Russia under siege - from Ivan the Terrible to the present day. Part Four

If you stop a few random people on the street of any Russian city and ask them how Pyotr I went down in history, I am sure that most will say: "He cut out a window to Europe." Another popular answer is probably that the first Russian emperor built St. Petersburg on the banks of the Neva River. In principle, both are links in the same chain. But the point is different.

Despite the military and sanctions pressure from Europe, Russia gradually moved step by step from a certain "black hole" on the outskirts of the continent to become one of the leading, "system-forming" countries.

It just so happens that in our minds we give all the glory for this to Pyotr the Great. But the historical truth is that the foundation for the leap forward was laid by his ancestors and predecessors from the Romanov family on the royal throne.

At the same time, the progressive development of Russia for almost the entire 17th century was not due to, but despite Europe.

All these years, the country was under a global naval blockade, as well as constant military pressure from both the south, west and north. As a result of Swedish aggression, Russia had no access to the northern seas, and the Crimean Tatar Khanate cut it off from the Black Sea.

Russia could carry out maritime trade with Europe through a single port – Arkhangelsk, and with eastern countries – through Astrakhan. But, of course, Arkhangelsk as a northern city could function only for a few months of the year.

In addition, Russia did not have its own fleet. And even if it did, it could not actually use it, because all foreign trade was monopolised by foreign merchants, who defended this control by all possible methods.

Sweden, which at that time had the most powerful army in Europe, controlled the entire northern coast and effectively turned the Baltic Sea into its "inner lake". At the same time, it did not abandon attempts to grab more and more pieces from the territories of its neighbours, including Russia, in violation of previous peace agreements.

From the West, Russia was constantly pressed by the same restless Poland, which could not accept the fact that its troops were thrown out of the Kremlin like pathetic kittens, forever burying the dreams of the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

And from the south of the Russian border, the Turkish-Tatar hordes were constantly being tested for strength. Turkish appetites were truly boundless and at some stage they wanted to include in their empire the Ukrainian lands divided between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia along the Dnieper River.

Moscow had a very natural fear that the Turks, having defeated the Poles, might begin to claim the Left-bank Ukraine that was previously part of Russia (more on this below). Therefore, in order to prevent the Ottomans from gaining a foothold, it was decided to launch a preemptive strike – and in 1676 the Russo-Turkish war began, which lasted five years and ended with the signing of the Bakhchisarai Peace Treaty. Russia secured Left-bank Ukraine with Kiev, and Turkey - the Right Bank.

For a while, Europe, apart from its closest Russian neighbours and enemies, was not at all concerned with what was happening in the Russian backwater in the European backwoods. At first, the "Old World” took quite a long and painful time to get out of its own "Great Troubles", smoothly turning into a 30-year war between European Catholics and Protestants, which led to fundamental changes in the political map of the continent. Germany as a great power fell into oblivion, the German Habsburg claims to world domination were smashed to smithereens, and new countries appeared on the continent, and, in particular, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The Thirty Years’ War remained the bloodiest conflict in history until the world wars of the 20th century. According to various estimates, 40 to 75% of the population died in Germany during the war. The population of the Czech Republic decreased from 2.5 million to 700,000 people. The Holy Roman Empire broke up into more than 300 dwarf states, subordinated to the emperor only formally. And in the vanguard of European politics was France, which made a fuss and quickly pulled on the leader's T-shirt.

In addition, other internecine territorial wars continued throughout the 17th century in Europe, and the general crisis situation was further aggravated by the same Ottoman Empire, which, attacking Europe from the south, did not allow it to exhale. After a series of successful wars with Iran, the Turkish sultans decided to continue the policy of ghazavat - the "holy war" of Muslims against representatives of other religions — and resume their conquests in Europe. At one point, Turkish troops even managed to reach the Austrian capital of Vienna.

And here the interests of Russia and Europe, as is said, converged. Well, what does it mean that they agreed: they decided once again, as in previous centuries during the Tatar-Mongol invasion, to use it as a buffer between the West and the East. To this end, Russia was invited to join the Holy League, which was created in 1684 with the active participation of Pope Innocent XI and which included the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Venice and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Holy League understood that Moscow's joining this alliance would significantly strengthen its position in the fight against non-believers.

For the time being, Russia had to forget about its previous grievances and, in the face of the Turkish threat, conclude the so-called "Eternal Peace" with Poland (we understand at the same time that nothing eternal exists in the world), and then join the war against the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, by and large, this fully met the political and strategic interests of Russia – on the one hand, it neutralised Polish encroachments on Russian lands, and, on the other, under the pretext of repelling the Turkish aggressor, it gave rise to the conquest of new southern lands and, above all, the Crimean Peninsula.

To this end, Russian troops made two campaigns in Crimea in 1687 and 1689. The capture of this strategically important outpost again failed, but these "special military operations", as would be said now, cannot be called a failure.

Moreover, thanks to its participation in the Holy League, Russia is dramatically moving to the forefront of European politics, turning from a dirty Cinderella to a fully-fledged participant in European political processes.

At that time, it was precisely the needs of Russia's further development that determined its main directions of foreign policy, and above all, the completion of the following strategic tasks:

- the return of territories lost during the Troubles, the attachment of Ukrainian and Belarusian lands that were previously part of Kievan Rus;

- achievements of access to the Baltic and Black Seas;

- ensuring the security of the southern borders;

- further advance to the east in order to develop the natural resources of Siberia.

I can't help but remind you that it is in the middle of the 17th century that an event takes place, which is extremely important to remember today in connection with the current events around Ukraine.

At some point, the Ukrainians got tired of the arbitrariness of the Polish lords, who considered the local population as second-class people, and in 1648 there what our historians called the national liberation war under the leadership of Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky broke out. He sought the withdrawal of the Polish-occupied part of Ukraine from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Khmelnitsky managed to win several important battles, but the forces for the final victory were not enough. And then he turned to Moscow with a request to accept Ukraine as a Russian citizen. In April 1653, his request was brought to the capital by a delegation led by Kondrat Burley and Siluyan Muzhilovsky. (I specifically write about this in such detail that those who have a bad historical memory cannot then say: "I didn't know, I didn't hear about it.") And on October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor approved the petition for the attachment of Ukraine to Russia.

Just a week later, the Russian embassy headed by boyar Buturlin left for Ukraine from Moscow. As it is written in the chronicles of those times, Russian diplomats were greeted by the population of Ukraine with solemn prayers, processions and salutes. As a result, on January 8, 1654, in Pereyaslavl, at a session of the Rada, a meeting of Zaporozhia Cossacks, the reunification of Ukraine with Russia was officially proclaimed. But to ensure that no one could challenge this decision, considering it some kind of backstage collusion, representatives of the Russian embassy then traveled to almost 200 cities and villages in this region to take the oath of allegiance from the population to the Russian Tsar.

The documents of the Russian embassy also contain exact figures: 127,328 Cossacks, petty bourgeois and free army villagers took the oath. Only supporters of the former Polish protégé Hetman Barabash refused to swear allegiance to Moscow. However, there were no more than 300 of them. There are notes that they did it drunk - opponents of reunification with Russia specifically got them drunk and set them up accordingly before the vote. But, sobering up, the majority changed their minds and took the oath to the Tsar-father.

For Russia, the Pereyaslav Agreement, which included the lands of Western Russia, including ancient Kiev, became one of the most important stages in the assembly of Russian land. And the official title of the Russian tsar was changed: in it, the words "All Rus" were replaced with "all Great and Small Rus (Russia)", "Kiev" was added and "Chernigov" was returned. Although I do not believe in democracy as a real form of government in the world, I cannot help but notice that it is unlikely that anywhere in Western Europe, which claims to be the mother of democracy, such important issues were resolved "by the whole world", and not just by royal decree.

It was in such a hostile environment that the Romanovs, who took the Moscow throne after the end of the "Great Troubles", had to fight for the further progressive development of Russia. They got a mostly agrarian country ravaged by endless wars and internal strife. It is a sin to hide, of course, lagged behind in its technological development from the leading European countries, where the sprouts of a new capitalist economic system were already emerging. But still - first Mikhail Fyodorovich, then his son Aleksey Mikhailovich and half-brother Fyodor Alekseyevich-managed to modernise Russia, thereby laying the foundation for further Pyotr's reforms.

Over several decades, the country's economic life has stabilised. Slowly, but nevertheless, the development of manufacturing production, including with the participation of foreigners, was on the rise. Monetary and tax reforms were implemented. The vertical of power was strengthened, which, however, went through several stages - from experiments with "democratisation" under Mikhail Romanov (the so-called Zemsky Sobors) to the strengthening of autocracy and absolutism under the following Tsars. The army was reformed, including the creation of "regiments of the new system" on the European model. (And, by the way, mandatory military service was introduced for noble offspring). The death penalty for a number of crimes was abolished, and the judicial process was improved. The authorities actively fought against "bribery". Diplomatic and economic ties with European countries gradually expanded.

Although the first of the Romanovs, Mikhail Fedorovich, was considered a very conservative person, it was under him that cautious attempts to import Western technologies to Russia began. This practice is especially widespread in the military-technical field. For this purpose, the so-called "Foreign Order" was even established. The Tsar manages to attract, as they would say now, Western capital to Russia.

In the 1650s a, for example, German or Foreign settlement appeared on the outskirts of Moscow, which in a relatively short period turned into a small peculiar corner of Western Europe with its own way of life different from the rest of the capital.

"The corrupting influence of the West”, as the Soviet press once wrote, is gradually penetrating the upper strata of society. European clothing and other attributes of European life are in fashion.

Conservative, patriarchal Russia, and above all the Orthodox Church, was wary of this faint but noticeable western wind. And the Russian people, in which the protest spirit of the "Time of Troubles" had not yet died out, responded with uprisings to obvious excesses in tsarist politics. The most famous were the "salt" and “copper" riots, caused by the introduction of new taxes and the first unsuccessful monetary reform that led to an acute shortage of products, and the largest was the uprising of Stenka Razin, poetised by our epic.

At some point, the Kremlin had to slow down this process of "Europeanisation" quite sharply, and the Tsar-father even forbade the boyars and the nobility to shave their beards.

In order to distract from a serious topic, I can't help but remind you that at the same time, the first attempt in the history of Russia to conduct an anti-alcohol campaign was made. Alcohol consumption was allowed four times a year: a week on Christmas Day, a week on Dmitriyev's Day, a week on Nikola and a week on Maslenitsa.

For drinking at other times, a fine of two rubles was imposed, which was a lot of money at that time. Those who were found drunk for the first time were put in a special prison, from which they could only be released on bail. The second time, they were kept in prison longer and led around the streets, beating them with a whip, "until they get better”. Those found guilty of drunkenness were thrown into a dungeon for the third time, "until they rot”.

There are also a number of decrees banning tobacco smoking. Caught red-handed smokers had their noses cut off.

But the young Romanovs, as well as Pyotr the Great, cannot be called "Westerners", and even more so “liberals" in the modern sense of the word, if only because, unlike the current neoliberals, for whom the concept of the Motherland is an empty phrase, they saw the main task of their activity not in turning Russia into an economic, financial and technological appendage of the West, but into an independent strong power. A power whose influence in Europe must be commensurate with its size and potential capabilities. A sort of “Russian-style Chinese version". Although no, rather the opposite – it is the wise Chinese, knowing world history well, for sure, who used this Russian experience to turn the country into the No. 1 industrial power.

In short, the results of the reign of the first Romanovs are as follows: the collapse and turmoil in the country was replaced by the historical unification of the Russian world and the foundation was laid for further reforms of Pyotr I, for which he was awarded the title "Great". But more on that in the next comment.