Russia, from the earliest times to Peter the Great, 862-1682

HIST 345: RUSSIA FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO PETER THE GREAT
Alan Kimball, 346-4813. Office hours: Tue&Thur 11:30-13:00, in McK 367
KIMBALL@UOREGON.EDU

Most course materials are in the Knight Library or the course webpage.  You will purchase a lab book, and there you will keep a record of library work and webpage work, draft two take-home "draft" essays, & write your midterm & final exams.   Here is a basic calendar of the term's work:

!! oc16:-------------------FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL
!! no01:----------------- MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL, WITH FIRST TAKE-HOME ESSAY
!! de07:at 8:00am -------------- FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL, WITH SECOND ESSAY

EXERCISE ONE:  Purchase a bright blue canvas lab book (9x7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE; ask at the customer service desk in the basement of the UO Book Store). The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it "the journal") is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents & a comprehensive, numbered list of books & other library material consulted. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for my comments & grading. Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lectures, course handouts, etc. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of MY WORK.

EXERCISE TWO: Locate this course on the following webpage:
http://uoregon.edu/~kimball/courses.htm | Add this page to your web-browser "favorites" page. You'll go there often this term.

These first two and ten further exercises are listed and explained in detail on that course website.

ABOUT GRADES: Essays & exams are due at the time the class meets on the days specified. Late exercises are penalized one grade. Exercises AWOL 24 hours after due date are given a failing grade. Failure to complete any one of the essays or exams will result in a failing grade for the course. Unpenalized postponement of an exercise is possible only when documented illness or happenstance forces delay, or when arranged in writing beforehand. If you attend class regularly, keep a good lecture notebook, devote eight or nine hours of your study-week to your reading & writing, & keep a good record in your journal, you may be sure that you are meeting course expectations.

 

ACADEMIC CALENDAR

1st Week: DIMENSIONS OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Class attendance is essential for the successful completion of this course. The course does not "happen" on the internet or even in the library; it happens when you bring the internet and library materials you have read into contact with lectures so that you can continue to expand and refine that most important historical arena = Your own mind.

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EXERCISE 1)  Purchase and set up your journal, a bright blue canvas lab book (9x7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE; ask at the customer service desk in the basement of the UO Book Store). The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents & a comprehensive, numbered list of books & other library material consulted. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for comments & grading. Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lecture, course handouts, etc. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of MY WORK.

Read the extended description of how to employ the journal

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EXERCISE 2)  The course website.

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EXERCISE 3) You are ready to jump directly to the time period of our course. Time is a universally significant dimension of all histories. Open the website SAC from the earliest times to 1682. Check it out [about one hour]. At first concentrate on the entries at the top of the appropriate SAC pages, the "Table of Contents". Start with the entry for the year 453 AD, titled "BYZANTINE STEPPE FRONTIER" and consider the Table of Contents to the end. Then, click to the next SAC page and consider the Table of Contents down to the entry for the years 1689:1725, titled "Peter I, the Great". Establish a general personal sense of this table-of-contents chronology, the main periods or peak events in the epoch we are studying. You've got an hour, so click on a few of them just to browse a bit in what we will be doing later, but you need not go into the chronology too deeply right now. As we get ourselves launched, these web pages will provide weekly guides to SAC and readings in several campus locations (see points four and five below).

You might not dig into exercises seven and eight for a couple of weeks, but it is good to have a sense of what they are as you continue this week with exercises four and five (self-directed library tours, described below) and prepare for the first submission of the journal (exercise 6 in the fourth week). It is good to know ahead of time at least the following about term-long exercises 7 & 8 =

Exercises seven and eight are not deep research topics. Check them out briefly =  seven, eight. You will not write an independent term paper or draft essay about either. Your journal entries will satisfy these two requirements. Just give these two exercises some particular attention as your work progresses. Take some time at first to decide what you want to emphasize in these two exercises. Probably it makes sense to give more emphasis to exercise seven early in the course and exercise eight later. Make sure your journal table of contents clearly guides you and your reader to the sections of your journal that contain entries on your choices in re. exercises seven and eight.

You are welcome of course to follow your own instincts and interests as you work on these two exercises through the term. Just be practical. Budget your time.  Consult the main reference books and develop the habit of using indexes, looking for information on your selected topics. In both these exercises you are given the opportunity to become something of a fledgling specialist on two focused topics of your choice. I am always ready to help you make your choices. You might be asked on the final exam to summarize the most interesting things you learned while completing exercises seven and eight.

As you now return to exercise four, you might be thinking of possible choices you will make in connection with exercises seven and eight.

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EXERCISE 4)  Tour UO collections, round one [about two hours]. Here we learn about three library locations most important for us.

First library location = KNIGHT Reserve Book Room
Second library location = KNIGHT Reference Division
Third library location = KNIGHT MAP Room

When you looked at the SAC Table of Contents [above], your goal was to get a general sense of chronology (time). Here your goal is to develop broad familiarity with geography (space), and with certain other visual/spatial dimensions of our history. We are bringing up for first attention time and space, the two fundamental dimensions or organizational principles of history.

Here are 5 maps of general interest =
#1(Russia now) | #2(Eurasia outline) | #3(Eurasia relief) | #4(N.hemisphere snow) | #5(global tetrahedral)

A series of maps in chronological order (with three maps of broad compass in boldface) =
    814:"Europe" at the time of Charlemagne
    862:Viking routes
    1054:Kievan Rus'
    1095:+; western European crusades into the eastern Mediterranean
    1236:Conquests of the Golden Horde
    1294:Asia
    1300:1533; (200+ years) Russian expansion over two centuries
    1328:Mosoow in the reign of prince Ivan I Kalita
    1355:Moscow in the reign of prince Dmitrii Donskoi [NB! also map of Europe in 1360]
    1389:Moscow in the reign of prince Vasilii I
    1425:Moscow in the reign of prince Vasilii II
    1462:Russia in the reign of Muscovite tsar and grand prince Ivan III the Great
    1492:+; European overseas discovery
    1533:Russia in the reign of Muscovite tsar and grand prince Ivan IV the Terrible [2 maps]
    1596:1800; (200 years) Russia in the era of Siberian expansion [2  maps]
    1613:Russia in the reign of the new Romanov tsar Mikhail
    1645:Russia in the reign of the modernizing tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich

In the MAP LIBRARY, survey the range devoted to Russia, G2111.S1 C…, and G2111.S1 G…. Locate and leaf through the pertinent chronological sections of the atlases by Channon and Gilbert. Browse the first 100 or so pages of Cultural Atlas of Russia.... Also spend some time with Cultural Atlas of the Viking World

At first, concentrate on the geo-physical features of the territory sometimes called "European Russia" which lies within the space north of Constantinople (Istanbul), south of the White Sea, west of the Ural Mts., & east of the Carpathian Mts. Pay particular attention to the way major rivers drain the low, flat land.

On this course website, open Geographic TABLE. If you print out this page, you could use it in the MAP LIBRARY to search out our most important river systems on any good map. For us, the important river systems are those listed from the top of the  Geographic TABLE down to the city Saint Petersburg.

 

First Week Readings

In addition to five hours with numbered exercises 1-4 above and beginning number 5, devote about four hours to one or more of the following readings =
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*--RRC1(1) & RRC2(16) (Sumner,"Frontier")
*--RRC1(15) (Obolensky on Byzantine heritage)
*--Website essay on Byzantium
*--Riasanovsky (chapters 1 &2) COPIES OF RIASANOVSKY ARE IN RBR & ON OPEN SHELVES
*--Vernadsky (chapter 1) COPIES OF VERNADSKY ARE IN RBR & ON OPEN SHELVES
The next two suggestions are for those enthusiasts who feel confident about their use of indexes =
*--Vernadsky,1 (This is a whole volume, so select passages about Slavs and various folk migrations)
*--Vasiliev, Byzantine Empire,1:300-74

 

 

 

 

2nd Week: BYZANTINE STEPPE FRONTIER
& ORIGINS OF RUS’

Read this long single entry [text between <> and <> In SAC] on the Byzantine Steppe Frontier
At the bottom of this long entry you could launch yourself on a 15-hop Byzantine LOOP [or take first hop here]

Follow the LOOPS that outline the early histories of seven different Slavic (or semi-Slavic) populations important to our story. Notice how these histories require us to set aside our presumptions about "nation-states" and to adopt a "multicultural" perspective =
    Bulgars (12-hop LOOP to the time of tsar Samuel)
    Bolgars [NB! arbitrary spelling distinction] (9-hop LOOP to 15th-c. conquest by Moscow)
    The Rus' (local Slavs mixed with Scandinavian warrior merchants) (5-hop LOOP, to prince Igor & full assimilation)
    Lithuanians (6-hop LOOP to the time that Polish and Lithuanian stories flow together in an epoch of medieval grandeur)
    Poles (a 24-hop LOOP [first 6 hops through ca. 1000 years prior to union with Lithuania])
    Czechs (6-hop LOOP into the time of the Hussite controversy)
    Ukrainians (9-hop LOOP into the late 17th century)

The Byzantine Empire was not the only significant power in these earliest years =
    Muslim Arabia (8-hop LOOP)
    Khazars (8-hop LOOP)
    Pechenegs (Patsinaks, Patzinaks) (5-hop LOOP)
    Charlemagne (13-hop LOOP covers 800 years of German imperial intersections with East European History)

The website reading and note taking should take about four hours
Then devote about four hours to one or more of the following readings =
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*--Obolensky:42-68, 136-53, 184-7
*--Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs, ch.2 and/or ch.3
*--Florinsky,1:1
*--Riasanovsky(3-6)
*--Auty, ch1:1-48

In addition to or in connection with these eight hours with SAC entries and the readings above,
complete exercise five =

EXERCISE 5)  Tour UO collections, round two [about one hour].

Fourth library location = The Knight Library stacks
Fifth library location = Information Technology Center
Sixth library location =  All UO students ought at least once to visit the Jacqua Law School Library
Seventh library location = Take a walk to the Lawrence Hall Art and Architecture Library
Once at the Art and Architecture Library, browse the shelf-range N8187 through N8189.5
Here and in the encyclopedias learn something of the life and achievements of Andrei Rublev.
This will follow up very nicely on what you saw in the Art Museum.
Look for other pictorial representation of medieval Russian art and architecture. Here is a specific recommendation =
Viktor Lazarev, ed., Early Russian Icons
On your way back to KNIGHT, stop by the
Eighth (near the) library location = Art Museum.

 

 

 

3rd Week: KIEVAN RUS

KIEVAN RUS (9-hop LOOP on the morpheme "Kiev", with 2-3 instances in which hops include several entries)

Notice this website devoted to the 2005fa:NYC Guggenheim Museum exhibit "Russia!"

Here is a summary of ten key moments =
The invitation to the Rus
The Rus took Kiev and established close relations with Byzantium
Prince Oleg and the trade treaty with Constantinople
Prince Igor and the Slavicization of the Rus
His wife, princess Olga, moved Kievan Rus toward a more sophisticated status
Rough-and-tumble prince Sviatoslav brought down the Khazars
Prince Vladimir Christianized Rus
The glorious years of Yaroslav Mudryi
A final glow in the years of Vladimir Monomakh
Feudal dissolution [a 5-hop LOOP on the word "mestnichestvo"]
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*--Kimball, Olga and Anna & Christianization of Rus' [TXT]
*--If you are interested in the place of Russia in the general history of the Vikings, see Jones (4 copies in KNIGHT)
*--Florinsky,1(2)
*--Vernadsky(2)
*--Auty, ch2:49-77
*--Blum:1-56
*--ORC:36-83

In addition to nine hours with SAC and one or more of the readings above this week, prepare to submit your journal at the end of the first class meeting next week =

EXERCISE 6)  Submit the journal for an early evaluation =

!! oc16---------FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL

EXERCISE 7)  REGIONAL HISTORY: Refresh your memory of these general comments about exercises seven and eight. Select a region & concentrate on its historical experience.  I strongly recommend that you select one of the following river systems described on the Geographic TABLE = Danube, Dnepr, Volga, Oka, or Volkhov. Consult GSE and MERSH (particularly because we have on our website an electronic MERSH table of contents). Also consult the various atlases you find in the MAP ROOM or listed on the website GLOSSARY.

EXERCISE 8)  ETHNO-HISTORY: Refresh your memory of these general comments about exercises seven and eight Select one non-Russian people and learn the main outline of their historical experience over the time period covered this term. Select a non-Russian people who have lived within the boundaries of Russian history. Become an ethno-historian of their fate in our period. As you seek a non-Russian people to study, look away from the geographical area you chose in exercise seven above (regional history). This allows you to broaden the scope of your studies.

Think about the meaning of "national" history. Where do the two terms "nationality" and "nation" overlap and where do they describe different meanings? Here you start to become an "ethno-historian".

You need not write a separate essay on the non-Russian people of your choice, just give them some particular attention in your weekly readings.

The following list is meant to be suggestive of some important groups of non-Russian peoples. I have created a hypertext link to SAC for several of these. While you will be specializing on one of these groups, be sure you have a general sense of the historical role played in our period by each of the following:

Germans
Varangians (Vikings, Rus, Dany)
Danubian Bulgars
Volga Bolgars
Khazars
Pechenegs (Patsinaks, Patzinaks)
Mongols (Tatars, Golden Horde)
Crimean Tatars
Lithuanians
Poles
Ukrainians
Cossacks
Ottoman Turks

Use the main textbooks and other appropriate readings identified in "SAC".  A few FIND searches for certain "key-words" in SAC would yield quick, brief chronologies and some reading suggestions.  For example, you could search for "Asia", "Siberia", "Bashkir", "Cossack", etc.  You may find, as the term progresses, that your readings on the group of your choice are scattered throughout your journal, but your table of contents can help pull them together.

The Knight Library Reference Room holds two helpful books on the peoples of Russian-dominated Eurasia =

An Ethnohistorical dictionary of the Russian and Soviet empires [1994]
Ronald Wixman, The peoples of the USSR : an ethnographic handbook [1984]

 

 

4th Week: RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY
& MEDIEVAL WORLD VIEW
(and first submission of journal)

*--Huge 45-hop Church LOOP
     (Five hops cover certain aspects of early church history)
     (Four hops cover Byzantine missionary activities throughout the Pontic Steppe region)
     {Six hops cover development of Russian Orthodoxy in Kievan Rus}
     (Five hops cover the Russian Orthodox Church under the authority of the Golden Horde)
     (Fourteen hops cover the Muscovite Church)
     (Thirteen hops cover the the Russian Orthodox Church in its first Patriarchal century and its great crisis)
*--Cyril and Methodius
*--Kiev-Pechersk Monastery
*--Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery
*--RRC1(5, 9-11 & 16) RRC2(5,10 & 17) (Religion)
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*-- Florinsky,1(6)

In two weeks you will write a midterm exam in your journal. The journal should at that time contain a draft essay written outside of class before the midterm exam. You may want to devote about half your time on your first draft essay between now and midterm. Here (two weeks before it is due) is a description of the first draft essay exercise =

EXERCISE 9)  Research and draft first essay. General instructions and advice about what is meant by "draft essays" is found on the webpage "Draft Essay". Remember that the topics suggested in exercises 7 & 8 above do not require that you write specific essays. Exercise 9 is distinct from exercises 7 & 8.

This first draft essay will be written in your journal prior to the midterm exam. Here's my suggestion. I want to assign or "strongly recommend" a topic: "How do the authors of the Russian Chronicles see the world?" Click through this five-hop LOOP on the Russian Chronicles. You will find the Russian Chronicles in the following publications of primary documentation (hyperlink is to the fuller citation in the course GLOSSARY): CPC, ZNC, and RRC1 and RRC2. You will also find translated selection in other major anthologies: DMR, VSB,1 and ZMR.

I recommend that you select your own passages from the Russian Chronicles, guided by the important entries in SAC.  There are several famous and fabulous accounts in the Chronicles relating, for example, to the following historical moments =

and so forth; you can be guided by the substantial references attached to the most important chronological entries in SAC. You need not read all the Chronicles. That would be a daunting task. Russian Chronicles covered events of Russian history well into the 15th century.  For example =

Follow the time suggestions here. Make careful and intelligent choices.

You will learn some "facts" about Russian history as you read the accounts in the Russian Chronicles, but I want your draft essay to concentrate less on the facts and more on the way the chroniclers [authors] see the world.  How do they describe the qualities of the Prince, the nature of cause and effect, concepts of "national unity", the common people (peasants, craftsmen, etc.), the social hierarchy, how things are made and grown and how they are distributed, etc. Think hard about the nature of the world view of the authors of these texts. Look for what they see and consider what they do not see, or care about.  You might find it useful to compare the world view of the chroniclers with what you see in other sources from the early history, for example, folk legend [as in ZMR1 or ZMR2], or Arabic and Byzantine sources. The "Testament" of Kievan Prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich "Monomakh" was imbedded in the Chronicles, but does this crusty old prince, as seen in his Testament, "see the world" in the same way as the monkish authors of the Chronicle whose accounts surround his Testament there.

You might get some ideas about how to analyze these authors from "Ways of Seeing History" and associated webpages "Dozen Categories", Taxonomy of Historical Experience, and "Perceived Interests".

Seek three sorts of help by consulting the indexes of two or three secondary sources (remember the earlier reading on primary and secondary sources). First, you want to learn about the Russian Chronicles and the chroniclers themselves. When, where and by whom were they written? The Chronicle LOOP has some suggestions about where to go to learn more about the compilation of the Chronicles.  Second, you want to find out about the persons and events described in the passages you select: what’s emphasized and what’s left out. If, for example, a great monastery or a wicked prince or a vicious invading army is mentioned, find out what Riasanovsky, Florinsky, Kliuchevskii, Vernadsky, MERSH and/or GSE have to say about them. Finally, you want to be alert to those points where the authors of the secondary historical accounts and/or reference works specifically amplify, augment, correct, or criticize the chroniclers’ accounts. Riasanovsky, for example, cites the 862 account of the invitation to the Rus and notes that he does not like the translation.  (The 862 entry in SAC contains a new translation.)

You cannot do all these things, but you are committed to 9 hours a week outside of class and thus can make some choices among the suggestions above. You should enjoy yourself as you try to put yourself into the medieval Russian world view.

 

5th Week: DOMINANCE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE

*--Golden Horde (Tatars, Mongols) and Russia (18-hop LOOP)
*--Phase one, a century of destruction and dominance (two long-striding hops cover this busy Mongolian century)
*--Phase two of Golden Horde in Russia corresponds to phase one in the rise of Moscow (nine hops)
*--In phase two, the reign of Vasilii I (five hops)
*--In phase two, the reign of Vasilii II (two hops)
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*--Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols:1-26, or, better yet, pp. 36-63 (institutional influence on Russia)
*--Halperin:7-11
*--RRC1(14) RRC2(4 &15) (On Russian cities, and Vernadsky's assessment of the impact of the Golden Horde)
*--Florinsky,1(3)
*--Riasanovsky(7-8)
*--Vernadsky(3)
*--Blum:57-116
*--ORC:84-93

 

 

6th Week: RISE OF MOSCOW / FALL OF NOVGOROD

*--Hanseatic League (Hansa, Hanse) LOOP
*--Sergei Eisenstein's movie "Alexander Nevsky"
*--Andrei Tarkovsky's movie "Andrei Rublev"
*--Teutonic Knights GO 1410
*--Livonian Order GO 1500
*--Survey the years of Ivan III (thirty hops cover the whole epoch)
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*--RRC1(4 &6) RRC2(3, 4 &6) (Novgorod & debate on Feudalism)
*--Florinsky,1(4-5)
*--Riasanovsky(9-15)
*--Vernadsky(4)
*--Auty, ch3:78-120 (concentrates on rise of Moscow, Ivan III and Ivan IV)
*--ORC:95-111

EXERCISE 10) On the last class meeting this week (check date in hand-out syllabus), take a midterm exam and submit the journal to me with the first draft essay complete

NB! The  midterm exam will cover the big Church LOOP only to 1589 when the Muscovite Metropolitan See was elevated to the status of Patriarch.


NB! The midterm exam will cover the rise, but not the fall (after 1494), of Novgorod as member of the Hanseatic League (go to the link in section IV. below).

Here are some suggestions and important terms on the basis of which I will construct the exam. Remember that I will ask you to avoid duplication of choices in exam questions and draft essay =

I. Mentalities (you have already written about the Russian Chronicles) =
Describe your discoveries of greatest relevance to our course in Cultural Atlas of Russia.
Cyril and Methodius
The Life of Saint Sergius
Andrei Rublev
"Third Rome"

II. Institutions =
Invitation to the Rus'
"Golden Age" of Byzantium and its meaning for Kievan Rus
Danubian Bulgars and Volga Bolgar realms
Varangian Prince Oleg
Olga and Anna & Christianization of Rus’
Bulgarian kingdom and Byzantium
Kievan mestnichestvo in decline
Aleksandr Nevskii and his relations with the Golden Horde
Yarlyk [Tatar word for "license" from a superior authority]
Yasak [Tatar word for "tribute" or "tax" owed superior authority]
Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery
Grand Prince of Moscow as agent AND enemy of the Golden Horde, especially Vasilii II
Krewo Union

III. Society =
Votchinnik and Votchina [patrimonial aristocrat and heritable noble estate and status]
Primogeniture
Novgorod and the veche [urban council] (5-jump LOOP on word "veche")

IV. Economy =
 Possessors and Non-Possessors (What part of this might be in I. above?)
Novgorod and the Hanseatic League (8-jump LOOP on word "Hanse")
Birth of market economics as policy of certain sovereign political powers
Rise of mercantilistic centralized national monarchy in Russia, and elsewhere in Europe

V. Geography. Review the main hypertext terms mentioned in connection with exercises four and five, especially the following =
Valdai Hills (1138 ft., this the highest spot in European Russia) and
the rivers Dnepr [Dnieper] and
Volga. Also be able to locate the following =
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
Baltic Sea
White Sea

!!no01:-- MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL,
WITH FIRST TAKE-HOME ESSAY
 EXAM FORM and EXAM STUDY ITEMS
 

 

 

 

7th Week: IVAN THE TERRIBLE & THE TIME OF TROUBLES

Suggested readings =
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*--Florinsky,1(7-9)
*--Riasanovsky(16-19)
*--Auty, ch3:78-120 (concentrates on rise of Moscow, Ivan III and Ivan IV)
*--ORC:112-26
*--Alan Kimball, Essay on the historical content of Sergei Eisenstein's movie IVAN GROZNYI
*--Dunning deals with the reign of Ivan IV as a causal factor in the Time of Troubles, pp. 13-60

 

*--Ivan's era summarized in SAC. Ivan's era contains about 40 SAC entries. It is important to read through them all in order to get a full sense of this 54-year era
 

Ivan's era arranged according to our taxonomy of historical experience =

I. Mentalities =
 *--Ivan Peresvetov 
 *--Does the correspondence of Ivan IV & Kurbskii signal a clash of religious and secular ways of thinking?
 *--First Russian printing press [LOOP]
 *--Domostroi tried to bring order to daily practices in the Russian family. Does it harmonize with the following? =
 *--Sudebnik [Law Code] compiled

II.A. Institutions -- the Church =
 *--Stoglav [Hundred Chapters Orthodox Church Assembly] met
      What does this assembly suggest about church/state relations?

II.B. Institutions -- the State =
 *--Ivan IV's coronation and formation of Chosen Council
 *--First Zemskii sobor [Assembly of the Land] summoned [A century-long LOOP follows]
 *--The infamous Oprichnina
 *--Ivan killed his son

III. Society =
 *--Domostroi suggests much about daily practices in the Russian family
 *--Ivan IV and Kurbskii corresponded about rights and duties, touching on several significant social issues
      Think about the ironic parallel in the experience of patrimonial aristocrats and peasant villagers in this era

IV. Economy =
 *--English mercantilist intrusions into White Sea region and the rise of the Stroganov family

V. Geography =
 *--Victory over Kazan Khanate and expansion east and south
 *--After a promising decade, Ivan bogged down in the 25-year Livonian Wars
 *--Poland-Lithuania created a monarchical republic, entering their final years of early-modern grandeur [LOOP]
 *--Yermak crossed the Urals eastward into Siberia

 


The Time of Troubles summarized and analyzed in SAC. About 30 entries are broken into five phases.

The Time of Troubles (1587:1612) and
the reign of tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (1613:1645) taxonomized =

I. Mentalities =
*--As throughout Europe, religious traditionalism and innovation split Christian congregations, and all were now challenged by emerging secularism. Christendom was shattered and locked in brutal inter-denominational struggles. Over the shoulders of these struggling religious zealots, a new and powerful rationalism and empiricism arose to challenge all spiritual doctrines. This was an era when the technical demands of political and military rule brought accountants, rationalist-minded administrators, engineers and other technicians to the fore, into influential advisory positions earlier occupied by Church officials or feudal landowners

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--Russian Orthodox Metropolitan elevated to status of Patriarch
*--When other bulwarks of national identity & defense failed, the church united the Russian Orthodox people
*--Then came the unique event = Powerful Monk Filaret (who was the father of tsar Mikhail Fedorovich) become Patriarch

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Boris Godunov and dynastic instability
*--Old boyar rule
*--Narodnoe opolchenie and the greatest Zemskii Sobor

III. Society =
*--Go week eight (following)
*--Consult the 1649:Ulozhenie (Law Code)

IV. Economy =
*--Rural labor bondage (serfdom) expanded and intensified
*--Go week eight (following)

V. Geography =
*--Poland twice ruled in Moscow, then began a slow retreat and decline

 

 

 

8th Week: PEASANT CULTURE & SERFDOM

*--Origins of serfdom, a LOOP
*--RRC1&2(13) (1649:Ulozhenie [Law Code])
*--HML:85-94 (Full printed text of 1649:Ulozhenie, highlighting legal procedures for peasants)
*--SAC TXT of 1649:Ulozhenie
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*--Blum:117-276
*--Florinsky,1(10-11)
*--Vernadsky(5, 12, 18)
*--Kliuchevskii,3(6-12)

 

 

 

9th Week: "WESTERNIZATION" AND CHURCH SCHISM

*1645:1676; Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich ruled for 31 years and was the first autocratic "westernizer"
*--He originated the great clash of cultures which we too often associate only with his more famous son, Peter I (whom we meet next term)
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*--Florinsky,1(11)
*--Kliuchevskii,3(13-18)

The era of Aleksei Mikhailovich "taxonomized" =

I. Mentalities =
*--The great Law Code [Ulozhenie]

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--The great calamity, the Orthodox Raskol [Schism] = LOOP on keyword "Old-Ritualist" all the way to 1721
*--Significant primary documents = RRC1(10 & 11) RRC2(11 & 12) (Avvakum & Schism)
*--Nikon deposed

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Growth of early modern forms of rational statecraft

III. Society =
*--Social disorders (1) (2)

IV. Economy =
*--Mercantilism LOOP

V. Geography =
*--Cossack territories [LOOP]
*--Poland ceased to be a threat [LOOP]
*--Siberian expansion to eastern limits

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In two weeks you will write a final exam in your journal. The journal should at that time contain a draft essay written outside of class before the final exam. Here (two weeks before it is due) is a description of the second draft essay exercise =

EXERCISE 11) Research and draft a second essay. You decide what you want to write about and which primary documents [ID] you want to put at the center of your attention. This time, do not choose your documents from the Russian Chronicles. This time, make your selection from among the many other primary sources you find cited in SAC [VSB, DMR, RRH, etc., etc.]. Do keyword searches [ID] of our SAC page, using terms related to topics that might become the subject of your second draft essay.

Otherwise, the second draft essay is like the first. I insist only that your two essays not overlap with one another. Your title might be something like this: "The contribution of [fill in the blank with your choice of primary document or documents] to my understanding of history". In other words, describe how your specific primary sources illuminate some of the general trends of the history we are studying. This suggests that you study the primary document, then compare what you find there with some of our standard secondary sources = Riasanovsky, Florinsky, Vernadsky, MERSH, etc.

If you want some suggestions about a second draft essay topic, email me. If you can describe some general range of interests that might guide your choice of topic, I can take it from there.

 

10th Week: TSAR PETER I & THE END OF MEDIEVAL RUSSIA

*--Complete the LOOPS designed to illustrate the continuing mid-17th-century crisis
*--RRC2(14) (Russian commercial relations with Europe)
\\
*--Florinsky,1(12)
*--Riasanovsky(20)
*--Kliuchevskii,4(3)
*--ORC:127-34

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EXERCISE 12) Take a final exam next week and submit the journal to me with the second draft essay complete (check date on the CALENDAR)

Taxonomized hypertext list of study items for the final exam.
Combine these hypertext hops with lecture and library readings
as you prepare for the final exam =

I. Mentalities =
*--"Third Rome" (also on midterm list, but now with richer significance)
*--Domostroi
*--1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code]
*--Yurii Krizhanich

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--Church struggle, "Possessors" vs. "Non-possessors"
*--Maksim Grek
*--Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, rise & fall (10-hop LOOP, from creation to dissolution)
*--Greek, Slavonic and Latin Academy in Kiev
*--Old-Ritualists [Old-Believers] and the great Orthodox Raskol (9-hop LOOP to 1721)
*--Boyarina Feodosiia Morozova
*--Archpriest Avvakum

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Zemskii sobor [Assembly of the Land] (10-hop LOOP to the 1649 Ulozhenie)
*--The Oprichnina [Ivan IV's votchina and his dreaded and violent retinue]
*--Boris Godunov (5-hop LOOP)
*--"Time of Troubles" (5-hop LOOP)
*--First pseudo-Dmitrii and second pseudo-Dmitrii
*--The reign of tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich and Russian "westernization" (or should we say "modernization"?)

III. Society =
*--Andrei Kurbskii (2 hops)
*--Votchinniki & pomeshchiki (braided LOOP [7 hops on votchinnik & 10 on pomeshchik] to the year 1682)
*--Serfdom (7 hops from the time of Ivan III to the great 1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code])
*--Cossacks (10-hop LOOP, 1581 to 1697| Distinguish between Siberian and Ukrainian Cossacks )

IV. Economy =
*--Stroganov family (9-hop LOOP)
*--Muscovy Company
*--Mercantilism (also on midterm list, but now with greater historical richness| 6-hop LOOP, 1500-1667)

V. Geography =
*--Teutonic Knights and Livonian Order (4-hop braided LOOP, 1200s-1580s)
*--Defeat of Kazan
*--The Fate of Lithuania and Poland (25-hop LOOP on braided terms Lithuania & Poland, from 1385 to 1667)
*--Pereiaslavl Treaty
 

!!  de08:at 8:00am -- FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL,
WHICH SHOULD ALREADY CONTAIN SECOND DRAFT ESSAY

You may submit a self-addressed and stamped envelope of proper dimension to me at the end, and I will mail your journal to you after grades are submitted. Or email me that you wish to pick up your journal. I will reply telling you where and when you may do that. Good luck to all.