The Russian Empire, 1450-1801 (Oxford History of Early Modern Europe)

Modern Russian identity and historical experience has been largely shaped by Russia's imperial past: an empire that was founded in the early modern era and endures in large part today. __The Russian Empire 1450-1801__ surveys how the areas that made up the empire were conquered and how they were governed. It considers the Russian empire a 'Eurasian empire', characterized by a 'politics of difference': the rulers and their elites at the center defined the state's needs minimally - with control over defense, criminal law, taxation, and mobilization of resources - and otherwise tolerated local religions, languages, cultures, elites, and institutions. The center related to communities and religions vertically, according each a modicum of rights and autonomies, but didn't allow horizontal connections across nobilities, townsmen, or other groups potentially with common interests to coalesce. Thus, the Russian empire was multi-ethnic and multi-religious; Nancy Kollmann gives detailed attention to the major ethnic and religious groups, and surveys the government's strategies of governance - centralized bureaucracy, military reform, and a changed judicial system. The volume pays particular attention to the dissemination of a supranational ideology of political legitimacy in a variety of media - written sources and primarily public ritual, painting, and particularly architecture. Beginning with foundational features, such as geography, climate, demography, and geopolitical situation, __The Russian Empire 1450-1801__ explores the empire's primarily agrarian economy, serfdom, towns and trade, as well as the many religious groups - primarily Orthodoxy, Islam, and Buddhism. It tracks the emergence of an 'Imperial nobility' and a national self-consciousness that was, by the end of the eighteenth century, distinctly imperial, embracing the diversity of the empire's many peoples and cultures. Cover 1 The Russian Empire 1450-1801 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Preface 8 Table of Contents 10 List of Illustrations 12 List of Maps 14 Introduction: The Russian Empire 1450-1801 16 Prologue: The Chronological Arc 24 DOMESTIC EVENTS 24 RUSSIA AND THE WORLD IN THE FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 26 RUSSIA AND THE WORLD IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 30 Part I: Assembling the Empire 34 1: Land, People, and Global Context 36 Geography and Climate 36 Climatic Conditions 40 Disease 43 Population 44 Global Interconnections 47 2: De Facto Empire: The Rise of Moscow 56 Moscow ́s Heritage 56 Rise of Moscow in a Regional Vacuum of Power 60 Muscovy ́s Expansion 1450-1580s: West to the Baltic 63 3: Assembling Empire: The First Centuries 70 Conquest of Kazan 70 Forest and Steppe, Middlemen and Middle Ground 72 Steppe, Slaves, and Nomads 80 Sloboda Ukraine 83 Bashkiria 84 Nogais, Kalmyks 85 Don Cossacks 86 Modern-day Ukrainian and Belarus ́an lands 87 4: Eighteenth-Century Expansion: Siberia and Steppe 99 Siberia 99 The Middle Volga, Urals, Bashkiria 103 Kalmyks and Kazakhs 108 Curtailing the Middle Ground 109 Northern Caucasus 111 Don Cossacks 114 5: Western Borderlands in the Eighteenth Century 118 Towards the Black Sea 118 Populating ``New Russia ́ ́ 128 The Baltics 131 Partitions of Poland: Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews 136 Empire in 1801 139 Part II: The Muscovite Empire Through the Seventeenth Century 142 6: Broadcasting Legitimacy 144 Symbolic Centers and Built Environment 156 Political Succession and Legitimacy 161 7: The State Wields its Power 175 Coerced Mobility 176 Military Provisioning 178 Population Mobility and Movement 181 Monopoly on Violence: The Criminal Law 183 Empire-wide Control: Bureaucracy 187 Communications: Cadasters and Maps 192 Communications: Roads and Coachmen 194 Public Hygiene 197 8: Trade, Tax, and Production 202 Trade Routes and Products: The Northern European Connection 203 Trade Routes: Eastern Trade 207 Trade Policy 211 Domestic Tax Policy 214 Productive Industry 217 9: Co-optation: Creating an Elite 222 Circles of Society 222 The Inner Circle and Boyars 224 Gentry Cavalry and Military Reform 228 Bureaucrats as Elite 230 Lesser Military Servitors 231 A Nobility? 234 10: Rural Taxpayers: Peasants and Beyond 237 Serfdom and Slavery 237 The Social Life of the Peasantry 240 Agency and Resistance 245 Other Taxpayers 246 11: Towns and Townsmen 250 12: Varieties of Orthodoxy 259 Paths of Spirituality 259 The Church as Institution 262 Visions of Spirituality 263 Policing the Faith into Schism 269 Folk Belief and Syncretism 273 ``Christianization without Conversion ́ ́ 277 Part III: The Century of Empire: Russia in the Eighteenth Century 280 13: Imperial Imaginary and the Political Center 282 Refreshing the Imperial Imaginary 282 The Role of Individuals 291 Legitimizing Succession 294 Imperial Imaginary in the Built Environment 299 14: Army and Administration 311 Military Reforms 311 Recruitment and its Social Impact 313 Administration 315 Officialdom between Peter and Catherine 318 Catherine II between Cameralism and Empire 321 Bureaucratic Personnel 326 Reforms of Paul I 327 15: Fiscal Policy and Trade 331 Towards Fiscal Policy: Catherinian Fiscal Institutions 331 Industry, Manufacturing, and Export 333 Markets, Trade, and Ports 336 Tariffs 339 Sources of Income: Direct Taxation 342 Fiscal Policy and Empire 344 Currency, Financial Instruments, and Debt 347 16: Surveillance and Control in Imperial Expansion 350 Forcible Population Movements 350 Maps and Censuses 351 Roads, Coach, and Mail 354 Waterways 356 Passports 358 Military Provisioning 359 Grain Reserves, Grain Supplies 359 Public Health 361 The Law 362 17: Soslovie, Serfs, and Society on the Move 370 Population Growth and Mobility 371 Composition of the Population 373 Odnodvortsy 374 Tax and Labor: Peasant Obligations in the Eighteenth Century 375 Unenserfed Peasants 377 Lord and Peasant 379 Variety within Serfdom 382 Resistance 384 18: Towns, Townsmen, and Urban Reform 390 Raznochintsy 390 Urban Reform from Peter I to Catherine II 392 Varieties of Urban Life and Governance 397 The Culture of Merchants 407 19: Confessionalization in a Multi-ethnic Empire 411 Islam 412 Buddhism 416 Lutheranism 417 Catholicism 419 Judaism 419 Confessionalization across Empire 421 20: Maintaining Orthodoxy 425 Reforming the Orthodox Church 425 Old Believers 431 Uniate Church 435 21: Nobility, Culture, and Intellectual Life 442 An Open Imperial Nobility 443 Economic Diversity in the Nobility 446 Consolidating the Nobility 447 Culture, Cohesion, and State Policy 450 A Europeanized Elite and ``Advice ́ ́ Culture 454 A Public Sphere? 460 Conclusion: Constructing and Envisioning Empire 465 Index 478 "Modern Russian identity and historical experience has been largely shaped by Russia's imperial past: an empire that was founded in the early modern era and endures in large part today. The Russian Empire 1450-1801 surveys how the areas that made up the empire were conquered and how they were governed. It considers the Russian empire a 'Eurasian empire', characterized by a 'politics of difference': the rulers and their elites at the center defined the state's needs minimally - with control over defense, criminal law, taxation, and mobilization of resources - and otherwise tolerated local religions, languages, cultures, elites, and institutions. The center related to communities and religions vertically, according each a modicum of rights and autonomies, but didn't allow horizontal connections across nobilities, townsmen, or other groups potentially with common interests to coalesce. Thus, the Russian empire was multi-ethnic and multi-religious; Nancy Kollmann gives detailed attention to the major ethnic and religious groups, and surveys the government's strategies of governance - centralized bureaucracy, military reform, and a changed judicial system. The volume pays particular attention to the dissemination of a supranational ideology of political legitimacy in a variety of media - written sources and primarily public ritual, painting, and particularly architecture. Beginning with foundational features, such as geography, climate, demography, and geopolitical situation, The Russian Empire 1450-1801 explores the empire's primarily agrarian economy, serfdom, towns and trade, as well as the many religious groups - primarily Orthodoxy, Islam, and Buddhism. It tracks the emergence of an 'Imperial nobility' and a national self-consciousness that was, by the end of the eighteenth century, distinctly imperial, embracing the diversity of the empire's many peoples and cultures." -- Publisher's description