420 years ago, 22 July 1596, was born Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the first Russian tsar of the Romanov dynasty. Boyar clans chose a young, obedient and inexperienced Michael to rule in 1613 in order to easily carry out their decisions behind his back. His rise to power was to complete the long period of the Troubles in the Russian kingdom. Michael rules up to 1645.Milestones
The son of boyar Fyodor Nikitich Romanov, Metropolitan (later Patriarch Philaret), and Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova (later nun Martha), he lived in Moscow for the first years. In 1601, together with his parents, he was subjected to the disgrace of Tsar Boris Godunov, being the nephew of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich. He lived in exile, with 1608, he returned to Moscow, where he was captured by the Poles, who seized the Kremlin. In November, 1612, freed by the militia of D. Pozharsky and K. Minin, went to Kostroma.
21 February 1613 in Moscow after the expulsion of the Poles, the Zemsky Sobor was held, which elected a new king. Among the applicants were the Polish prince Wladyslaw, the Swedish Prince Carl-Philip and others. The candidacy of Michael arose because of his kinship in the female line with the Rurik dynasty, the Romanovs were one of the most distinguished families. She suited the serving nobility, who sought to end the unrest and did not want the monarchy on the Polish model and the boyar oligarchy, which was going to use the youth and weakness of the new king. “Misha de young, his mind has not reached yet and we will be in charge,” said the Duma, hoping that all questions would be solved “on the advice” with the Duma. The moral character of Michael as the son of a metropolitan and a young man, not noted in the atrocities, was in the interests of the church and popular ideas about the king. He was to become a symbol of the return to order, peace and antiquity.
Thus, the king chose the young and painful Romanov, in order to save power and wealth behind him, and not the warrior king, who was needed to fight internal and external enemies.
11 June 1613 Propulsion Mikhail Fyodorovich in Moscow was crowned king in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. Celebrations lasted three days. The king gave, according to the testimony of a number of contemporaries, a cross-notational record that he undertakes not to rule without the Zemsky Sobor and the Boyar Duma (like Vasily Shuisky). According to other sources, Michael did not give such a record.
In the first years after the election of Michael as king, the main task was the completion of unrest in the Russian kingdom itself and the end of the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. In 1617, the Stolbovsky Peace was signed with Sweden, which received the Korela fortress and the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In 1618, the Deulinsky truce was concluded with Poland: Russia ceded Smolensk, Chernihiv and a number of other cities to it. From the subordination of Moscow came the Nogai Horde. In addition, the tsarist government sent expensive gifts to Bakhchisarai every year, but the Crimean Tatars continued their robber raids.
The big problem was the lack of money. The first concern of the new government was to collect the treasury. The Tsar and the Zemsky Sobor everywhere sent out certificates with orders to collect taxes and state revenues, with requests for a loan for the treasury of money and everything that can be collected by things. They tried to extract money by all means, even borrowed money from the British, giving them the right to duty-free trade. Serving people who lived in the suburbs, besieged general posadsky. Customs and pub collections began to give at the mercy, tried to make people drink more, increasing the income of the treasury. In addition to customs duties, all kinds of trade, even daily activities (taken for washing clothes, drinking water for cattle, etc.), were subject to a variety of requisitions (polavochnoe, myto, etc.).
The Russian state was in political isolation at the end of the 1610s. To get out of it, the Moscow government made an unsuccessful attempt to marry the young king, first on the Danish princess, then on the Swedish one. Having received refusals in both cases, the mother with the boyars married Mikhail to Maria Dolgorukova, but the marriage turned out to be childless. The second marriage with Evdokia Streshneva brought Michael 7 daughters (Irina, Pelageya, Anna, Martha, Sophia, Tatyana, Evdokia) and 2 sons, the elder Alexei Mikhailovich (the future king) and the youngest, who died in infancy Vasily.
The most important national task of Moscow was the struggle for the reunification of the West Russian and South Russian (Little Russian) lands in a single Russian state. The first attempt to solve this problem during the war for Smolensk (1632-1634), which began after the death of the Polish king Sigismund in connection with the claims of his son Vladislav to the Russian throne, was unsuccessful. After it, on the orders of Mikhail in Russia, the construction of the Great Passage line, the fortresses of the Belgorod and Simbirsk lines began. When 1637-1637 Don Cossacks took Azov, most of the members of the Zemsky Sobor decided to speak out for war with the Turks, the government decided not to take Azov under its own arm and not to start a war.
The government of Mikhail continued the policy of enslaving the peasantry (the main part of the population). The government of Michael introduced a period of catching runaway peasants up to 1637 years in 9, increased it by another year in 1641, and exported by other owners were allowed to search up to 15 years. The Moscow government, preparing for war with the Commonwealth, conducted a series of military reforms. The formation of the "new regiments" based on the Western model began, the rank and file of which were "eager free people" and boyar boyless children, the officers were foreign military specialists. Towards the end of the reign of Michael, cavalry dragoon regiments were formed.
Tsar Michael from birth did not differ in good health. He strongly "grieved with his legs" and by the end of the board he could not walk, he was taken in a cart. From the "many sittings" the king's body weakened, contemporaries noted in it "melancholy, that is to say, kruchin". 13 died February 1645 in Moscow.
"King-parsley"
Tsar Michael was not an outstanding statesman. The young and inexperienced Michael was chosen for the kingdom in 1613, so that behind his back it is easy to carry out his decisions. At first, his mother ruled for him - “the great sovereign,” the great old woman Martha (in the world of Ksenia Ivanovna Romanova, before Shestov's marriage) and her relatives. Then the father of the tsar, Patriarch Filaret (in the world of Fyodor Nikitich Romanov), returned from the Polish captivity to 1619. As the parent of the sovereign, Filaret until the end of his life (1633) was officially his co-ruler. He used the title "Great Sovereign" and in fact led the Moscow policy.
The beginning of the reign of the first Romanov was extremely difficult times for the Russian people of the country. Contrary to popular belief, the Troubles did not end with the liberation of Moscow from the Poles and their election to the kingdom of Michael. Six years after the liberation of the Kremlin, the people's militia in Russia was a bloody war. The gangs of Lisovsky, Zarutsky, and others quietly moved from one end of the Russian land to another, robbed and raped, finally ravaging the Russian kingdom. The lands of western, southern and southwestern Russia were burned literally right up to Moscow. Moscow itself was also severely destroyed and ravaged. Detachments of interventionists and various thieves bastards ravaged and eastern cities and lands. So, a detachment of Poles in 1616 year ruined Moore. Various gangs devastated the land up to Vologda, Ustyug and Kargopol. And this is after the victory of 1612, which was just one of the stages of the continuing Troubles. In fact, the Moscow government initially controlled only Moscow and several cities, sitting outside the walls. Throughout the rest of the country, Polish and Swedish invaders ruled, all sorts of adventurers, thieves' bands and gangs. Separate successful military operations of the Moscow government could not change the overall situation.
Zarutsky's gangs in the southeast of the country were able to do away in the summer of 1614, in the fall they defeated the gang of ataman Balovnya in the headwaters of the Volga. The most dangerous detachment of Lisovsky was able to be broken only to 1616. Sweden and Poland were the most dangerous enemies. The Swedes captured Novgorod and Vodskaya Pyatina, planning to join them to Sweden, and also demanded that Russia recognize Prince Philip, who Novgorod had already sworn, as their king. The fighting of the Russian troops under Prince D. Trubetskoy was unsuccessful. The situation was saved only by the fact that the Swedes were more interested in preventing the Russians from coming to the Baltic and did not develop the offensive. In the end, they agreed to the mediation of England and the Netherlands in the conclusion of peace.
Only two shameful worlds saved Russia from the aggression of Sweden and the Commonwealth. Stolbovsky world 1617, led to the fact that Russia ceded Ivangorod Sweden, Yam, Koporye, Oreshek, Korela. Moscow refused claims to Livonia and Karelian land. As a result, Russia lost access to the Baltic Sea, which was returned only under Peter Alekseevich. And Russia was able to completely return the lost lands in the Baltic only under Peter I, after a long and bloody Northern War. In addition, Moscow had to pay Sweden a contribution in 20 thousand rubles, a large amount for those times (20 000 silver rubles were equal to 980 kg of silver). At the same time, the Swedes, the Dutch and the British procured for themselves important trade privileges in Russia.
No wonder the Swedish king Gustav Adolf believed that Sweden won historical victory over the Russian state: “One of the greatest blessings granted by the God of Sweden is that the Russians, with whom we have long been in doubtful relations, must now abandon the backwoods from which we were often bothered. Russia is a dangerous neighbor. Her possessions stretch to the seas of the North and Caspian, from the south it borders almost on the Black Sea. In Russia, a strong nobility, many peasants, populated cities and large troops. Now, without our permission, the Russians cannot send a single boat to the Baltic Sea. Large lakes Ladoga Lake and Peypus, Narva Glade, swamps 30 versts wide and solid fortresses separate us from them. Now the Russians have been taken away access to the Baltic Sea, and, I hope, it will not be so easy for them to step over this brook. ”
In December 1618, the Deulin Truce was signed. The truce was signed in the village of Deulino near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, near Moscow. It housed the camp of the Polish prince Vladislav. And during the 1618 campaign of the year, the Poles stormed Moscow, albeit unsuccessfully. According to the truce for 14 years, the Russian state yielded to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the cities of Smolensk, Roslavl, Dorogobuzh, Belaya, Serpeysk, Putivl, Trubchevsk, Novgorod-Seversky, Chernihiv, Monastyrsky with the surrounding lands. This agreement was a great victory for the Commonwealth. The border between the two states moved far to the east, almost returning to the borders of the times of Ivan III. At the same time, the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania still retained the formal right to the Russian throne.
It is also worth noting that Moscow was lucky at that time - a fierce Thirty Years War broke out in Europe in 1618, which some researchers consider to be a “world war”, as its significance was enormous. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden mated with each other and distracted from Russian affairs. The Russian kingdom at once got rid of two formidable enemies who threatened its existence, was able to take a break.
If you remove the propaganda of the times of the Romanov rule and the current one about the revival of “spiritual bonds”, it turns out that far from the best people turned out to be at the head of the Russian kingdom. Mikhail Romanov himself didn’t have any state experience, didn’t have great abilities, was sick (he had difficulty walking in 30 years), so his parents and other relatives managed him. Obviously, the new king of Russia could be chosen better. For example, Dmitry Pozharsky. It is obvious that the boyar oligarchy, which actually organized the Troubles, needed a weak and incapable king.
The king’s father, Patriarch Filaret, judging by the truth, has a very dubious reputation. Boyarin, son of the influential Nikita Zakharyin-Yuriev, nephew of Queen Anastasia, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, he was considered a possible rival of Boris Godunov in the struggle for power after the death of Fyodor Ivanovich. Boyar Fedor Nikitich Romanov under Boris Godunov on charges of treason, apparently (especially in his future behavior and life path), not without reason, was exiled and tonsured as a monk. When the first impostor False Dmitriy (Gregory Otrepievo) was released and elevated to the rank of Metropolitan of Rostov. Fyodor Romanov remained in opposition to the ousted False Dmitry Vasily Shuisky, and from 1608 he played the role of the “appointed patriarch” in the Tushino camp of the new impostor, False Dmitry II. In 1610, the "patriarch" became one of the main participants in the conspiracy against Tsar Vasily Shuisky and an active supporter of the Seven Boyars, the boyars government, which betrayed national interests. Filaret headed the embassy in Poland with the aim of building on the throne of the Polish prince Vladislav. Unlike Patriarch Hermogenes, in principle he did not object to the election of Vladislav Sigismundovich to the Russian Tsar. However, he did not agree with the Poles in the final version of the treaty and was arrested. Filaret was able to return from Polish captivity only after an armistice, in 1619.
It is also worth noting that the main figures of the Seven Boyars, who “committed an act of high treason” when on the night of September 9 21 secretly let Polish troops into Moscow, almost fully entered the government of Mikhail and played leading roles in the Russian state for a long time. And one of the first decisions of the Seven Boyars was a decree not to elect the representatives of the Russian clans to be the king. The boyar government called on the son of the Polish king Sigismund III, Vladislav, to the throne and, fearing the resistance of ordinary Russian people and not trusting Russian troops, let foreign troops into the capital.
All the living figures of this “government”, which changed Russian civilization, were not only not executed or at least subjected to disgrace, but continued to occupy high posts in the Russian kingdom. The head of the boyar government, Prince Fedor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, was one of the claimants to the throne at the 1613 Council of the year, and remained a prominent nobleman until his death in the 1622 year. Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky also claimed the throne in 1613, served as commander in Kazan, was the first ambassador at a congress with Polish ambassadors in Smolensk. In 1620 and 1621, in the absence of Mikhail Fedorovich, in the rank of the first governor he ruled Moscow. Prince Boris Mikhailovich Lykov-Obolensky, the son-in-law of Patriarch Philaret, under Michael Romanov, rose even more. He headed the Rogue Order, was a voivod in Kazan, headed a number of important orders (Sysknoy, Kazan Palace, Siberian, etc.). Boyar Ivan Nikitich Romanov, Philaret's younger brother and uncle of the first king, at the Council of the Year 1613 (like much of the boyars) supported the candidature of the Swedish Prince Karl Philip. Under Tsar Mikhail Romanov, he was in charge of foreign policy. Boyar Fyodor Ivanovich Sheremetev, who, together with the Polish troops, withstood the siege and left Moscow only after its release by Dmitry Pozharsky, in the most active way contributed to the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the kingdom. Sheremetev participated in all the important events of the reign of Mikhail Fyodorovich, before Filaret arrived in 1619, led the Moscow government, then was the head of the government after Filaret's death - 1633-1646, resigned due to old age. Only two - Prince A. V. Golitsyn and A. V. Trubetskoy, died in 1611.
Thus, a very sad story is obtained. Traitors-boyars betray the Russian people, Russia, admit enemies to the capital, agree to elect the Polish prince to the Russian throne. Honest Russian people are not sparing their stomach fight with enemies, liberate Moscow. And traitors, instead of answering for black betrayal on their own, almost all enter the new government and elect a king who is advantageous for himself, young, meek, without abilities and sick.
So it turns out that in the course of the Great Troubles power was seized by those who started this unrest, fueled and supported! According to many researchers of the Time of Troubles, the Romanovs and Cherkassky were behind the False Dmitriy (I. B. Cherkassky was married to his sister Filaret). The Romanovs, Cherkasskys, Shuiskys and other boyars staged a Distemper, in which tens of thousands of people died and the majority of the Russian state became empty. Thus, in many counties of the historical center of the state, the size of arable land has decreased by 20 times, and the number of peasants by 4 times. In a number of areas and by the 20 — 40 years of the XVII century, the population was still below the level of the XVI century. The military-strategic, demographic and economic consequences of the Distemper, which staged the boyars clans in the struggle for power, affected for decades. The lost lands in the west and north-west and north were recovered after decades and at the cost of great blood, the mobilization efforts of the entire Russian civilization. Russian Baltic States were able to fully release only with Tsar Peter.
Virtually the only success of the new government of Mikhail Romanov is the end of the inner turmoil. Moscow in a few years managed to put an end to anarchy and permissiveness (according to the principle - “who has more sabers, he is right”). In addition, it is worth considering that the main boyar clans were satisfied with the situation, they were tired of the war and stopped supporting distemper. A few years later, the new government was able to crush the thieves' rampant, destroy the gangs, who lost the support of the "elite". And the folk heroes, having received their portion of glory, were pushed aside into the shadows.
In foreign policy, the government of Michael gave a number of important territories of Sweden and the Commonwealth. The struggle for the return of the West Russian lands did not lead to success. The statehood that was restored in 1613 was not resolved by any single internal national problem. Thus, the enslavement-enslavement of the peasantry, begun by Godunov during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, continued, it continued. The life of most people has deteriorated. This led to the fact that the people responded to social injustice with mass uprisings and the seventeenth century went down in history as the “rebellious age”.
Thus, in the historical sense, the rule of the Romanovs did not eradicate the main premise of the Troubles in Russian civilization — social injustice, when most of the Russian people were enslaved, and the “elite” was cut off from the people and headed for westernization (westernization). This ultimately led to the second Great Smooth - 1905-1917, when the Romanov Empire collapsed.
The answer of the Russian civilization and the Russian superethnos to social injustice is the Smoot, during which there is a chance to win a new, nationally oriented elite. As in 1917-1920, when the power was seized by the Bolsheviks, who created a social, inherently fair state (most clearly manifested in the Stalin period), so they received the support of most of the people. After 1991, the people split again, and its aggravation in our days, when we observe the emergence of a layer of "new nobility" in the Russian Federation, again puts on the agenda the possibility of new unrest. And this, in the conditions of a constant external threat from the West and the East and the beginning of the global redistribution of the Fourth World War, threatens the destruction of the entire Russian civilization. The only way out is a new Russian project based on the principle of social justice, ethics of conscience and the creation of a society of service and creation, which will again unite society and adopt the best elements of the Russian kingdom, the Russian Empire and the Red Empire.