Ethnicity as social rank: Governance, law, and empire in Muscovite Russia∗

∗ Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Kirkland Center of Hamilton College, September 2004, and at the Early Slavists Seminar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of Harvard University, March 2005. I thank the participants of these forums and the anonymous readers for Nationalities Papers for their comments and suggestions.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

∗ Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Kirkland Center of Hamilton College, September 2004, and at the Early Slavists Seminar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of Harvard University, March 2005. I thank the participants of these forums and the anonymous readers for Nationalities Papers for their comments and suggestions.

1. H. G. Koenigsberger, “Dominium Regale or Dominium Politicum et Regale: Monarchies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe,” in Politicians and Virtuosi: Essays in Early Modern History (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), p. 12.

2. Legal reforms as a method of colonial control have attracted increasing attention in recent years. For a comparative discussion of the process, see Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge, 2002).

3. Horace W. Dewey, “The 1497 Sudebnik: Muscovite Russia's First National Law Code,” American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 15, 1956, pp. 325–338; A. A. Zimin, Reformy Ivana Groznogo (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'no-ekonomicheskiu i literatury, 1960); Horace W. Dewey, “The 1550 Sudebnik as an Instrument of Reform,” in Henry J. Cohn, ed., Government in Reformation Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972); Ann Kleimola, “Status, Place, and Politics: The Rise of Mestnichestvo during the Boiarskoe Pravlenie,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, Vol. 27, 1980, pp. 195–214.

4. These two methods of managing composite monarchies were suggested by J. H. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” Past and Present, Vol. 137, 1992, p. 69.

5. Paul Bushkovitch recently applied the composite monarchy model to Muscovy, but argues that the process began with the southern expansion into Ukrainian lands. This article argues, conversely, that the process began a century earlier with Muscovy's first incorporation of a foreign, ethnically and religiously different state, the Khanate of Kazan'. Paul Bushkovitch, “What Is Russia? Russian National Identity and the State, 1500–1917,” in Andreas Kappeler, Zenon Kohut, Frank Sysyn & Mark von Hagen, eds, Culture, Nation, and Identity: The Ukrainian–Russian Encounter, 1600–1945 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2003), pp. 144–161.

6. Though non-Russian ethnic status became a separate social rank in Muscovy, it did not preclude access to the legal system. This conclustion follows George Weickhardt's observations of “due process and equal justice” in Muscovy—it may not have been equality, but it was equal access. George G. Weickhardt, “Due Process and Equal Justice in the Muscovite Codes,” Russian Review, Vol. 51, 1992, pp. 463–480.

7. I. P. Ermolaev, Srednee Povolzh'e vo vtoroi polovine XVI–XVII vv. (Upravlenie Kazanskim kraem). Kazan': Izdatel'stvo Kazanskogo universiteta, 1982); S. Kh. Alishev, Istoricheskie sudby narodov Srednego Povolzh'ia XVI–nachalo XIX v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1990); and Aidar Nogmanov, Tatary Srednego Povolzh'ia i Priural'ia v Rossiiskom zakonodatel'stve vtoroi poloviny XVI–XVIII vv. (Kazan': Nauka, 2002).

8. Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), 37 vols (St Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo arkheograficheskoi kommissii Aiplatov, Gosudarstvennyi komitet Chuvashskoi Respubliki, 1862–1928), vol. 13, pp. 269–270, 281–282; and vol. 14, p. 34. See also G. N. Aiplatov, “‘Cheremisskie voiny’ vtoroi poloviny XVI v. v otechestvennoi istoriografii,” in Iu. P. Smirnov, ed., Voprosy istorii narodov Povolzh'ia i Priural'ia (Cheboksary, 1997), pp. 70–79; Kh. Alishev, Ternistyi put' bor'by za svobodu (Sotsial'naia natsional'no-osvoditel'naia bor'ba Tatarskogo naroda. II polovina XVI–XIX vv.) (Kazan': FEN, 1999), pp. 12–21; A. G. Bakhtin, XV–XVI veka v istorii Mariiskogo kraia (Ioshkar-Ola: Mariiskii poligrafichesko-izdatel'skii kombinat, 1998), pp. 139–155; A. V. Khlebnikov, ed, Istoriia Mariiskoi ASSR, Vol. 1, Sredneishikh vremen do Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii (Ioshkar-Ola: Mariiskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1986), pp. 66–73; and F. M. Sultanov, Islam i Tatarskoe natsional'noe dvizhenie v Rossiiskom i mirovom musul'manskom kontekste: Istoriia i sovremennost' (Kazan': Akademii nauk Respubliki Tatarstan institut istorii, 1999), pp. 50–56.

9. For accounts of some of the violence in the Middle Volga Region, see Istoriia Tatarii v dokumentakh i materialakh (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1937), p. 367, and A. I. Kopanev and A. G. Man'kov, eds, Vosstanie I. Bolotnikova: Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow: Nauka, 1959). The most recent discussion of these events is in Chester S. L. Dunning, Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), pp. 261–384, passim.

10. V. D. Dmitriev, “Vosstanie iasachnykh liudei Srednego Povolzh'ia i Priural'ia 1615–1616 godov,” Voprosy drevnei i srednevkovoi istorii Chuvashii, Vol. 105, 1980, pp. 109–119; Alishev, Ternistyi put' bor'by za svobodu, pp. 27–28.

11. For a more extensive discussion of military service in the Middle Volga Region, see Matthew P. Romaniello, “Grant, Settle, Negotiate: Military Service in the Middle Volga Region,” in Nicholas Breyfogle, Abby Schrader, and Willard Sunderland, eds, Peopling the Periphery: Slavic Settlement in Eurasia from Muscovite to Soviet Times (London: Routledge, forthcoming). See also S. Kh. Alishev, Istoricheskie subdy narodov Srednego Povolzh'ia XVI–nachalo XIX v. (Moscow, 1990), esp. p. 191; Janet Martin, “Multiethnicity in Muscovy: A Consideration of Christian and Muslim Tatars in the 1550s–1580s,” Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 5, 2001, pp. 1–23; and Janet Martin, “Tatars in the Muscovite Army during the Livonian War,” in Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe, eds, The Military and Society in Russia, 1450–1917 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002), pp. 365–387.

12. I. P. Ermolaev and D. A. Mustafina, eds, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia: Iz arkhivokhranilits Tatarskogo ASSR (vtoraia polovina XVI–seredina XVII): Tektsy i komment (Kazan': Izdatel'stvo Kazanskogo universiteta, 1990), #16, 18 July 1595, pp. 49–51.

13. Nurmamet Nurkeev was awarded hereditary land in addition to his pomest'e in acknowledgment of his loyal service following his father's. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #31, 13 April 1622, pp. 72–74.

14. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (RGADA), f. 1156, Saranskaia prikaznaia izba, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 4–5, after 27 June 1680.

15. RGADA, f. 159, Prikaznye dela novoi razborki, op. 2, Posol'skii prikaz, d. 1171, l. 1, 1671–1676.

16. As late as 1675, when the Russian Leontii Luk'ianov syn Chufarov received his pomest'e in Simbirsk uezd, loyal service was cited as the reason for the grant. P. Martynov, comp., Seleniia Simbirskogo uezda (Materialy dlia istoriia Simbirskogo dvorianstva i chastnogo zemlevladeniia v Simbirskom uezde) (Simbirsk: Tipo-litografiia A. T. Tokareva, 1903), p. 120.

17. For a discussion of service and its impact on advancement for Russian servitors, see Robert O. Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613–1689 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), especially pp. 34–64; and Nancy Shields Kollmann, Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 90–97.

18. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #17, 11 April 1597, pp. 51–52; #21, no earlier than September 1602, pp. 56–57; #23, 18 November 1604, pp. 58–59; #32, after 16 February 1616, pp. 74–75; #33, 22 February 1616, pp. 76–78.

19. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #47, March 1632, pp. 107–109; #51, no earlier than 1636, pp. 113–114; #36, 10 June 1620, p. 82; #66, no earlier than 1645, pp. 146–147.

20. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #58, 16 September 1640, pp. 133–134.

21. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #43, 7 June 1623, pp. 99–101; Evfimii Malov, comp., Drevniia gramoty i raznye dokumenty (Materialy dlia istorii Kazanskoi eparkhii) (Kazan': Kazanskii universitet, 1902), 5 October 1633, pp. 8–9.

22. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #48, no earlier than 1633, pp. 109–111; Malov, Drevniia gramoty i raznye dokumenty, 14 December 1638, pp. 10–11.

23. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #61, 20 April 1641, pp. 136–137; Malov, Drevniia gramoty i raznye dokumenty, 16 July 1653, pp. 12–15.

24. Begishev was identified as a Chuvash in the earliest documents, though later records identify his family as “service Tatars.” However, it was common in the seventeenth century for Muscovite sources to label any Muslim as “Tatar.” Furthermore, possessing a Muslim village indicated that the Begishevs were Muslim. Stepanov Mel'nikov, ed., Akty istoricheskie i iuridicheskie i drevniia tsarskiia gramoty Kazanskoi i drugikh sosedstvennykh gubernii (Kazan': Knigoprodavets Ivan Dubrovin, 1859), #4, 26 June 19, pp. 8–9; #6, 1621, pp. 11–12; #7, 9 July 1621, pp. 13–14.

25. Mel'nikov, Akty istoricheskie i iuridicheskie, #9, 8 February 1624, pp. 15–16; #15, 5 February 1636, pp. 28–29; #16, after 16 February 1636, pp. 29–30.

26. B. D. Grekov and V. I. Lebedev, eds, Dokumenty i materialy po istorii mordovskoi ASSR, Vol. 1 (Saransk: Mordovskoi nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut, 1940), #42, 1618–1619, pp. 235–248.

27. A. N. Zertsalov, ed., Materialy dlia istorii Sinbirska i ego uezda (Prikhodo-raskhodnaia kniga Sinbirskoi Prikaznoi Izby) 1665–1667 (Simbirsk: Izdatel'stvo Simbirskoi gubernoi uchenoi arkhivnoi kommissii, 1896), pp. 49–71, 98–102.

28. I. M. Pokrovskii, “Bortnichestvo (pchelovodstvo), kak odin iz vidov natural'nago khoziaistva i promysla bliz Kazani v XVI–XVII vv.,” Izvestiia obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete, Vol. 17, 1901, pp. 67–73.

29. Grekov and Lebedev, Dokumenty i materialy po istorii mordovskoi ASSR, Vol. 1, #38, 1614–1615, p. 233.

30. Martynov, Seleniia Simbirskogo uezda, 1625, pp. 127–128.

31. RGADA, f. 281, Gramoty kollegii ekonomii, op. 1, d. 289, 17 March 1642.

32. By 1621, Sviiazhsk's Bogoroditsii Monastery possessed at least two Tatar villages, Khoziasheva and Isakov. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #38, pp. 84–92. In fact, E. L. Dubman's study of monastic landholding in Simbirsk and Samara provinces suggests that all land granted to monasteries in those regions was settled only with Tatars and Mordvins peasants, E. L. Dubman, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie srednego Povolzh'ia v XVII veke: Po materialam tserkovno-monastyrskikh vladenii (Kuibyshev: Kuibyshevskie knizhnoi izdatel'stvo, 1991).

33. The monasteries were Kazan's Troitse-Sergeevskii and Zilantov Uspenskii, and Sviiazhsk's Bogoroditsii. Information taken from I. Pokrovskii, “K istorii Kazanskikh monastyrei do 1764 goda,” Izvestiia obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete, Vol. 18, 1902, pp. 16–22. Pokrovskii's information is from the census of 1646 in Kazan' province. Similar data do not exist for most of the region's monasteries, because of the inconsistent information kept in the census records.

34. For a discussion of monastic privileges in the sixteenth century, see S. V. Veselovskii, “Monastyrskoe zemlevladenie v moskovskoi rusi vo vtoroi polovine XVI v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski, Vol. 10, 1941, pp. 95–116.

35. Ermolaev and Mustafina, Dokumenty po istorii Kazanskogo kraia, #1, 16 May 1555, pp. 28–29; and Episkop Nikaron, ed., “Vladennyia gramaty Kazanskogo Spasopreobrazhenskago monastyria,” Izvestiia obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete, Vol. 11, 1893, p. 357. Other examples include Arzamas's Troitse-Sergeevskii Monastery receiving the adjudicating rights for its villages, RGADA, f. 281, op. 4, d. 6457, 5 March 1627; and Saratov's Novospasskii Monastery receiving its rights, RGADA, f. 281, op. 7, d. 10797, 24 May 1652.

36. For a discussion of the Russian Orthodox Church's conversion mission, see Apollon Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie khoda missionerskago dela po prosveshcheniiu khristianstvom kazanskikh inorodtsev s 1552 do 1867 god,” Chteniia v imperatorskom obshchestve (Moscow: Universiteta tipografiia, 1880), pp. 1–237; Chantal Lermercier-Quelquejay, “Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de moyenne- et basse-Volga 1552–1865,” Cahiers du monde russe, Vol. 8, 1967, pp. 369–403; I. K. Zagidullin, “Khristianizatsiia tatar Srednego Povolzh'ia vo vtoroi polovine XVI–XVII vv.,” Uchenye zapiski Tatarskogo gosudarstvennogo gumantarnogo instituta, Vol. 1, 1997, pp. 113–165; and Michael Khodarkovsky, “The Conversion of Non-Christians in Early Modern Russia,” in Robert P. Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky, Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 115–143.

37. For example, Sviiazhsk's Troitse-Sergeevskii Monastery lost a village of Russian peasants in Sviiazhsk province to the governor of Kazan' in 1669. RGADA, f. 1455, Gosudarstvennye i chastnye akty pomestno-votchinnykh arkhivov XVI–XIX vv., op. 5, d. 859, 29 September 1669.

38. It is likely that Onanin hoped for an adjustment in the yearly tax collection to reflect the lost labor, but his letter to the monastery just referred to his loyalty to the monks of the monastery. RGADA, f. 281, op. 1, d. 293, 23 February 1648.

39. For a discussion of pomest'ia and pomeshchiki in the provinces, see: A. V. Vasil'ev, “K istorii zemlevladeniia v Sviiazhskom uezde,” Izvestiia obshchestva arkeologii, istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete, Vol. 12, 1894, pp. 602–612; I. M. Pokrovskii, K istorii pomestnogo i ekonomicheskogo byta v Kazanskom krae v pervoi polovine XVII (Kazan': Kazanskii universitet, 1909); S. I. Porfir'ev, “Rospis' sluzhilym liudiam po oblasti Kazanskago Dvortsa na 7146 (1637) god,” Izvestiia obshchestva arkheograficheskii, istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete, Vol. 23, 1912, pp. 456–467; A. V. Emmausskii, Iz istorii bor'by za zemliu i krest'ian v Arzamasskom uezde v XVI–XVII vv. (Kirov: Kirovskii nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut, 1934); Valerie Kivelson, Autocracy in the Provinces: The Muscovite Gentry and Political Culture in the Seventeenth Century, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), esp. pp. 26–57.

40. Alishev suggests that by the end of the sixteenth century 71% of the land in Arzamas province was divided into pomest'ia, resulting in large numbers of Mordvins under direct Russian control. Alishev, Istoricheskie sudby narodov Srednego Povolzh'ia, p. 97. A. V. Emmausskii argued that Muscovite persecution against the Mordvins began under Ivan III, but increased dramatically with the rise in Muscovy's Mordvin population after 1552. Muscovite monasteries founded following the conquest of Kazan' specifically targeted the traditional lands of the Mordvins for their own estates. Emmausskii, “Iz istorii bor'by za zemliui krest'ian v Arzamasskom uezde v XVI–XVII vv.,” Trudy Kirovskogo nauchno-issledovatel'skogo instituta kraevedeniia, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1934, pp. 7–8.

41. The response from the tsar's government was to return the petition without answering their plea. RGADA, f. 281, op. 1, d. 303, 30 March 1679.

42. P. D. Vereshchagin, ed., Proshloe nashego kraia 1648–1917 (Kuibyshev: Privolzh'noe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1968), #11, 24 February 1630, p. 30.

43. By 1595, Metropolitan Germogen complained about the Tatars' new mosques inside their district, Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi imperii arkheograficheskoio ekspeditsieiu imperatorskoi akademii nauk, Vol. 1 (St Petersburg: Tipografiia i otdeleniia sobstvennoi E.I.V. Kantseliarii, 1856), #358, 18 July 1595, pp. 436–439. Ghettoizing non-Russian continued in parts of the Russian Empire at least through the end of the nineteenth century. Robert D. Crews, “Civilization in the City: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Colonization of Tashkent,” in James Cracraft and Daniel Rowland, eds, Architectures of Russian Identity, 1500 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 117–132.

44. For a brief discussion of the modernization of the bureaucracy, see Peter B. Brown, “Bureaucratic Administration in Seventeenth-Century Russia,” in Jarmo Kotilaine and Marshall Poe, eds, Modernizing Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 57–78.

45. Nogmanov, Tatary Srednego Povolzh'ia i Priural'ia, p. 194.

46. RGADA, f. 16, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv, r. XVI, vnutrennee upravlenie, op. 1, d. 709, l. 3a ob., 16 April 1613, copy from 1720.

47. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 3a ob.–3v.

48. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, l. 7.

49. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 13ob–14ob.

50. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 11ob–13ob.

51. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 9–10.

52. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 11–12.

53. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, ll. 10.

54. This conclusion agrees with George Weickhardt's recent argument that the Ulozhenie “was essentially a codification and publication of the Rule Books of the Chancelleries,” connecting the origins of the Ulozhenie with administrative practice. George G. Weickhardt, “Early Russian Law and Byzantine Law,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, Vol. 32, 2005, p. 15.

55. Richard Hellie, trans. and ed., The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649, Part 1, Text and Translation (Irvine, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1988), X: 161, p. 56. Hereafter, Ulozhenie.

56. RGADA, f. 281, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 9–11.5, 5 January 1646 and l. 6, 2 August 1686. Frequently petitions are only revealed through responses to early requests, such as a land grant to support Tatar and Mordvin servitors in Saransk, in a favorable response to their earlier petition. RGADA, f. 1156, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 7–9, 2 November 1682.

57. Non-Russians in this case were “Tatars and other high non-Russians” (ili Tatarovia ili inye vsiakie inozemtsy). Ulozhenie, XIV: 3, p. 97–98.

58. Ulozhenie, X: 161, p.56.

59. Ulozhenie, XVI: 41, p. 111.

60. Ulozhenie, XVI: 43, p. 112. This law does signify a major change from earlier years, when land transactions between Russians and those groups were not uncommon. For example, a charter from 26 January 1632 records a land exchange between a Tatar and a Russian, the Tatar receiving land in the countryside in exchange for his house in the city of Arzamas; another from 27 February 1633 records a land transaction between a Russian and a Mordvin, the Mordvin receiving service lands in the countryside and the Russian receiving the rights to space in the market at the Troitsii-Sergeiv Monastery in Arzamas. RGADA, f. 281, d. 267; RGADA, f. 281, d. 276, respectively.

61. Ulozhenie, XVI: 43, p. 112.

62. Ulozhenie, XVI: 44, p. 112.

63. Ulozhenie, XVI: 45, p. 112. While many Tatar servitors did receive notices for failure to provide service, this was not an uncommon phenomenon in Russia. Vasilii Elatin was reminded by the Prikaz Kazanskogo dvortsa that he owed them both taxes and service that he had failed to provide the previous year. RGADA, f. 1209, op. 78, d. 2753, 16 April 1654. The Kazanskii dvorets reminded Savin Fedorov syn Aukin and Petr Painravevich Nechaev in 1688 to fulfill their duties in Saransk uezd. RGADA, f. 1209, Pomestnyi Prikaz, op. 78, d. 2749; Aukin's is l. 1, Nechaev's is l. 2. The Pomestnyi Prikaz reminded Boris Skaskev in Saransk on 20 May 1694 of his failure to fulfill his obligations. RGADA, f. 1209, op. 78, d. 2750.

64. Ulozhenie, XVI: 45, p. 112.

65. Eventually Russian military servitors on the frontier also were given a residency requirement in order to shore up Russia's defenses. A d'iak of Atemar, Petr Samoilov, accepted pomest'e in nearby Saransk uezd on 30 May 1677. Samoilov remained in town rather than settle on his land, leaving the land unused. Moscow sent him a rather sternly worded gramota in 1679, commanding him to travel to his land in Saransk and provide the service for which it had been granted. RGADA, f. 1455, op. 2, d. 6497, 13 September 1679.

66. Ulozhenie, I: 1, p. 3.

67. Zbigniew Wojcik, “Russian Endeavors for the Polish Crown in the Seventeenth Century,” Slavic Review, Vol. 41, 1982, pp. 59–72.

68. RGADA, f. 210, Razriadnyi prikaz, op. 21, d. 228, ll. 1–2ob., no earlier than 1669.

69. RGADA, f. 16, op. 1, d. 709, l. 37, 22 March 1677, and l. 117, 21 July 1686.

70. Here I am not suggesting there was no attempt to “Russify”, merely that the final result of achieving “Russian” status was impossible. For an excellent description of early-modern Russification, see Michael Khodarkovsky, “Four Degrees of Separation: Constructing Non-Christian Identities in Muscovy,” in Ann Kleimola and Gail Lenhoff, eds, Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359–1584 (Moscow: ITZ-Garant, 1997), pp. 248–266.

71. For the most recent studies, see A. G. Man'kov, ed., Inostrannye izvestiia o vosstanii Stepana Razina: Materialy i issledovaniia (Leningrad: Nauka, 1975); James Gerard Hart, “The Urban and Rural Response to Stepan Razin's Rebellion in the Middle Volga Region of Muscovy, 1670–1671,” Ph.D. dissertation: University of Virginia, 1981; E. V. Chistiakova and V. M. Solov'ev, Stepan Razin i ego soratniki (Moscow: Mysl', 1988); Vladimir Solov'ev, Anatomiia Russkogo bunta: Stepan Razin: Mify i real'nost' (Moscow: TMR, 1994); and V. I. Buganov, Razin i Razintsy (Moscow: Nauka, 1995).

72. On the Schism and Old Belief, see: Sergei Zenkovskii, Russkoe staroobraiadchestvo: Dukhovnye dvizheniia semnadtsatogo veka (Munich: Wilhem Fink Verlag, 1970); Nickolas Lupinin, Religious Revolt in the XVIIth Century: The Schism of the Russian Church (Princeton, NJ: Kingston Press, 1984); V. S. Rumiantseva, Narodnoe antitserkovnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v XVII veke (Moscow: Nauka, 1986); and Georg Michels, At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Orthodoxy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).

73. The archimandrite was from Sviiazhsk's Bogoroditsii Monastery, Narodnoe antitserkovnoe dvizhenie v Rossii XVII veka: Dokumenty Prikaza tainykh del o raskol'nikakh, 1665–1667 gg. (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1986), pp. 61–62, 120–121, 143–146. Aleksandr Vasil'ev's family was burned by their fellow villagers in Arzamas province. RGADA, f. 159, Prikaznye dela novoi razborki, op. 3, Novgorodskaia chetvert', d. 448, ll. 25–28, no later than 12 October 1675.

74. The Novgorodskaia chetvert' instructed the governor of Arzamas that if any other “schismatics or fascinated people” (raskolniki i prelesnye liudi) were uncovered doing “an evil thing” (zloi del), then they should be imprisoned in an isolated cell. RGADA, f. 159, op. 3, d. 448, ll. 29–30, 13 October 1675. Arzamas's governor reported with alarm the discovery of Old Believers in his province, which he feared would induce more violence among the local peasantry. RGADA, f. 159, d. 563, ll. 93–97, 12 May 1676.

75. With the inconsistent extant records it is difficult to make a direct comparison, but 176,580 peasants in 1678 in Kazan' and Simbirsk provinces were iasachnye luidi versus only 31,260 serfs in 1662–1672. Alishev, Istoricheskie sudby narodov Srednego Povolzh'ia, p. 96. By the end of the eighteenth century, only 32% of the peasantry in Kazan' province were serfs, while the remainder were state peasants. Janet M. Hartley, A Social History of the Russian Empire, 1650–1825 (London: Longman, 1999), p. 19.

76. Vereshchagin, Proshloe nashego kraia, #4, 6 August 1662, p. 23; #5, no earlier than 26 September 1663, pp. 23–24.

77. In 1664, four Tatars in service from the village of Elkovka in Simbirsk received the right to their village, which they attempted to legally give to the village's remaining iasachnye Tatars. The petitioners wrote that they only entered the tsar's service to be awarded land so the village Tatars would no longer be “exiled or convicted” and no longer “be questioned” by Muscovite authorities. Martynov, Seleniia Simbirskogo uezda, 25 May 1664, pp. 184–185.

78. Grekov and Lebedev, Dokumenty i materialy po istorii mordovskoi ASSR, I, #115, 1 March 1667, pp. 320–321.

79. To ensure this policy, the Prikaz also notified the current governor of the change in policy. RGADA, f. 1103, Arzamasskaia prikaznaia izba, op. 1, d. 25a, 1682. This policy is a change from the desires of local beekeepers in Nizhegorod, Kozmodem'iansk, and Kurmysh provinces during the 1660s. Then those apiarists petitioned their landlord, the Makar'evskii Zheltovodskii Monastery in Nizhnii Novgorod, asking for privilege of paying their tribute in cash rather than honey. They wanted to sell their honey directly to merchants, rather than allowing the monastery to profit as the middleman. Akty iuridicheskie, ili sobranie form starinnago deloproizovodstva (St Petersburg, 1838), #202, 211–214, 23 June 1663 (Nizhegorod), 23 June 1663 (Kozmodem'iansk), and 20 June 1664 (Kurmysh).

80. Hartley, Social History of the Russian Empire, pp. 20–21; David Moon, The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made (London: Longman, 1999), p. 79.

81. The Mordvins of the village of Maloe Moresevo in Alatyr' petitioned the tsar in 1680 about losing their land to Russians. The state's reply informed the Mordvins that they had no reason to complain because they were supposed to claim their new land in the village of Mokshalev in Saransk province. RGADA, f. 1103, op. 1, d. 24, January 1681. Other Mordvin villages, such as that of the elder Rozan Siavashev in Arzamas province, received instructions detailing their move from the interior of the Volga Region to their new home along a river outside of the city of Saransk. RGADA, f. 281, op. 7, d. 10824, February 1683. For a discussion of monastic landholding among the Maris' traditional lands, see A. G. Ivanov, Ocherki po istorii Mariiskogo kraia XVIII veka (Ioshkar-Ola: Mariiskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1995), pp. 80–106.

82. The Mordvins protested the arrival of Russian peasants who were seizing their lands. RGADA, f. 281, op. 1, d. 291, 5 January 1645; and RGADA, f. 281, op. 1, d. 277, 16 February 1688, ll. 1–5.5.

83. Overall, from 1624–1626 to 1721, there was a 33% decline in Mordvin households in three representative districts (stany) of Alatyr' province (Nizsurskii, Verkhalatyrskii, and Verkhosurskii). A. Geraklitov, Alatyrskaia Mordva po perepisiam 1624–1721 gg. (Saransk, 1936), pp. 15–24.

84. The change against monastic landholding was more common in the northern Middle Volga than in its southern portions, where the state continued to support monastic landholding. For example, in 1686 the state supported the claim of the Savvo-Storozhevskii Monastery of Simbirsk against its Tatar peasants in Voznesenskoe, who tried to get released from monastic supervision. RGADA, f. 281, op. 8, d. 11557, 26 July 1686.

85. For the Muslim Murzii Tatars, see Polnoe sobranie zakonov Russiiskoi Imperii (PSZ), Series 1, 45 vols (St Petersburg: Tipografiia i obdelenie sobstvennoi ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva Kontseliariia, 1830), Vol. 2, #823, p. 267, 21 May 1680; #867, pp. 312–313, 16 May 1681; and #870, p. 315, 24 May 1681. Following the offers to Muslim Tatars, nearby animist Mordvins were offered incentives for conversion to Orthodoxy on 16 May 1681. See Apollon Mozharovskii, “Po istorii prosveshcheniia Nizhegorodskoi mordvy,” Nizhegorodskiia eparkhial'nyia vedomosti, Vol. 16, 1890, pp. 664–665.

86. PSZ, vol. 2, pp. 467–468, 23 September 1682.

87. For example, Metropolitan Adrian of Kazan' warned Archimandrite Misail of the Maloiunginskii Monastery in Kozmodem'iansk to watch all of the converted peasants on the monastery's estates. Grekov and Lebedev, Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi ASSR, Vol. 2, #208, 16 November 1687, p. 72.

88. F. G. Islaev, Pravoslavnye missionery v Povolzh'e (Kazan': Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1999), and Paul W. Werth, “Coercion and Conversion: Violence and Mass Baptism of the Volga Peoples, 1740–55,” Kritika, Vol. 4, 2003, pp. 543–569.