State, Power and Community in Early Modern Russia : The Case of Kozlov, 1635-1649

State, Power and Community in Early Modern Russia is a vivid reconstruction of life in one of the garrison towns built on Muscovy's southern steppe frontier in the early seventeenth century to defend against Tatar raids. It focuses on how the colonization process shaped power relations in a particular southern garrison community, both at the village level, within the land commune, and at the district level, between the general garrison community and the appointed officials representing state authority. "In 1635 a new garrison colony was founded at Kozlov on the edge of Muscovy's southern steppe frontier to guard against Tatar raids. State Power and Community in Early Modern Russia uses records from the Tsar's Military Chancellery to reconstruct life in Kozlov and its outlying villages. It describes how Kozlov's colonists were recruited and vetted; how they established their households, tilled their land, and participated in the local market; and how they paid their taxes, policed themselves, and performed their military duty. The book is especially concerned with the garrison community's relations with the town governors representing the authority of the Tsar and the central chancelleries - and what the pattern of these relations says about the limits of state power and subaltern autonomy under a Muscovite autocracy."--Jacket Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-29 Kozlov and the Pacification of the Nogai Front....Pages 30-74 Enlistment and the Construction of Social Identity....Pages 75-116 Property, Labor, and the Village Commune....Pages 117-151 Governing Kozlov....Pages 152-206 Supplication, Subversion, and Resistance....Pages 207-248 Back Matter....Pages 249-308