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% Examine the ways in which the Romanovs changed Russia between
% 1613 and 1725
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% Reuben Thomas    2/11/91
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\title{Examine the ways in which the Romanovs changed Russia between
  1613 and 1725}
\author{Reuben Thomas}
\date{2nd March 1991}
\begin{document}
\maketitle


\section*{Michael: 1613--1645}

In 1613, Russia was in a Bad Way. It was suffering from the Time of
Troubles, which was a sort of national identity crisis brought on by
Ivan the Terrible, who was totally mad, and had killed lots of people,
including the entire population of Novgorod, which the Russians did
not like very much. This was the ideal moment for the Romanovs to
become Tsars while no-one else was looking. Michael was the first
Romanov Tsar, but his Patriarch, Filaret, told him what to do until he
died in 1633.

Filaret immediately became embroiled in a series of allegiances and
wars which were highly confusing and contradictory, as well as all the
places involved having completely unpronounceable names like Pskov,
and which were therefore much less important than what went on in
Russia. The most important event was the convention of a \emph{zemsky
  sobor}, which was a body of people convened to talk about one thing,
say, a war, and instead complained about how high taxes were, how
foreign merchants were ruining the economy, and how peasants kept on
running away and were so hard to catch. Much more useful for
administering the country were the \emph{prikazy}, or chancelleries,
which were notable for having names completely unconnected with their
function: for instance, the \emph{Posolsky}, or Diplomatic
\emph{prikaz} was concerned with the collection of taxes. This system
confused foreigners so much that no-one ever attempted to invade and
take over Russia. Michael continued in this vein, introducing several
new chancelleries such as the \emph{Chelobitnyi} or Petition, which
was concerned with rebuilding Moscow, and telling the townspeople how
\emph{well} everything was going.

At the start of Michael's reign, taxes were based on the \emph{sokha},
meaning a plough, which was a unit of land. Curiously, although the
\emph{boyars} (nobles) had all the land, the peasants had all the
\emph{sokhas}, which meant they had to pay all the taxes. Michael
changed the system so that extraordinary levies could be collected
from people who actually had money, so that he could finance his
armies, which managed to conquer large tracts of Russia which were
previously uninhabited. This enabled a massive expansion of
agriculture, as peasants who had too many \emph{sokhas} moved east,
pursued by the \emph{knout}-wielding \emph{boyars} (a \emph{knout} was
a large thonged whip with which peasants were beaten when they lied
about the number of \emph{sokhas} they possessed). Although many
peasants were carried off by Tartars, and others joined the Cossacks,
who had no \emph{sokhas}, there were enough left to farm the Steppes,
and vastly increase the total grain production of Russia, and the
number of \emph{sokhas}, much to the delight of the \emph{Boyars}.

The Russians were not as good at industry and trade, in which areas
they tended to pay foreigners to do all the work and amass the huge
profits to be gained in these areas for them: thus the metal mines
were given to a Dutchman, and the English traders were exempted from
customs duties. This pleased the English greatly, and ensured that
Russian merchants were hard pressed to survive, and so made them stick
to things that Russians were better at, like farming. In 1645, worn
out by the pressures of government, and by failing to marry his
daughter because he would not let anyone see what she looked like,
Michael died.


\section*{Alexis, Sophie and others: 1645--1689}

There was a lot of confusion at Alexis' accession, because there were
several other people pretending to be him, who fooled a lot of people,
despite the fact that they had different names, such as Timofei and
Vasily. One of the first things that Alexis did after ascending the
throne was to conclude another perpetual peace with the Polish king
Koleslaw IV, which lasted for several years.

In order to uphold the perpetual peace, Alexis needed a huge army. The
nobles enjoyed this at first, because it meant they could charge their
horses around showing off to the peasants, but then it was realised
that this was not very effective in terms of actually winning battles,
and so they had to learn how to fire cannon instead, which was much
less fun. The ordinary soldiers had to learn how to march properly and
they were given long and complicated books to help them, such as
\emph{Uchenie i khitrost ratnogo stroeniia pekhotnykh liudei}, or
\emph{The Drill and Strategy of the Military Formation of Foot
  Soldiers}, which were not terribly useful, as few of them could
read.

Alexis' reign was notably revolting: some of the nobles revolted
because he would not let them play at government, and the peasants
revolted because he taxed salt, and they did not see why he should
have any more than them just because he was Tsar. There were even some
rather revolting expeditions to Siberia on which the explorers had to
eat rotten carcasses to survive (without salt, of course). There were
dividends from these expeditions, however, including tribute from the
people living in Siberia called \emph{iasak}, which was a bit like
\emph{sokhas}, except that ploughs were useless on frozen tundra, and
thus were not employed.

One problem with laws in Russia was that no-one knew what they
actually were, because no-one had thought to write them down. In 1649
Alexis corrected this oversight, and the \emph{Ulozhenie}, or Code,
was produced. This made absolutely sure that the peasants realized
their place, by calling them serfs instead, and firmly put them In
Their Place, where they stayed until 1861.

All these reforms cost a lot of money, so Alexis abolished the
\emph{sokha} in favour of the household, of which many more were
extant. He also rationalised the system of local government: as well
as the local \emph{voevoda} or sheriffs, he also drew up
\emph{razriady} or districts, which made the map look much more
complicated, and hence made Russia more credible abroad, as well as
there being more administrators to collect taxes, and hence less
revenue. He also realized that paying English merchants to be rich was
not very profitable, and so made them pay duties, and stopped them
from selling things, which meant that Russian merchants finally became
a realistic proposition.

When he died in 1676, Alexis left the throne to his eldest son,
Theodore, but he was a Sickly Youth, and did not get to the throne
fast enough, as his half-sister, Sophie, beat him to it. She did not
occupy the throne for very long, as Peter, who was bigger than her,
soon pushed her off, although it took him until 1689 to do this, by
which time Theodore had died. Ivan V was senior Tsar over Peter until
he died in 1696. Neither Sophie nor Ivan did anything of importance
whilst on the throne, both being too busy trying to keep Peter off.
Thus arrived the most important Tsar for many years.


\section*{Peter the Great: 1689--1725}

The secrets of Peter's success were:
\begin{enumerate}
\item He was great (about 6' 7''), which helped a lot when telling
  people that No, he knew what he was talking about, and pushing them
  off thrones.
\item Peter was the first Tsar to realize that the government of
  Russia was essentially a farcical affair, and should not be taken at
  all seriously. To this end, instead of having a cabinet or privy
  council, he had `The Most Drunken Council of Fools and Jesters'
  which consisted entirely of men who could drink almost as much as he
  could, and were much more successful at governing than their
  predecessors, and many of their successors.
\end{enumerate}

Although Peter continued to expand the army, and indeed, created the
War College and many schools to educate the officers, so that they
could read the instruction manuals, his greatest contribution to the
military was the founding of the Navy. In his youth, Peter had been to
Holland to find out how to build boats, and he put his by now
considerable experience into practice, so that by the end of his reign
he had built well over 150 ships, employing between them in excess of
28,000 sailors.

Peter's reign was a time of great activity for the peasants (many of
whom were now serfs), who were invited to collaborate in, among other
things, the construction of Azov, the fortress on the Black Sea; St
Petersburg, the replacement capital for Moscow which Peter was
building; and many canals, bridges, and similar schemes.

By now it will be obvious to the observant reader that Peter had a
mania for organisation. This was further expressed in a maniacal
reshuffle of central and local government, consisting of a lot of
renaming, and moving people around. Many historians claim that it was
actually more effective this way, but these historians are probably
bureaucrats themselves. Another project was yet another document
called the Table of Ranks, which contained fourteen \emph{punkty}, or
points, of explanation, none of them in the least intelligible.

Despite the Tsars, the population of Russia had by now grown
significantly since 1613, with a total of 7,570,376 souls and
15,577,854 people now inhabiting Russia. Most of them farmed in much
the same way as they had done since long before 1613, growing rye,
oats, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, peas, tobacco, flax, hemp, and
other things; as before they still did not consume very much of what
they grew.

Peter was much better at economics than his predecessors, and he
actually got the balance of trade in Russia's favour during his reign.
He also continued the good work with merchants and heavy industry,
which thrived, though this time in Russian hands. All round, Peter was
a Good Thing for the Russian economy, even if he was a bit of a
show-off. He was a modernist, and brought Russia Up To Date. It is
curious that, despite all the other amazing things he did for Russia,
he is best remembered for his West Window.


\end{document}
