The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

Volga and Bashkiria; when organized rebellion broke out, as in the Stepan Razin
(1670–1) and Emelian Pugachev (1773–5) uprisings, rebel leaders were executed
by the hundreds, their bodies left swinging from gallows to deter others. In
conquered territories, Russia stationed a governor with a garrison of musketeers
or Cossacks to enforce control.
One potent tool of control—namely forcible resettlement of peoples—Muscovy
borrowed from the Mongols, who moved artisans and merchants to their urban
centers (for the Qipchaq khanate, to Sarai) and enslaved others. In times of
conquest Muscovy moved populations to replace potentially rebellious communi-
ties, capitalizing on expertise where possible. Examples begin already in thefif-
teenth century. Within ten years of the conquest of Novgorod in 1478, hundreds
of Novgorodian merchants had been expelled to towns such as Vladimir, Pereia-
slavl’, and even Moscow in the center. They were replaced with merchants from
Moscow, who formed their own neighborhoods and maintained their identification
with Moscow so much so that a century later, when Ivan IV expelled more than
100 Novgorodian merchants to Moscow, many of them identified as descendants
of those who had been moved to Novgorod in 1478. Not just merchants, but
gentry were transported: over 80 percent of landholdings in the Novgorodian
countryside were confiscated around 1478, their owners imprisoned or forcibly
transferred to become provincial gentry in the center. Their landholdings were
turned into the new category of“service tenure”(pomest’e) lands and settled with at
least 1,300 families loyal to Moscow, some transferred from the center, some
promoted from lower social status.
Subsequent conquests followed the same pattern: Tver’merchants were moved
to Moscow after that town’s subjugation in 1485. After the conquest of Pskov in
1510, more than 1,000 servitors imported from the center took the estates of the
richest Pskov landowners, who were exiled away from the border. Pskov merchants
were moved to Moscow, where they settled together in a specific quarter. Similarly,
after Smolensk was conquered in 1514, its merchants were moved to Moscow,
where they became so successful, probably specializing in trade to the Grand Duchy
and Poland, that they were given their own privileged status as a group within the
Moscow merchants. Riazan’merchants and gentry were made to exchange places
with counterparts from the center when that city was taken over in 1521.
Through the sixteenth century population transfers from border towns and the
center continued: periodically Moscow kept Novgorod in check by moving mer-
chants to the center, as in 1546 and during the Oprichnina. During the Livonian
War (1560s–70s), merchants from Pskov, Pereiaslavl’, Viaz’ma, and the old
Novgorodian hinterland were moved inland. The bloody conquest of Kazan was
followed by expulsions of Tatar elites, merchants, and population, replaced by
traders and military men from Moscow, Ustiug, Vologda, Kostroma, Vladimir,
Pereiaslavl’, and Iaroslavl’. Those moved from Pskov in 1555 took up a whole city
street as they had in Moscow. In 1565 eminent princely families, expropriated in
the Oprichnina, were moved to Kazan province. Although amnesty followed
within a year, many did not receive their original lands back and were simply
moved back closer to Moscow.


162 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801

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