The Summer of 1612

Taking back the kingdom

By the summer of 1612, the Tsardom of Muscovy was at a low point. In fact it was questionable whether or not it deserved the name.

The tsardom’s various lands were bound together by the most tenuous of ties. Some were controlled by Cossack detachments (the term “bands” might be more apt). The tsardom’s northeastern region around Novgorod and Pskov was occupied by the Swedes, who refused to leave this prosperous area until they were paid for the military assistance they had provided Vasily Shuisky (Vasily IV, 1552-1612), who had been overthrown two years earlier and died soon thereafter. The western portion was controlled by the Poles. In 1610 the boyars of Muscovy had invited the Polish Prince Władysław to rule over all of Muscovy. This is not to say that Władysław actually risked coming to Moscow (he was only fifteen when elected), but as part of the deal, a Polish garrison was stationed at the Kremlin.

Some parts of the tsardom still considered Vasily Shuisky (who was still alive, but would soon die in Polish captivity) to be their ruler, while others did not believe that the False Dmitry had really been killed, or that he was False, for that matter, believing him to be Ivan the Terrible’s rightful son, who miraculously survived his enemies’ various attempts to do away with him.

As the nineteenth century historical dramatist and satirist Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy expressed it in rhyme:

Казаки и поляки

Поляки и казаки

Нас паки бьют и паки

Мы ж без царя как раки

Застряли на мели

Cossacks and Poles

Poles and Cossacks

They beat us and they beat us

Without a tsar we were like crabs

Stranded on the shoals

Some cities were so fed up that they swore an oath to faithfully serve “any tsar of Muscovy.” In other words, they preferred to stay out of trouble by steering clear of all the power struggles roiling Rus.

The conventional wisdom is that this period was one big national catastrophe, but upon closer inspection some interesting trends can be seen that began to take shape during the “Time of Troubles” (Смута, in Russian). As the government became weaker, various segments of society began to assert themselves. The words used by the renowned historian Vasily Klyuchevsky (1841-1911) to describe the period preceding the Time of Troubles – “The State swelled, the people shriveled” – help to explain the crisis that descended on Muscovy around the dawn of the seventeenth century. The financial, political, and social burdens the state had placed on the people had become so onerous that almost every segment of the population rose up against the government, from peasants, slaves, and Cossacks to aristocratic boyars.

But this was not just the usual reaction to brutal oppression with equally brutal rebellion, leading to nothing but murder, war, and destruction. In fact, this difficult period saw a growing role played by the Zemsky Sobors, assemblies of representatives of many segments of society, even peasants in some cases. In 1598, when the Rurik Dynasty came to an end, it was just such an assembly that elected Boris Godunov tsar. And in a further manifestation of democracy, Godunov swore an oath before the Sobor that there would be no executions without a trial. Godunov kept this promise for five years.

He did, of course, round up his Romanov rivals and expel them from Moscow, but there were no brutal executions of the sort that were commonplace under Ivan the Terrible. Only when a rebellion erupted under the leadership of the hetman Khlopko did Godunov go back on his word and order that the insurgents be put to death.

A few years after Godunov’s reign, Vasily Shuisky also supposedly came to power based on the vote of a Zemsky Sobor. Later, the tsar’s enemies claimed that there was, in fact, no assembly, just a gathering of Shuisky’s supporters shouting “We want Vasily Ivanovich to be tsar!” Whatever the case may be, however the unscrupulous and cunning Shuisky managed to attain the throne, he did feel compelled to earn the support of the public and to claim that he was endowed with power by representatives of “all the land” and even swore a sacred “cross-kissing” oath that he would involve the Zemsky Sobor and the boyar Duma in his decision-making and that no one would be condemned without a trial.

A few years later, by which time there was virtually no government to speak of in Moscow, society awoke and took matters into its own hands. The year 1611 saw the first attempt by the populace to come together and bring order to the country. This is when the first volunteer army was rallied and marched on Moscow to expel the Polish troops.

The first effort was a failure. There were really two armies, one made up of the nobility and townsfolk, and another of Cossacks, who were generally feared, and with good reason. One of the noble leaders, Prokopy Lyapunov, supposedly called for depriving the Cossacks of their privileges. Whether or not he actually advocated this change we do not know; the rumor may have been nothing more than disinformation. Without taking the time to investigate, the Cossacks killed Lyapunov. Not surprisingly, this soured relations between Cossacks and the rest of the population.

Before long, a merchant in Nizhny Novgorod by the name of Kuzma Minin began to assemble a new army. What is interesting here is that neither Minin nor the other leader of this movement, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, were energetic political or even military leaders before or after the events of 1612. They were ordinary men with no particular talents. They were simply sick and tired of chaos and disorder.

True, the process by which they raised the army was not as praiseworthy as it is usually depicted in Russian history. Those who were reluctant to lend their financial support to the endeavor were forced to do so, but there were also plenty of eager contributors and volunteers.

By the late spring of 1612, the army reached Yaroslavl, and for several weeks additional detachments flowed into that city. The army was comprised of a wide cross-section of society – nobles, townsfolk, peasants – but not, on this occasion, Cossacks. An alliance with them was avoided this time, probably a wise decision. In late July the army marched on Moscow, and by August all but the Kremlin had been liberated. The last of the Polish detachments surrendered in November.

Once again the Zemsky Sobor convened to select a new ruler. Its choice fell on Mikhail Romanov, marking the end of the Time of Troubles and the beginning of Russia’s most enduring (and final) royal dynasty. Whether or not this new tsar pledged to be guided by the opinions of the Zemsky Sobor is a point of contention among historians. Evidence for this has yet to be found.

But as time went on, there was a return to the old, more autocratic, ways of governing. At first the Romanovs convened the Zemsky Sobors almost every year and constantly consulted with representatives of the people. But as their hold on power grew, the assemblies were convened with decreasing frequency, and after 1653 they disappeared entirely. Around this same time starostas (“elders” elected to govern locally) were replaced by voyevodes appointed by Moscow. Again, the state began to swell and the people to shrivel.

Will Russia ever break this vicious cycle?