Soldiers of the Tsar. Army and Society in Russia, 1462-1874 - John L. Keep

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Musketeers and Other Traditional Forces 77
remained administratively independent of the War College, much as the
Pushkarskiy prikoz had coexisted with the Razryad.
The men in all the categories so far discussed were predominantly of Great
Russian ethnic stock, with the important exception of the 'Cherkassians'
(Ukrainian Cossacks). Western European immigrants served exclusively in the
new-model forces, once these had been established; there were few of them in
the sixteenth century. Oriental natives, however, played a more significant role
in the Muscovite armed forces at this time and contributed a colourful touch to
the military scene. The main peoples in question were Tatars from the various
formerly independent khanates (Kazan·, Astrakhan·, Sibir'), together with
elements from the still independent Nogays and Crimeans, and natives of the
middle-Volga region: Mordvians, Mari (Cheremis), and Chuvash; less impor-
tant were Bashkirs from the Urals approaches, Kabardians from the Caucasus,
and Siberian tribesmen. Religious rather than ethnic criteria shaped Russian
attitudes towards their eastern neighbours. The tsars did not allow anti-Islamic
prejudice to interfere with practical arrangements to improve military security;
nor did they promote a sustained missionary effort by the Church. In the early
seventeenth century only about one-sixth of Tatar servitors in the Kazan'
region were categorized as 'newly baptized' (novokreshchentsy).^91 However,
from Ivan Ill's reign onwards the relatively few dignitaries who took the
drastic step of forsaking Islam were handsomely rewarded. The most success-
ful was Sain-Bulat, who for a brief term (1575-6) even occupied Ivan IV's
throne as Grand Prince Simeon Bekbulatovich. Many such individuals married
Russian noblewomen and their progeny became assimilated into the elite. The
Godunov family was one of several that proudly (but probably erroneously)
traced its ance~try. back to a Tatar notable who had accepted the Muscovite
ruler's faith along with his suzerainty.
Whether or not they lost their religious and cultural identity, those Tatars
and other orientals who took service with the tsar preserved the social relation-
ships that prevailed within their own milieu. Their chiefs (tsarevich1) and
princes (murzy) brought with them a retinue of dependants who comprised a
self-contained military force. In this regard they seem to have been allowed
greater freedom than the Russian apanage princes. Only gradually did these
forces come under the control of the central bureaucracy: administratively
they were subordinate to the Kazan' chancellery, which had broad territorial
responsibilities, rather than to the Razryad. Sometimes, to be sure, the service
registers mention officials with Slavic names as commanders of such units,
whose functions included political surveillance.^92 But during the sixteenth cen-
tury Tatar noblemen held many senior military posts. When Ivan IV invaded
Livonia in 1558 his army's vanguard was led by Tsarevich Tokhtamysh, who
was of Crimean Tatar origin, and the right wing by Tsarevich Kaibulla (or


91 Kappeler, Russlands erste Nationalitiiten, p. 233; for conferment of rank on converts:
Stepanov, 'K voprosu', p. 61.
92 RK, pp. 143, 147, 205; Stepanov, 'K voprosu', p. 62.
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