The Russian Empire 1450–1801

in the tsar’s regiment each brought about nine armed slaves to battle with them. Thus, in essence, the retinue principle endured ...

introduced. The Moscow elite survived these challenges by reliance on landed wealth and by diversifying into high-level bureaucr ...

gentry joined bureaucratic work. In the north, state peasants staffed offices; on the frontiers, provincial gentry and contract ...

inexpensive for the state. Their economic position was superior to taxed peasants and townsmen, and to that degree they were co- ...

into new model infantry, while those in Moscow and some major towns (Astra- khan, Kazan) endured as urban policemen. Motivated b ...

cash to pay for the army prompted afinal expedient that made the Muscovite army overall quite distinctive. Alongside the growing ...

from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries the Polish and Bohemian elites won such legal guarantees as well. In each of the ...

Press of America, 2009); Richard Hellie,Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Pre ...

10 Rural Taxpayers Peasants and Beyond The majority of the Russian empire’s population was taxpayers, mostly agrarian, but also ...

half of Russia’s East Slavic peasants over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But the same processes that made peasants se ...

loans or upkeep. In a move that worsened the indebted person’s situation but helped to stabilize the gentry’s labor force, decre ...

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PEASANTRY Peasants in Russia’s forests and cultivated steppe lands organized their lives in a complex int ...

were free to move and land was available, this political economy made sense. Even when Russian and Ukrainian peasants began to m ...

mid-sixteenth century. Communalism was not an organic element of the Russian character, as some have idealistically argued, but ...

patriarch’s wife lorded over younger women in the household; on rare occasions, widows (with capable sons) joined the council of ...

The elders and officials of the commune had tremendous power. They appor- tioned obligations and tasks collectively; they assign ...

AGENCY AND RESISTANCE It was not in the self-interest of communes to resist the state or their landlords; peasants were tied to ...

angry at Russian seizure of their lands or newly imposed taxation or enserfment. None of these rebellions was successful in chan ...

Hetmanate support Russian troops and pay some taxes. As discussed in Chapters 3 – 5, these areas each organized their own govern ...

law, explaining to the Tunguz tribe,“if he had planned this with intent, then he would be killed without mercy. But in an uninte ...