THE TIME OF TROUBLES IN RUSSIAN HISTORY:
LESSONS CAN WE LEARN FROM IT?
By
Jon Parkin
Europe, during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, witnessed the development of a
number of nation states. These states frequently coalesced from many smaller political
entities into a larger one as a result of the hegemony of a more powerful neighbor.
Coincident with this development in many countries was the evolution of a centralized
autocracy at the expense of these once former autonomous small states. One example of
such an emerging nation was Russia. During the reigns of Vasili II, Ivan III, Vasili III,
and Ivan IV, the Duchy of Muscovy came to dominate and eventually control many of its
weaker neighbors. This century and a half of rapid state-building was arrested, and the
Russian state was threatened with dismemberment, at the end of the Sixteenth Century
when Tsar Fedor died without issue. The chaos that ensued as a result of the question
over dynastic succession has been labeled the Time of Troubles by students of Russian
history.
The Time of Troubles was a period of turmoil bordering on anarchy. This turn of
events came about as a result of the confluence of a number of factors, some inherent in
the politics of the times, and some as a direct result of the policies of Tsar Ivan IV. Prior
to the reign of Vasili II, the Russian landscape had been dotted with a myriad of small
states. These states varied in organization and were, in reality, patrimonies (otchinas)
ruled by an array of grand dukes, princes, and other hereditary nobles. The practice at this
time was to bequeath to one’s male heirs equal portions of the patrimony. The net result
was a proliferation of increasingly smaller otchinas as these estates were divided and subdivided with each succeeding generation. The Russian political landscape came to
resemble a checkerboard-like arrangement of small states reminiscent of the states
comprising the Holy Roman Empire. In the case of Russia, however, there existed no
organizational structure above these patrimonies like that of the Holy Roman Empire to
give some semblance of unity and cohesion.
The rulers of these small countries were virtually absolute in their temporal authority.
They were the ultimate authority in all legal disputes within their domains. They
established the laws and dispensed justice, assessed and collected taxes, and assigned
property to their servants and servitors. As the head of an independent state they could
enter into agreements and alliances with other duchies at will. They could also abrogate
such agreements at will. It is partly because of this independence that the Mongol Horde
was able to establish control over much of Russia in Medieval times.
Existing alongside the estates of these lords were the estates of the petty nobility and
landed gentry known as boyars. The lands of these boyars frequently straddled the
borders of the larger noble patrimonies. Unlike their western-European counterparts,
these boyars were not expected to express fealty to or serve the lord in whose domains
their estates were situated. One of the age-old liberties enjoyed by these petty nobles up
to the late-fifteenth century was the freedom to change allegiance from one noble to
another. Their possessions were supposedly protected by tradition from nobles taking
punitive action against a boyar who defected to another camp. This had the effect of
causing the higher nobility to compete for the support of the boyars. Eventually, this
right to choose who one served was slowly abrogated by the higher nobility through
agreements whereby the nobles agreed not to accept into their service a boyar from
another patrimony. Many people have mistakenly labeled this organization as feudalistic.
Although it did possess some elements common to feudalism as practiced elsewhere in
Europe, this system of land tenure, occupance and use is more akin to the manorial
system. It was the collective memory of this former independence and freedom of action
that fueled the internecine feuding among the aristocracy during the Time of Troubles.
With the return from exile of Vasili II in the mid-1400's, the Duchy of Muscovy
entered upon a period of territorial aggrandizement and political change. Vasili the Dark
succeeded at bringing within his influence neighboring patrimonies that had once been
independent. (Historians are unsure whether the ominous appellation of “the Dark” is a
reference to the fact that he was blinded by a foe, his uncle Dmitri Shemiaka, whom he
later vanquished, or because he employed especially ruthless methods for his day and age
in pursuing his aims). This whole process was facilitated by the weakening of the
Mongol yoke and Vasili’s liberal use of mercenary Tatar bands to defeat his opponents.
He broke with tradition when he unevenly distributed his patrimony in his testament to
his offspring. The lion’s share of Muscovy and the newly acquired territories of the
principality of Vladimir went to his oldest son whose brothers were enjoined to defer to
him as the senior member of their clan. This break with the past established a precedent
that was followed by successive rulers of the House of Daniel. It also created another
point of contention and dissention among the aristocracy―especially among the junior
members when they thought they were entitled to a larger portion.
Ivan III continued and expanded upon the policies of his father, Vasili II. Through
many artifices, coercion being the major one, Ivan succeeded in bringing numerous
duchies, principalities, and once independent states under his control. Among these were
the lands of the principalities of Vereia, Yaroslavl, Rostov, and Tver, as well as Pskov
and Novgorod the Great. Many of the nobles from these territories joined the swelling
ranks of Moscow boyars and entered the service of the grand duke of Muscovy. Others
were forcibly deported to distant parts of the realm. Some managed to escape the
advancing Muscovite state and entered the service of foreign rulers. No longer
independent due to the loss of their hereditary estates, those who stayed behind became
dependent on the Grand Duke for their livelihood.
Ivan III also succeeded in further subordinating the position of his brothers in relation
to the grand-ducal throne at this time. They acknowledged the exclusive rights of Ivan
and his descendants to the grand-ducal domain. They also agreed to recognize the Grand
Duke of Moscow as the supreme leader of all military forces and acknowledged his right
to control foreign relations to the exclusion of the junior members of the dynasty. Ivan
later acquired the lands of a couple of his brothers and a couple of his nephews when they
died without male heirs. These additional lands enhanced the power and prestige of the
grand dukes of Moscow.
In place of the traditional form of land ownership Ivan III instituted a new form of
hereditary land tenure: the pomestie. These land grants had a dual purpose of colonizing
and stabilizing the ever-advancing frontier of Muscovy as well as providing for the
security of the state. The service gentry (pomeshchik) who oversaw these lands were
expected to serve in the military in time of war in defense of the realm. In time these
pomeshchiki as a class evolved into a branch of nobility known as the dvorinae and
became virtually indistinguishable from the old established aristocracy. (Eventually all
nobles were expected to serve the Grand Duke in one capacity or another, whether or not
they held an otchina or a pomestie.) By the time of Ivan Ivan elaborate system of ranking
nobility (mestnichestvo) according to lineage had developed. It was an attempt at
stabilizing relationships by establishing a rank of precedence among the aristocracy. In
essence, the nobility turned in on itself as noble houses jockeyed for position at the
expense of their freedom. The mestnichestvo actually facilitated the extension of Ivan’s
power by dividing the aristocracy. As happened with the Golden Horde, Ivan extended
his rule with relative ease because of these divisions and factionalism among the nobility.
Court intrigue prevented Ivan III from making his grandson by the eldest son of his
first wife the sole heir to the grand-ducal throne. The mantle of leadership fell to his
oldest son by his second wife. The patrimony Vasili III inherited embraced the grand
duchies of Moscow and Vladimir, Novgorod, Pskov, and Tver and was immeasurably
larger than the territories left to his four brothers. Little is known about the reign of
Vasili III. It is assumed that he continued along the course marked out by his father and
grandfather of extending the borders of Muscovy. The expanding frontiers of the Duchy
of Muscovy during the reigns of both Ivan III and Vasili III brought it into contact with
other expanding powers. Most notable among these were the combined kingdoms of
Poland and Lithuania, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Crimean Tatars.
The patrimonial succession of Vasili III was simplified when his youngest son died in
infancy. This left only one heir to the throne, Ivan IV, better known as Ivan the Terrible.
The domain Ivan inherited had nearly trebled in size since the days of Vasili II, but Ivan
was only three years old when he ascended the throne. His father Vasili set-up a regency
of seven boyars to govern the realm until a day when Ivan reached his majority. Ivan’s
mother succeeded in appropriating to herself the reigns of power and ruled until her death
five years later in contravention of her husband’s last will and testament. Upon her
death, control of the kingdom reverted to a reconstituted regency. This regency ruled
Russia until Ivan came of age. During that time the infighting among the various cliques
in the nobility intensified.
When Ivan the Terrible began to rule in his own right Russia was a kingdom rife with
trouble. He inherited a dispossessed and fractious aristocracy that was more concerned
with protecting its own self-interests than advancing the interests of the state. Along with
fighting amongst themselves, these nobles conspired to reduce the influence of the
emerging service gentry and state created nobility that threatened to swamp the ranks of
the aristocracy and diminish the importance of the more ancient senior princes.
Ivan IV felt he had been mistreated and taken advantage of by the aristocracy during
the time of the regency. This perception greatly tempered his attitudes towards the
nobility. Throughout his entire reign he endeavoured to curb the influence of the
nobility. He increasingly relied on the government bureaucracy that had developed over
the preceding years to manage the affairs of state to accomplish this. Many of the
technocrats within the state apparatus owed their success and elevation in rank and
prestige to the patronage of the ruler. In time, though, Ivan became suspicious of the
loyalties of these public servants as well and ended up turning to the very class he had
tried unsuccessfully to destroy―the aristocracy. At one point Ivan tried a novel
innovation to implement his will. He divided the lands of the realm into two parts. One
part, the zemshchina, was devoted to the operation and maintenance of the state. The
other part, the oprichnina, was devoted to the maintenance of Ivan and his court. The
oprichnina took on the form of an otchina and came to embrace close to half of the land
in Russia at that time. Ivan attempted to use it as a weapon to reduce the influence of the
aristocracy and make it politically impotent. His ultimate goal seems to have been the
liquidation of the aristocracy as a class. Even though he was more ruthless than his
predecessors, he was not able to do so. This is due in large part to the inter-marriage
among the boyaral families. These intermarriages had a tendency to blur the lines of
division between the feuding factions. Ivan had to proceed cautiously when eliminating
opposition so as not to create a backlash against himself.
Prior to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, there had been a steady exodus of free peasantry
from the lands in the middle of the Russian heartland towards the frontier on the
periphery. This was occasioned by excessive taxation and an encroachment on the
traditional rights and freedoms of the free population by the landlords. During Ivan’s
reign the state succeeded in bringing many of these people back into the service of the
state and the landlords. Eventually, many of these people lost the right to leave the
service of one landlord for that of another. This resulted in peasants being tied to the soil,
hence the birth of serfdom.
Ivan IV's heavy-handed techniques earned him the opprobrium of virtually every class
in society. When he died in 1584 he left the crown to his mentally deficient son Fedor.
This was because Ivan, in a fit of anger, brought about his older son’s death when he
struck him in the temple. His other son, Dmitri, was considered unacceptable because he
was the fruit of a marriage the church did not recognize and, therefore, he was considered
illegitimate. (The existence of Dmitri would later confuse the issue of dynastic
succession during the Time of Troubles.) To provide for the governance of the realm,
Ivan followed his father Vasili’s example and set-up a regency to rule on behalf of his
son, since he was incapable of doing so himself. Boris Godunov, the brother of Tsar
Fedor’s wife, emerged as the driving force behind the regency. It was he who really
ruled Russia during the fourteen years of Fedor’s reign. When Tsar Fedor died in 1598
without a male heir Russia entered into the period alluded to earlier as the Time of
Troubles.
The Time of Troubles lasted approximately fifteen years. During that time no less
than four separate and distinct regimes attempted to rule Russia from Moscow. It was a
time marked by intra-class struggle as well as inter-class struggle. At a couple of points
even a foreign power, the Kingdom of Poland, attempted to dictate policy from Moscow.
(The first time they tried to do so through Dmitri the Pretender, the alleged illegitimate
son of Ivan IV by his last wife, and the second time through trying to get their own King
Sigismund III elected by the Land Assemby (Zemsky Sobor) as tsar.)
The growth of the Russian state up to the Time of Troubles in many respects mirrored
the development of nation states in other parts of Europe in the Sixteenth Century.
Increasing control and direction from the center was at the expense of local autonomy
and freedom on the periphery. The successful autocrat succeeded in playing-off one
segment of society against another. This had the duel effect of alienating large segments
of the population to the crown and against each other. As long as a strong ruler sat on
the throne the state was able to function. Whenever the central authority showed signs of
weakening there were ample numbers of dissenters at all levels of society either willing
to hasten the demise and breakup of the state, or to exert their own will over the whole.
Such was the case with Russia at the close of the Sixteenth Century. As long as a
powerful sovereign sat on the throne Russia was able to function effectively. When the
imperial authority showed signs of weakness and, in the case of Russia, lacked any clear
successor to the throne, there were plenty of wolves around ready to sever the state into
pieces.
The blame for this state of affairs cannot be laid at the foot of anyone individual. To
be sure, Ivan IV earned the moniker “the Terrible” because of the exceptionally harsh
methods (the oprichnina) he employed during his reign, but he was only building upon
the foundations laid by his predecessors. The process of divorcing the aristocracy from
the land and the influence that ownership represented was initiated by Vasili II and
carried-on by his successors. The shackling of the peasants to the land likewise had its
origins in an earlier reign. Ivan IV merely followed through on and perhaps accelerated
the process. Ivan can be viewed both as a man who made his own destiny and as a victim
of circumstances. He alone is not solely responsible for the Time of Troubles. The chaos
that ensued with the death of Tsar Fedor would most likely have happened anyway even
if there had never been a man like Ivan the Terrible because of how fractured and
disjointed Russian society had become. It just might have happened at a later time.
The experience of Russia reveals much about the strengths and weaknesses of the
Sixteenth Century state. A larger state has a greater chance of exerting its influence on
another state because of the resources it commands. It also stands a greater chance of
resisting subjugation by another state. The additional resources it can bring to bear can
also help it in developing its economy. This frequently happens at the expense of the
lower classes. The net result is a state whose power and influence is tenuous at best. A
classic example of this is what is happening in Eastern Europe right now. In the wake of
World War II the Soviet Union was able to harness the resources of a number of
countries and threaten the West for power and influence abroad. This was done at the
expense of the local autonomy and freedom of these states. When the power emanating
from the center showed signs of weakening these states began to chart their own course
once again. This is due in large part to the fact that the Soviet Union never won the
hearts and minds of the people. They employed repressive methods similar to Ivan IV
and his forbearers in extending influence over these areas. Even within the borders of the
Soviet Union, once-sovereign peoples are clamouring for the freedom to return to a
former way of life. They desire autonomy to pick and choose those institutions and
practices by which they are governed that are reflective of their culture.
The Soviet Union appears to be on the brink of relearning a lesson that should have
been learned by the rulers of Russia centuries ago in regards to the state and society. It
would appear that the lesson the leaders of Russia learned from the Time of Troubles is
that one must rule with an iron hand or else risk chaos. In such a view of life the state
becomes the agent of change or a static force in society and people are viewed as assets
to be manipulated. It is the state that dictates how society should be structured and how it
is to function. As such, a strong centralized state is necessary to avert anarchy. Whether
they realize it or not, the Communists have adopted this myth of social organization from
the tsarist regimes. They have perpetuated this method of rule ever since. The lessons
the Soviets are learning now are threatening to undermine this myth of the relationship
between state and society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Florinsky, Michael T. Russia: A History and an Interpretation. Toronto: the Macmillan
Company, 1953.
Graham, Stephen. Ivan the Terrible. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933.
Grey, Ian. Ivan the Terrible. Great Britain: Hodder and Stoughton, LTO, 1964.
Platonov S. F. The Time of Troubles. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985.
Skrynnikov, Ruslan G. Ivan the Terrible. Gulf Breeze: Academic International Press,
1975.