CONDENSED NOTES/STUDY GUIDE 1

“Smutnoe Vremia” = “Time of Troubles”

causes:

1. Ivan IV’s war over Livonia… and it’s results:

   1. depopulation of the northwest

   2. food shortages and starvation

   3. empty treasury (no money – the government goes broke)

2. Succession Crisis

   1. murder of Tsarevich Ivan (the oldest son and heir to throne)

   2. Fedor’s incompetence and childlessness

   3. Dmitrii of Uglich’s death/murder

   4. Godunov’s lack of legitimacy

Reign of Fedor Ivanovich (1584-1598):

1. Marries Irina Godunov

   1. Irina’s brother, Boris Godunov becomes advisor and then Regent

2. 1586: - Attempts to gain the Polish throne

- Georgia asks to become a protectorate

3. 1589: Approval and election of the very first Patriarch of Moscow, in place of a Metropolitan (this is important to Moscow because in Eastern Orthodoxy, Moscow joins the level of other important cities with Patriarchs – Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Damascus)

   1. A friend of Godunov, Job, gets elected Patriarch of Moscow

4. 1595: Swedish war to pre-Livonian status

   1. Gains Oreshek, a fortress at the beginning of the Neva River near Lake Lagoda

Historian Platonov

• his Three Phases of the Time of Troubles:

1. Dynastic

2. Social

3. National

Dynastic Phase (1598-1603)

- No widely acceptable Riurikovich candidate- Boris Godunov refused twice before accepting

- General opinion that Godunov seized power, partly through the death of Dmitrii of Uglich

Social Phase (1603-1609)

- Bad harvests after 1600

- Lack of payments to cossacks, who then raided

*Cossack - word for wandering/rambling - from many ethnic groups but due to being tied to land became increasingly Russian - fiercely Orthodox

--- Stole things and people due to not being paid by government - horrible break down in law and order ---- private armies ----- capture of people and sales of slaves to Tatars ---- people blame it on Boris Godunov ---- What if Dmitrii wasn’t really killed? – this becomes the new rumor leading to the False Dmitriis

- Breakdown in collection of revenues

- Breakdown in law and order

- Accusations that this was God's punishment for the election of Boris Godunov

First False Dmitrii

- In reality, Grigorii Otrepov, a defrocked monk

- Gained support in SE Poland from Stepan Mniszech and other large landholders

- supporters of Dmitrii vs. supporters of Boris Godunov

In Rapid Succession

- False Dmitrii I in power -- his supporters brought out the real Dmitrii's mother who incorrectly id'd him as her son - Shuiskii's supporters claimed to support him with troops - Dmitrii allowed Russian troops into the Kremlin and the troops deposed him from power - burned body and shot ashes from canon at Poland

- Replaced by Vasilii Shuiskii, boyar (Васили Шуиски)

- Election of Vladyslav of Poland

- Appearance of False Dmitrii II

- Invasion by Poles and Swedes (beginning of the National Phase)

--- issues: Dynastic, social, and national (national problems being... the Poles and Swedes) - (Two powerful Cossack armies marauding - Zemskii Sabor - meeting of the lands - *Poland had become Protestant very early in the Protestant Reformation, but won back to Catholocism by the efforts of the Jesuits - not about to become Orthodox - problematic when Dmitrii, a Pole, takes the Russian throne and supported by the Polish Army - took over the Kremlin and went to the Holy Trinity Monastery to beseige it - recall that this monastery was founded by St. Sergei.) - (Second False Dmitrii - fled to Astrakhan after defeat - sometimes referred to the Felon of... "Tushinau?")

Famine: 1600,1601, 1602 (the famine precipitated the three core issues/challenges facing Russia

---- 1 of every 3 years was a negative year, while 1 of every 5 was pretty aweful (agriculturally)

- impacts disease (weakness from famine... thus disease... fatality even from the flu)

- Monastery beseiged by Swedes (thus later in 17th c. the Russians built it up as a fortress - bigger than the Kremlin though out in middle of noplace

National Phase (1609-1613)

- National army of liberation

- Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii (General)

- Kuzma Minin (Led/orchestrated the logistics - head of the "Butchers' Organization" - literally those who slaughtered cattle - funded much of the campaign and controlled the "wallet"/expenditures)

- Election of Mikhail Romanov

- Only about 25% of the population survived the Time of Troubles

----- the National army raised in Nizhny Novgorod (not Novgorod the Great), located on the Volga

----- Russia had no real army, but between citizens and private armies joining together, some speculate that as many as 200,000 formed to fight and throw out the Poles

--- Called another Zemskii Sabor

- Mikhail Romanov is elected --- Romanov's father was in prison when elected, thus those who elected him thought they could control him -- not anyone's first choice -- but none the less elected to be the next Tsar

BEGINNING OF THE ROMANOVS:

Seventeenth Century (1613-1689)

Basic Characteristics:

- Lack of strong leadership

- Mikhail (1613-1645)

- Aleksei (1645-1676)

- Fedor (1676-1682)

Sophia's regency for Ivan V and Peter (to 1689)

- Recovery from Time of Troubles

- Financial (never did quite make it)

- Territorial (from Sweden and Poland)

- Major developments in Aleksei's reign

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov:

Zemskii Sobor elects new Tsar:

Why?:

1.) to control him:

- Romanov's father was in prison when elected, thus those who elected him thought they could control him

- not anyone's first choice -- but none the less elected to be the next Tsar

- Noone knew if his being Tsar would last or not... but it did

- Mikhail was a teenager when elected

2.) legitimacy:

- legitimacy to royal line through Ivan IV’s (the Terrible) first wife, Anastasia Romanova

Mikhail Romanov’s father: