal state. Agriculture remained the basis of the economy, in which the vast majority of the population was employed. By the end of the 16th century, there was a significant expansion of sown areas associated with the colonization of the southern regions of the country by Russian people. The dominant form of landownership was feudal landownership. Feudal ownership of land was strengthened and expanded, and the peasants were further enslaved.

In the leading branches of production, more or less large enterprises, mainly state-owned ones, began to occupy a prominent place: the Cannon Yard, the Armory, the City Order and the Order of Stone Affairs with its brick factories, etc. The creation and development of large enterprises contributed to the growth of the division of labor and the improvement of technology. A characteristic feature of the development of urban crafts was the emergence of new, narrower specialties.

The commercial and industrial population of Russia increased. Foreign specialists and merchants flocked to Moscow, which led to the emergence in Moscow of the German settlement, trading yards - English, Pansky, Armenian. This testifies to the ever-increasing role of trade in the Russian economy of that time.

The growth of handicrafts and trade was the first sign of the emergence of capitalist relations in Russia, but then there were no conditions that could radically change the existing economic structure in the country, while the economies of Western European countries were rapidly developing towards the establishment of capitalism. In Russia there was no single national market, commodity-money relations were based on the sale of the surplus product of the feudal natural economy. Market relations were based on the division of labor associated with differences in natural geographical conditions.

The beginning of the 17th century in the history of Russia was marked by major political and socio-economic upheavals. This time was called by historians the Time of Troubles. Numerous popular unrest, anarchy and arbitrariness of the Polish-Swedish interventionists led the country to unprecedented economic ruin. The consequence of the Time of Troubles was a powerful regression of the economic and socio-political situation compared to that achieved by the end of the 16th century. Documentary and literary sources of that time paint gloomy pictures of devastated, depopulated cities and villages, desolated arable land, the decline of crafts and trade. Nevertheless, the Russian people quickly coped with the disasters, and by the middle of the 17th century, life began to return to its former course.

The economic situation in Russia in the second half of the XVII century

1. General characteristics

Having recovered from the war and intervention at the beginning of the century, the country entered a new stage of socio-economic development. The 17th century was a time of significant growth in the productive forces in industry and agriculture. Despite the dominance of natural economy, the successes of the social division of labor led not only to the flourishing of small-scale production, but also to the emergence of the first Russian manufactories. The industrial enterprises of the merchants and the agricultural holdings of the large patrimonials and petty service people threw an increasing amount of surplus product onto the market. At the same time, not only domestic, but also foreign trade grew. The formation of the all-Russian national market was a qualitatively new phenomenon, which prepared the conditions for the emergence of capitalist production and, in turn, experienced its reverse powerful influence.

In the 17th century, there were signs of the beginning of the process of primitive accumulation - the emergence of merchants, owners of big capital, who amassed wealth through non-equivalent exchange (traders in salt, precious Siberian furs, Novgorod and Pskov flax).

However, under the conditions of the serf Russian state, the processes of monetary accumulation proceeded in a peculiar and slow manner, sharply differing from the rates and forms of initial accumulation in Western European countries. The Russian state of the 17th century did not have favorable conditions for its economic development: its trade and industry did not reach a level that could ensure the gradual elimination of the peasant's personal dependence; remote from the western and southern seas, it could not establish independent, active maritime trade; fur wealth of Siberia could not compete with the inexhaustible values ​​of the American and South Asian colonies. Drawn into the whirlpool of world trade at the very beginning of the capitalist era, in the 17th century Russia acquired the significance of a raw material market, a supplier of agricultural products to economically more developed countries. Another condition slowed down the process of primitive capital accumulation. Huge land reserves, relatively easily accessible to settlers, contributed to the gradual thinning of the population in the historical center, mitigating the sharpness of class contradictions as a result, and at the same time spreading feudal relations to new, unoccupied territories.

The inhibition of the process of primitive accumulation led to important consequences for the entire subsequent economic development of the country. In Russia, the growth of commodity production for a long time outpaced the expansion of the labor market. Manufacturers sought to make up for the lack of civilian workers by recruiting serfs to work at their enterprises. Russia found itself in the position of a country that was drawn into world capitalist circulation and began to join capitalist production without having had time to get rid of inefficient corvée labor. The result of this dual situation was not only the mutual interweaving of old and new production relations, but, up to a certain point, the simultaneous development of both. Feudal ownership of land continued to expand and consolidate, serving as the basis for the development and legalization of serfdom.

2. Agriculture

In the second half of the 17th century, grain farming remained the leading branch of the Russian economy. Progress in this sphere of material production at that time was associated with the widespread use of three-field cultivation and the use of natural fertilizers. Bread gradually became the main commercial product of agriculture.

By the middle of the century, the Russian people with hard work overcame the devastation caused by foreign invasions. The peasants repopulated the abandoned villages, plowed the wastelands, acquired livestock and agricultural implements.

As a result of Russian peasant colonization, new areas were developed: in the south of the country, in the Volga region, Bashkiria, and Siberia. In all these places, new centers of agricultural culture arose.

But the overall level of agricultural development was low. In agriculture, such primitive tools as plows and harrows continued to be used. In the forest regions of the North, the undercut still existed, and in the steppe zone of the South and the Middle Volga region, there was a fallow.

The basis for the development of animal husbandry was the peasant economy. Cattle breeding especially developed in Pomorye, in the Yaroslavl region, in the southern counties.

Noble land ownership grew rapidly as a result of numerous government grants of estates and estates to nobles. By the end of the 17th century, patrimonial noble land ownership began to exceed the previously dominant land ownership.

The center of an estate or patrimony was a village or village. Usually in the village there were about 15-30 peasant households. But there were villages with two or three courtyards. The village differed from the village not only in its large size, but also in the presence of a church with a bell tower. It was the center for all the villages included in his church parish.

Subsistence farming predominated in agricultural production. Small-scale production in agriculture was combined with domestic peasant industry and small-scale urban handicrafts.

In the 17th century, trade in agricultural products increased markedly, which was associated with the development of fertile lands in the south and east, the emergence of a number of fishing areas that did not produce their own bread, and the growth of cities.

A new and very important phenomenon in agriculture of the XVII century. There was his connection with industrial entrepreneurship. Many peasants in their free time from field work, mainly in autumn and winter, were engaged in handicrafts: they made linens, shoes, clothes, dishes, agricultural implements, etc. Some of these products were used in the peasant economy itself or given as quitrent to the landowner, the other was sold at the nearest market.

The feudal lords increasingly established contact with the market, where they sold the products and handicrafts received by dues. Not satisfied with dues, they expanded their own plowing and set up their own production of products.

Preserving a largely natural character, the agriculture of the feudal lords was already largely connected with the market. The production of foodstuffs for the supply of cities and a number of industrial regions that did not produce bread grew. The southern districts of the state turned into grain-producing regions, from where bread came to the region of the Don Cossacks and to the central regions (especially to Moscow). The counties of the Volga region also gave an excess of bread.

The main way of development of agriculture of this time is extensive: landowners include an increasing number of new territories in the economic circulation.

3. Industry

Unlike agriculture, industrial production has advanced more noticeably. The most widespread domestic industry; throughout the country, peasants produced canvases and homespun cloth, ropes and ropes, felted and leather shoes, various clothes and utensils, and much more. Through buyers, these products entered the market. Gradually, peasant industry outgrows the domestic framework, turns into small-scale commodity production.

Among the artisans, the most numerous group was made up of hard workers - artisans of urban settlements and black-moss volosts. They carried out private orders or worked for the market. Palace artisans served the needs of the royal court; state-owned and written ones worked on orders from the treasury (construction work, procurement of materials, etc.); privately owned - from peasants, beavers and serfs - produced everything necessary for landowners and estate owners. The handicraft on a rather large scale developed, primarily among the taxpayers, into commodity production.

Metalworking, which has long existed in the country, was based on the extraction of swamp ores. The centers of metallurgy were formed in the counties south of Moscow: Serpukhov, Kashirsky, Tula, Dedilovsky, Aleksinsky. Another center is the districts to the north-west of Moscow: Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya, Tikhvin, Zaonezhye.

Moscow was a major center of metalworking - back in the early 1940s, there were more than one and a half hundred forges here. The best gold and silver craftsmen in Russia worked in the capital. The centers of silver production were also Ustyug the Great, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Novgorod, Tikhvin and others. Copper and other non-ferrous metals were processed in Moscow, Pomorie (the manufacture of cauldrons, bells of dishes with painted enamel, chasing, etc.).

Metalworking is to a large extent converted into commodity production, and not only in urban suburbs, but also in the countryside.

Blacksmithing reveals tendencies towards the enlargement of production, the use of hired labor. This is especially true for Tula, Ustyuzhna, Tikhvin, Veliky Ustyug.

Similar phenomena, although to a lesser extent, are observed in woodworking. Throughout the country, carpenters worked mainly to order - they built houses, river and sea vessels. Carpenters from Pomorye were distinguished by special skill.

The largest center of the leather industry was Yaroslavl, where raw materials for the manufacture of leather products were supplied from many districts of the country. A large number of small "factories" - craft workshops - worked here. The leather was processed by craftsmen from Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod. Yaroslavl tanners used hired labor; some “factories developed into manufactory-type enterprises with a significant division of labor.

With all its development, handicraft production could no longer satisfy the demand for industrial products. This leads to the emergence in the 17th century of manufactories - enterprises based on the division of labor between workers. If in Western Europe manufactories were capitalist enterprises, served by the labor of hired workers, then in Russia, under the dominance of the feudal serf system, the emerging manufacturing production was largely based on serf labor. Most of the manufactories belonged to the treasury, the royal court and large boyars.

Palace manufactories were created to produce fabrics for the royal court. One of the first palace linen manufactories was the Khamovny yard, located in the palace settlements near Moscow. State manufactories, which arose as early as the 15th century, were usually founded for the production of various types of weapons. The state-owned manufactories were the Cannon Yard, the Armory, the Money Yard, the Jewelery Yard and other enterprises. The population of Moscow state and palace settlements worked at state and palace manufactories. Workers, although they received a salary, were feudally dependent people, did not have the right to quit their jobs.

The patrimonial manufactories had the most pronounced serf character. Iron-making, potash, leather, linen and other manufactories were created in the estates of the boyars Morozov, Miloslavsky, Stroganov and others. Here, almost exclusively forced labor of serfs was used.

Wage labor was used in merchant manufactories. In 1666, the Novgorod merchant Semyon Gavrilov, having started the creation of an iron-working manufactory, laid the foundation for the Olonets factories. In Ustyuzhna, Tula, Tikhvin, Ustyug the Great, some wealthy merchants began to establish metalworking enterprises. In the 90s of the 17th century, the wealthy Tula blacksmith-artisan Nikita Antufiev opened an iron-smelting plant. Some manufactories and crafts were founded by wealthy peasants, for example, the Volga salt mines, leather, ceramic and textile manufactories. In addition to merchant manufactories, hired labor is also used in brick production, in construction, in the fishing and salt industries. Among the workers there were many quitrent peasants who, although personally not free people, sold their labor power to the owners of the means of production.

4. Trading

The growth of productive forces in agriculture and industry, the deepening of the social division of labor and territorial production specialization led to a steady expansion of trade ties. In the 17th century, trade relations already exist on a national scale.

In the North, in need of imported bread, there are grain markets, the main of which was Vologda. Novgorod remained a trading center in the northwestern part of the state - a large market for the sale of linen and hemp products. Important markets for livestock products were Kazan, Vologda, Yaroslavl, markets for furs - some cities in the northern part of Russia: Solvychegodsk, Irbit, etc. Tula, Tikhvin and other cities became the largest producers of metal products.

The main trading center throughout Russia was still Moscow, where trade routes converged from all over the country and from abroad. Silks, furs, metal and woolen products, wines, lard, bread and other domestic and foreign goods were sold in 120 specialized rows of the Moscow market. Fairs acquired all-Russian significance - Makarievskaya, Arkhangelsk, Irbitskaya. The Volga connected many Russian cities with economic ties.

The dominant position in trade was occupied by townspeople, primarily guests and members of the living room and cloth shop. Large merchants came out of wealthy artisans, peasants. They traded various goods and in many places; trade specialization was poorly developed, capital circulated slowly, free funds and credit were absent, usury had not yet become a professional occupation. The scattered nature of trade required many agents and intermediaries. Only towards the end of the century does specialized trade appear.

In Russia, the demand for industrial products increased, and the development of agriculture and handicrafts made it possible for stable exports.

In imports from Western European countries to Russia, an important place was occupied by silk fabrics, weapons, metals, cloth, and luxury goods. Furs, leather, hemp, wax, and bread were exported from Russia.

Trade with the countries of the East was lively. It was conducted mainly through Astrakhan. Silks, various fabrics, spices, luxury items were imported, furs, leather, handicrafts were exported. The Russian merchant class, which was less economically strong than the trading capital of Western countries, suffered losses due to Western competition, especially if the government granted European merchants the right to trade duty-free. Therefore, the government adopted in 1667 the Novotragovy Charter, according to which retail trade by foreigners in Russian cities was prohibited, duty-free wholesale trade was allowed only in border towns, and in inner Russia foreign goods were subject to very high duties, often in the amount of 100% of the cost. The Novotragovy charter was the first manifestation of the protectionist policy of the Russian government.

5. Public finances

With the formation of the Russian centralized state, a single monetary system was created (reform of 1535). Since that time, the minting of a new national coin began - Novgorod, or kopeck, and Moskovka-Novgorod. The structure of the Russian monetary system became decimal. The minting of coins was one of the items of state income. The vast majority of state revenues were numerous taxes - direct and indirect, which steadily increased. From the middle of the XVI to the middle of the XVII century. Tax rates have doubled.

In the 17th century, the system of direct taxes was changed. Land taxation was replaced by household taxation. The proportion of indirect taxes - customs and taverns - has increased. So, in 1679-1680. Indirect fees provided 53.3% of all state revenues, and direct fees - 44%.

The most important expenditure item in the budget (over 60%) was military spending.

The social structure of Russia in the second half of the XVII century

1. Estates

Among all classes and estates, the dominant place undoubtedly belonged to the feudal lords. In their interests, the state power carried out measures to strengthen the ownership of the land by the boyars and nobles and the peasants, to unite the strata of the feudal class. Service people took shape in the 17th century in a complex and clear hierarchy of officials who were obliged to the state to serve in the military, civil, court departments in exchange for the right to own land and peasants. They were divided into duma ranks (boyars, roundabouts, duma nobles and duma clerks), Moscow (stewards, solicitors, Moscow nobles and residents) and city (elected nobles, nobles and children of boyars yards, nobles and children of boyars city). By merit, service and nobility of origin, the feudal lords passed from one rank to another. The nobility turned into a closed class - an estate.

The authorities strictly and consistently sought to keep their estates and estates in the hands of the nobles. The demands of the nobility and the measures of the authorities led to the fact that by the end of the century they reduced the difference between the estate and the estate to a minimum. Throughout the century, governments, on the one hand, gave away vast tracts of land to the feudal lords; on the other hand, part of the possessions, more or less significant, was transferred from the estate to the estate.

Large land holdings with peasants belonged to spiritual feudal lords. In the 17th century, the authorities continued the course of their predecessors to limit church land ownership. The Code of 1649, for example, prohibited the clergy from acquiring new lands. The privileges of the church in matters of court and administration were limited.

Unlike the feudal lords, especially the nobility, the situation of peasants and serfs in the 17th century deteriorated significantly. Of the privately owned peasants, the palace peasants lived better, the worst of all - the peasants of the secular feudal lords, especially the small ones. The peasants worked for the benefit of the feudal lords in the corvée (“product”), made natural and cash quitrents. The usual size of the "product" is from two to four days a week, depending on the size of the lord's economy, the solvency of the serfs, and the amount of land they have. "Table supplies" - bread and meat, vegetables and fruits, hay and firewood, mushrooms and berries - were taken to the owners' yards by the same peasants. Nobles and boyars took carpenters and masons, brickmakers and other masters from their villages and villages. Peasants worked at the first factories and factories that belonged to feudal lords or the treasury, made cloth and canvas at home, and so on. Serfs, in addition to work and payments in favor of the feudal lords, carried duties in favor of the treasury. In general, their taxation, duties were heavier than those of the palace and black-mowed. The situation of the peasants dependent on the feudal lords was aggravated by the fact that the trial and reprisals of the boyars and their clerks were accompanied by overt violence, bullying, and humiliation of human dignity. After 1649, the search for fugitive peasants assumed wide dimensions. Thousands of them were seized and returned to their owners.

In order to live, the peasants went to waste, to "farm laborers", to work. The impoverished peasants passed into the category of beans.

Feudal lords, especially large ones, had many slaves, sometimes several hundred people. These are clerks and servants for parcels, grooms and tailors, watchmen and shoemakers, falconers, etc. By the end of the century, serfdom merged with the peasantry.

Life was better for the state, or black-mowed, peasants. They depended on the feudal state: taxes were paid in its favor, they carried various duties.

Despite the modest share of merchants and artisans in the total population of Russia, they played a very significant role in its economic life. The leading center of handicraft, industrial production, trade operations is Moscow. Here, in the 1940s, metalworkers (in 128 forges), fur craftsmen (about 100 craftsmen), various food (about 600 people), leather and leather products, clothes and hats, and much more - everything that a large populous city.

To a lesser, but quite noticeable degree, the craft developed in other cities of Russia. A significant part of the artisans worked for the state, the treasury. Part of the artisans served the needs of the palace (palace) and the feudal lords living in Moscow and other cities (patrimonial artisans). The rest were part of the township communities of cities, carried various duties and paid taxes, the totality of which was called tax. Craftsmen from township tax workers often switched from working on the order of the consumer to working for the market, and the craft, thus, developed into commodity production. Simple capitalist cooperation also appeared, hired labor was used. Poor townspeople and peasants went as mercenaries to the wealthy blacksmiths, boilermakers, bakers and others. The same thing happened in transport, river and horse-drawn.

The development of handicraft production, its professional, territorial specialization, revitalizes the economic life of cities, trade relations between them and their districts. It is to the XVII century. the beginning of the concentration of local markets, the formation of the all-Russian market on their basis. Guests and other wealthy merchants appeared with their goods in all parts of the country and abroad. During the Time of Troubles and after it, they more than once lent money to the authorities.

Wealthy merchants, artisans, industrialists ran everything in the township communities. They shifted the main burden of dues and duties to the poor peasants - small artisans and merchants.

In cities, peasants, serfs, and artisans have long lived in the yards and settlements that belonged to the boyars. They were engaged, in addition to serving the owners, and trade. Moreover, unlike the townspeople, they did not pay taxes and did not carry duties in favor of the state. This freed the people who belonged to the boyars and monasteries, in this case, artisans and merchants, from the tax.

2. Popular uprisings

From the middle of the 17th century, Russia was shaken by powerful uprisings that took place in response to government measures to increase exploitation and further enslavement of the peasants - the growth of noble land ownership, the introduction of new fees and duties.

In 1648, a movement broke out in Moscow, which was called the “salt riot”. Beginning on June 1, the uprising continued for several days. The people smashed the courts of the Moscow boyars and nobles, clerks and wealthy merchants, demanding to extradite the hated officials Pleshcheev, who was in charge of the administration of the capital and the head of the government, boyar Morozov. To stabilize the situation, the authorities convened the Zemsky Sobor, which decided to prepare a new "Codex". Unrest in the capital did not stop until the end of the year. A powerful, albeit short-lived uprising broke out in Moscow - the "copper riot" on July 25, 1662. Its participants - the capital's townspeople and part of the archers, soldiers, reiter of the Moscow garrison - presented their demands to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: tax cuts, which had greatly increased due to wars with Poland and Sweden, the abolition of copper money, issued in huge quantities and equated to silver. In addition, a lot of counterfeit money appeared on the market. All this led to a strong depreciation of the copper coin, high cost, hunger. This uprising was brutally suppressed by the authorities. At the beginning of 1663, copper money was abolished, frankly motivating this measure with the desire to prevent new bloodshed.

In 1667 On the Don, an uprising of Cossacks led by Stepan Razin broke out.

The introduction of a new code of laws, the “Council Code” of 1649, the brutal investigation of the fugitives, and the increase in taxes for the war heated up the already tense situation in the state. The wars with Poland and Sweden ruined the bulk of the working strata of the population. In the same years, crop failures, epidemics occurred more than once, the situation of archers, gunners, etc. worsened. Many fled to the outskirts, especially to the Don. In the Cossack regions, it has long been the custom not to extradite fugitives.

The bulk of the Cossacks, especially the fugitives, lived poorly, meagerly. The Cossacks were not engaged in agriculture. The salary received from Moscow was not enough. By the mid-1960s, the situation on the Don had deteriorated to the extreme. A large number of fugitives have accumulated here. Hunger has begun. The Cossacks sent an embassy to Moscow with a request to accept them into the royal service, but they were refused. By 1667, the Cossack uprisings had turned into a well-organized movement under the leadership of Razin. A large army of rebels was defeated in 1670 near Simbirsk. At the beginning of 1671, the main centers of the movement were suppressed by the punitive detachments of the authorities.

Conclusion. Russia on the threshold of the 18th century

During the 17th century, great changes took place in the history of Russia. They touched every aspect of her life. By this time, the territory of the Russian state had noticeably expanded, and the population was growing.

The 17th century was marked in the history of Russia by the further development of the feudal-serf system, the significant strengthening of feudal land ownership. The new feudal nobility concentrated vast patrimonial wealth in their hands.

ruling class in the seventeenth century. There were feudal landowners, secular and ecclesiastical landowners and estate owners. This class in this period began to acquire class isolation. Another class of feudal society included the peasantry, which by this time was gradually beginning to get rid of its former division into numerous categories. The Cathedral Code of 1649, which formalized the system of serfdom and completed the development of serf legislation, assigned privately owned peasants to landowners, boyars, monasteries, and increased local dependence of peasants on feudal lords and on the state. According to the same Council Code, the heredity of serfdom and the right of the landowner to dispose of the property of a serf were established. Granting broad serf rights to landowners, the tsarist government at the same time made them responsible for the performance of state duties by their peasants.

Under these conditions, the development of trade is of particular importance. Several large shopping centers were formed in Russia, among which Moscow stood out with its huge trade, with more than 120 specialized rows. Merchants were the leaders and masters of this process.

The growth of commodity production in the 17th century led to a sharp growth of cities. Suffice it to say that during this period there were more than 225 cities in Russia. The urban population increased sharply.

Meanwhile, in the same years, uprisings broke out in the country every now and then, in particular, the rather powerful Moscow uprising of 1662. The largest uprising was the uprising of Stepan Razin, who in 1667 led the peasants to the Volga.

After the peasant war in Russia, a number of important state measures were carried out, including the transition to a system of household taxation, transformations in the army, etc.

By the beginning of the XVIII century. Economically, Russia continued to lag behind the main Western European countries. It produced less industrial output than England, the Netherlands, and France. Manufactories in Russia were just emerging, among them capitalist enterprises constituted an insignificant minority. The economic situation in Russia was negatively affected by the fact that the country actually did not have free access to the sea. The Baltic was completely dominated by Sweden. The route to Western Europe through the White Sea was long and could only be used during the summer months.

During the period of colonial conquests in the world, Russia's economic backwardness from the West, which caused her military weakness, threatened her with the loss of national independence. To eliminate this threat and overcome economic, military and cultural backwardness, it was necessary to urgently implement a number of economic reforms: to further strengthen state power, to Europeanize state administration, create a regular army and navy, build a merchant fleet, achieve access to the sea, quickly move manufacturing production forward at a rapid pace, draw the country into the system of the world market, subordinate the entire tax and monetary system to these tasks.

The economic prerequisites for the reforms of the early 18th century were created by the entire course of Russia's development in the 17th century. - the growth of production and the expansion of the range of agricultural products, the success of crafts and the emergence of manufactories, the development of trade and the growth of the economic role of the merchants.

Bibliography

1. Bushchik L.P. Illustrated history of the USSR. XV-XVII centuries Handbook for teachers and students ped. in-comrade. M., "Enlightenment", 1970.

2. Danilova L. V. Historical conditions for the development of Russian nationality during the period of formation and strengthening of the centralized state in Russia // Questions of the formation of Russian nationality and nation. Digest of articles. M.-L., USSR Academy of Sciences, 1958.

3. Druzhinin N. M. Socio-economic conditions for the formation of the Russian bourgeois nation // Questions of the formation of the Russian nationality and nation. Digest of articles. M.-L., USSR Academy of Sciences, 1958.

4. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century / A. P. Novoseltsev, A. N. Sakharov, V. I. Buganov, V. D. Nazarov, - M .: AST Publishing House, 1996.

5. Munchaev Sh. M., Ustinov V. M. History of Russia. Textbook for universities. M., Publishing house Infra M-Norma, 1997.

6. Chuntulov V. T. et al. Economic history of the USSR: Uchebn. for economy universities. -M.,: Higher. school, 1987.