Rewriting the Code

29 January 1649

On June 1, 1648, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was 19 years old and had been ruling for just three years. As he was returning to Moscow after completing a pilgrimage, Muscovites surrounded the royal cortege and began pleading with him to protect them from the abuses being perpetrated by officials whose sole occupation seemed to be extracting bribes. Although the tsar’s subjects were begging their “father” to intercede on their behalf, they were not behaving like typical humble supplicants. They quickly began to demand – demand! – changes, first and foremost the punishment of said odious officials.

One of the men for whose blood these importunate subjects thirsted was the tsar’s own tutor, Boris Morozov, who was despised for his greed. He had earned particular disdain after trying to impose an indirect tax on salt, which would have sent all prices soaring. Although the tax had been abolished a year earlier, hatred toward this boyar had not abated. The day of what is now known as the Salt Riot turned bloody. A crowd managed to get their hands on some of the despised officials and literally tore them to pieces. The tsar succeeding in saving Morozov, tearfully pleading for his tutor’s life, but he was compelled to send him into remote exile, which proved to be Morozov’s salvation. The capital was in turmoil for several more days, and it was not just the impoverished and deprived who partook in the mayhem. In fact, everyone from clerks and artisans to merchants and even nobles were shouting, rioting, and perhaps even setting houses on fire. More surprising yet, the rioters were not put down or dispersed.

The tsar came out to address the rebels, attempting to chasten them. Finally, after the killing of Pleshcheyev and Trakhaniotov, two particularly despised dyaks (functionaries who helped the boyars run Russia in the fifteenth through seventeenth century), and the tsar’s pledge to uphold justice henceforth, the rioters finally headed home.

But that was not the end of it. At one point during these days of turmoil, the tsars’ servitors suddenly started demanding that the tsar convene a Zemsky Sobor. This was unexpected, but not shocking. The seventeenth century was a brief but vibrant heyday of these councils, which were comprised of representatives sent from all corners of Muscovy. During the Time of Trouble, several decades before Alexei Mikhailovich ascended the throne, the Zemsky Sobor had turned into something akin to a Russian parliament. Boris Godunov was elected tsar by a Zemsky Sobor, and another tsar, Vasily Shuysky, claimed to have been so elected, although there was some dispute on that count. However, the mere fact that he sought legitimacy through such a claim is illustrative.

The Time of Troubles passed, but the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fyodorovich, did not feel terribly confident on the throne at first and frequently convened Zemsky Sobors to consult on such important issues as whether or not to levy new taxes or go to war. However, once he became more surefooted, he felt less of a need to consult with this body. Toward the end of Mikhail’s reign, the councils met far less frequently, and under Alexei none had yet been convened.

Now that Moscow was gripped by rebellion, Alexei was of course amenable to meeting with representatives of “the land” (zemsky is an adjectival form of zemlya or land), and that fall, several months after the Salt Riot, the august body was convened, and it was assigned the weighty task of preparing a body of laws. The tsar had promised an end to abuses of power. Once there were new laws that everyone found agreeable, peace would surely be restored.

The Zemsky Sobor deliberated for several months, and in early 1649 a body of laws – the Council Code, often referred to by its Russian name, Sobornoye ulozhenie – was ready. And what did these rebels demanding a representative assembly and finally meeting in this legislative body get? Oh, they got quite a few fascinating things. The Council Code was indeed a detailed and far-ranging body of laws, and we would not be able to go through all of its niceties here, but two innovations deserve particular attention.

First, it was this Code that solidified the gradual process of enslaving the peasantry. For the past half century, the peasants had not been allowed to leave their masters, and those who escaped were hunted down and returned. Yet there was a time limit of five years for retrieving a missing serf, so any serf who managed to go five years without being found was home free. Five years had been extended to 10, and then 15, then 25, but the Council Code removed the time limit altogether. This meant that, in theory, fugitives could be returned to their masters after thirty or even fifty years on the lam.

This change was largely symbolic (it is unlikely that anyone would continue looking for a runaway peasant after so many years), but the symbolism was telling: the nobles who had wanted to convene the Zemsky Sobor were not looking for greater freedom for themselves; they wanted less freedom for their peasants, for them to stop running away. The tsar accommodated them. The logic of the situation was clear: the Zemsky Sobor was largely comprised of landowning nobles – the peasants were not represented, so the landowners voted in their own interest.

Second, the council also included representatives of the posads, urban settlements inhabited by skilled workers and traders. The Council Code also contained a provision that posadskie lyudi (people of the posads) who fled their posad would be found and forcibly returned.

How could that be? Why would the posad residents vote to deprive themselves of freedom? Alas, that is what they did. This was a matter of simple economics. The posad paid taxes that were levied on the community as a whole, not on individuals. So the fewer the people, the greater the burden on any individual. To save on their tax bills, the members of these communities gladly voted to limit their freedom, but whereas the serfs were subjugated to a landowner, they were subjugating themselves to the state. Now you could not just up and relocate. Furthermore, you had to keep plying the same trade as his father and grandfather before him. No freedom of choice, no striking out for a better life somewhere else.

The 1649 Zemsky Sobor turned out to be one of the last in Russian history. Scholars argue over how many more times it convened – maybe one, maybe two, but no more.

But the fact was that the state had now consolidated its power and had no desire to share it.