Boyars - Decline
Ivan IV, the Terrible, began to deliberately fight the boyars. The main purpose of the "oprichnina" was the forcible alienation of estates from the boyars who owned them.
"The tsar is good, the boyars are to blame" has been (and still is) a common phrase in Russia. The boyars often became an object of popular hatred. It was them that the tsar himself often vented their anger on. The most powerful people of pre-Petrine Russia, the boyars – military leaders and statesmen at the same time – were a force that even the tsars were forced to reckon with. Why did Ivan the Terrible and Peter seek to eradicate the rank? What harm could the boyars do?
The formation of central power throughout Europe during the crisis of the "long 16th century" (1453-1648) proceeded with blood, and Russian "streams" were, perhaps, among the smallest. The actions of Ivan IV look moderate in comparison with Western Europe - Charles IX in France during the religious wars (St. Bartholomew and other pogroms), Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in England, the Duke of Alba on the orders of the Spanish Philip II in the Netherlands. The struggle between the nobility and the boyars is not a myth, but the main object of the struggle is not property, but power, since only power in Rus' regulated (regulates) access to material substance. The logic of the new autocratic power was to level the ruling class as a whole in the face of tsarist power. Otherwise, at best, Russia would have turned into something Polish-like, oligarchic with the prospect of a war of all against all - this is what later happened in the Time of Troubles [1598-1613],
On the death of his father, Ivan IV was only three years of age. Helena, his mother, a woman unfit for the toils of government, impure in Her conduct, and without judgment, assumed the office of regent, which she shared with a paramour, whose elevation to such a height caused universal disgust, particularly among the princes of the blood and the nobility. The measures which had of late years been adopted towards the boyars were not forgotten by that haughty class; and now that the infirm state of the throne gave them a fair pretext for complaint, they conspired against the regent, partly with a view to remove so unpopular and degraded a person from the imperial seat, but principally that they might take advantage of the minority of the czar, and seize upon the empire for their own ends. The reign of lascivious folly and wanton rigor was not, however, destined to survive the wrath of the nobles. For five years, intestine jealousies and thickening plots plunged the country into anarchy; and, at last, the regent died suddenly, having, it was believed, fallen by poison administered through the agency of the revengeful boyars.
During the late 1550s, Ivan developed a hostility toward his advisers, the government, and the boyars. Historians have not determined whether policy differences, personal animosities, or mental imbalance cause his wrath. In 1565 he divided Muscovy into two parts: his private domain and the public realm. For his private domain, Ivan chose some of the most prosperous and important districts of Muscovy. In these areas, Ivan's agents attacked boyars, merchants, and even common people, summarily executing some and confiscating land and possessions. Thus began a decade of terror in Muscovy. As a result of this policy, called the oprichnina, Ivan broke the economic and political power of the leading boyar families, thereby destroying precisely those persons who had built up Muscovy and were the most capable of administering it.
Ivan the Terrible undertook a revision of princely land transactions made after 1533, i.e. after the death of Vasily III weakened the sovereign's bridle around the neck of the boyars. Specifically, it was about removing the prince or boyar from their homes, even if this is his fiefdom, and to relocate to another place, allocating land to him there, is a completely Horde practice. But the point was not so much in property, in undermining economic positions, although this was also the case, but in power: “land terror” tore the connection between the princes and their boyar children, their court “changed”, and their positions weakened. The logic of the new autocratic power was to level the ruling class as a whole in the face of tsarist power.
Even before the oprichnina, on January 15, 1562, Ivan issued an ukaz, which forbade the boyars and princes, who served the tsar, to sell, exchange or give as dowry their estates under threat of confiscation. In the absence of a direct male heir in the family, the estates were transferred directly to the tsar. The boyars started fleeing the Moscow tsardom. Those caught were exiled, punished, or executed. And just before the introduction of the oprichnina, Ivan left Moscow, claiming that his decision was due simply to his anger at the boyars and princes. The Tsar came back only on the condition that he would be free to execute the traitors and deprive them of their property.
The oprichnina was, in fact, a mass repression against the boyars and Rurikid princes. However, amid the devastation and the resettlement of the nobility to other lands, ordinary peasants suffered as well – they fled from the lands of impoverished or executed landlords. According to historian Vladimir Kobrin, "first decades after the oprichnina… [give the impression that] the country experienced a devastating enemy invasion.” The result of the careless anti-boyar policy of Ivan the Terrible was, in fact, the impoverishment of the entire tsardom – primarily due to the fact that more than half of the arable land would remain uncultivated for years. And the peasants who fled began to be forcibly retained, forbidding from moving to other lands, thus laying the foundations of serfdom, which finally became firmly established in the 17th century.
The horrors of the oprichnina and the ensuing Time of Troubles led to the restoration of boyar power. And it immediately revealed its worst side. “The Seven Boyars", the boyar government of 1610-1612, first deposed Tsar Vasily Shuisky, then signed a treaty with the Poles, according to which Prince Wladyslaw (Vasa) became the Tsar of Russia, and then boyars simply let the Poles into the Kremlin – and became their hostages. Nevertheless, the Boyar Duma in the 17th century, even under the first Romanovs, worked very hard. No decision was taken without it. And, most importantly, endless disputes had continued. What could the tsar possibly do to oppose the power wielded by the old nobility?
One method used against the boyars was actually invented by the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible – Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow, the victor over the Golden Horde and the founder of the Russian state. It was his Code of Laws of 1497 that laid the foundations for a new type of estate – the pomestie (manor). Unlike votchinas, which belonged to boyars and princes by right of kinship, the Moscow tsar granted manors to his servants as both a reward for service and as a source of income, which allowed servants to equip themselves for military campaigns.
Unlike votchinas, manors could be "issued" both for life and for the term of service; they could also become hereditary or returned to the sovereign after the death of a servant – in the 15-16th centuries the manors were the property of landlords only insofar as the landlord was in the sovereign's service. Thanks to the massive distribution of manors, which began under Ivan III, the Moscow tsardom created a new army. However, If the old boyars resembled European feudal lords in status, the vassals of their prince, the ‘new’ noblemen were, much less independent, their property could disappear overnight if they came into conflict with the central government.
In 1660, the Russian army was utterly defeated at the hands of the Polish-Lithuanian one. At a meeting of the Boyar Duma, the tsar's father-in-law, boyar Ivan Miloslavsky, announced that if the tsar gave him an army, he would return with the Polish king as prisoner. Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich was furious at such insolence from the boyar, who had previously participated in no more than two or three battles. The Tsar slapped his boyar, pulled his beard, and kicked him out of the Duma chamber.
The tsar did not have complete freedom in the choice of his chief aides and subordinates. He was bound by the peculiar custom of mestnichestvo, a complicated hierarchy of precedence among aristocratic Muscovite families. They were ranked in a definite genealogical order according to their relative seniority, and, in the course of filling the highest posts in his army and administration, the tsar had to consider not so much the candidate's personal merits as his genealogical seniority as defined by earlier precedents. Mestnichestvo, which hampered the selection of appropriate candidates for high offices, caused endless quarrels among the boyar families and was finally abolished in 1682. Peter I the Great abolished the rank and title of boyar and made state service the exclusive means of attaining a high position in the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Such scenes were not uncommon in Moscow – the boyars were the ones many state failures were blamed on, and not always without reason. By the 17th century the boyars began to seriously hinder the development of the country. Under Peter the Great, the Boyar Duma, the government of the Moscow tsardom, no longer assembled, as the system of government had fundamentally changed, and the boyars had no place in it.
The system of manors, established by Ivan III, came very handy by the end of the 17th century, and it was on its basis that Peter the Great built a new Russian army. The principle of its staffing was succinctly formulated by Peter in his decree of 1701: "all servicemen with lands serve the state, and no one owns lands for doing nothing.” Now the pomeshchiki – the owners of manors, not the landed gentry – became the agents of the authorities in the collection of taxes, land management, and, most importantly, the recruitment of soldiers from the peasantry. It was also important that the average landlord, unlike a boyar, was very poor – not all manors could feed their owners, and were, therefore, forced to join the military or civil service to receive wages.
Emperor Peter I, who became famous for his extravagant laws, during the period when the decree on cutting the boyar beards was introduced, allowed some to pay off. Allegedly, for such "neighbors" a special list was set up, in Dutch "blatt" - "sheet of paper".
In 1714, the so-called "Decree of Primogeniture" finally equalized the estates and manors (pomesties) under the title of "immovable property". The decree made the property hereditary, but forbade its division and sale among the descendants, except in cases of extreme necessity. In addition, since the estate could only be transferred to one of the sons (not necessarily the eldest), all other descendants were forced to go into public service in order to earn a living.
And yet, Peter still awarded four of his associates the title of boyar – already in the 18th century. All these four men – Shakhovskoy, Apraksin, Neledinsky-Meletsky, Buturlin – belonged to the old Moscow families, and the boyar status, obtained in old age, amounted to nothing more than a symbolic status for them. The Boyar Duma was no more.
The last boyar of Russia was Prince Ivan Trubetskoy, who died in 1750. He combined the title of boyar with military ranks already received under Peter's Table of Ranks, while also performing the function of senator. It was the Governing Senate under Peter that replaced the Boyar Duma as the government of the Russian state.
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