Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chester S. L. Dunning is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University. He is editor and translator of The Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy by Jacques Margeret (1983).

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A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA'S FIRST CIVIL WAR

The Pennsylvania State University Press

Contents

List of Illustrations and Maps.......................................................................viiIntroduction.........................................................................................11 A Comparative Approach to the Problem of Origins of the Civil War..................................52 Long-Term Origins: The Growth of Autocracy and Imperialism.........................................143 Ivan the Terrible and Russia's Slide into Crisis...................................................284 The Rise of Boris Godunov, the Uglich Tragedy, and Enserfment......................................405 The Southern Frontier and the Cossacks.............................................................496 The Beginning of the Time of Troubles and the Great Famine.........................................637 What Triggered the Civil War?......................................................................758 The Pretender Dmitrii Ivanovich....................................................................839 Dmitrii's Invasion and the Beginning of the Civil War..............................................9110 Tsar Boris Strikes Back and the Civil War Widens..................................................11111 The Death of Tsar Boris and Dmitrii's Triumph.....................................................12612 The Short Reign of Tsar Dmitrii...................................................................13813 Assassination of the Tsar.........................................................................15014 Vasilii Shuiskii Seizes Power and Rekindles the Civil War.........................................15915 The Beginning of the "Bolotnikov Rebellion".......................................................17516 The Civil War Widens and the Rebels Advance to Moscow.............................................18817 The Siege of Moscow...............................................................................19918 Retreat from Moscow, the Siege of Kaluga, and the Rise of Tsarevich Petr..........................21619 Collapse of the Siege of Kaluga and the Beginning of Tsar Vasilii's Offensive.....................22820 The Siege of Tula and the Resurrection of "Tsar Dmitrii"..........................................24021 Tsar Vasilii's Struggle Against the Tushino Impostor..............................................25522 Foreign Intervention and the Formation of the National Liberation Movement........................27023 The End of the Civil War and the Election of Mikhail Romanov......................................28524 Tsar Mikhail and the End of the Time of Troubles..................................................30025 Disturbing Legacy.................................................................................314Index................................................................................................329

Chapter One

Russia's first civil war (1604-5, 1606-12) was in many ways similar to othercivil wars of the early modern period. Of all the forms of early modern collectiveviolence, civil wars were notable for plunging states into the lengthiest andmost severe conflicts, for splitting the traditional political order most deeply,and for producing rebel forces capable of defying or defeating temporarily eventhe most powerful monarchies. Social participation in them was very broad,involving to some extent all social strata and at least enough elite participationto signify serious defection from the regime. Goals and targets of the insurrectionistsoften revealed a massive societal reaction to the growth of state powerand the burdens it imposed on its subjects. Early modern civil wars generallyproduced broad movements creating well-developed ideologies and politicaland military organizations to facilitate resistance. They were long-lasting primarilybecause of the participation of a significant percentage of the elite, who providedessential political and social leadership capable of legitimizing revolt and drawingthe masses into rebellion against royal authority. In fact, the strength ofearly modern civil wars was significantly enhanced by the absence of radicaldemands for alteration of the social structure or for significant redistributionof power and wealth. Early modern civil wars often included strong elementsof both agrarian and urban rebellion, which were usually characterized by cooperationamong social groups against an unpopular regime rather than by classantagonism and were provoked by conjunctures of circumstances rather thansimply by social inequality. Early modern civil wars also often included, grewout of, and were profoundly affected by provincial rebellions-uprisings innewly acquired territories not yet fully integrated into the state structure.Provincial rebellions themselves were usually characterized by broad social participation,including local elites in leadership roles, and by fierce resistance tothe growth and intrusion of state power in the region that violated traditionalliberties and customary lifestyles.

Equally complex were the causes of early modern civil wars. Comparativestudy of those popular upheavals quickly yields the insight that no monocausalexplanation is satisfactory and that it may be impossible to develop a generalcausal theory for such complex phenomena in which so many major and minorvariables are at work. Instead, a multicausal explanation is called for. Severaldifferent factors operated simultaneously and sometimes synergistically toincrease the likelihood of revolt or revolution.

It turns out that many of the tasks and dilemmas facing post-Marxist historiansof the Time of Troubles are, not surprisingly, the same as those facingrevisionist scholars studying early modern Western revolutions. There is currentlya certain degree of disarray in the historiography of the French and EnglishRevolutions produced by the decline of traditional interpretations that focusedon long-term social, economic, and structural processes and that emphasizedthe primacy of "absolutism," capitalism, and class conflict as explanatory factors.Revisionist scholars studying those early modern revolutions now emphasizesuch things as short-term causes, historical contingencies, ideas, belief systems,and other unique social, cultural, and institutional characteristics of each country.Similar approaches can help us understand some of the causes of Russia'sfirst civil war. For example, historians have long focused on the dynastic crisisproduced by the death of Tsar Fedor in 1598 as a principal cause of the Timeof Troubles. That crisis sharpened the split within the ruling elite and contributedto the pretender Dmitrii's success in 1605. The terrible famine of1601-3 was also a contributing factor to the civil war, sharpening Russia's alreadydeveloping social crisis and contributing to the delegitimization of Tasr BorisGodunov. The existence and activities of the pretender Dmitrii were obviouslyof great significance, as was his assassination in 1606.

What about long-term causes or preconditions? Perhaps trying to avoid thepitfalls of developing comprehensive interpretive theories to replace the Marxistparadigm, some revisionist scholars of early modern Western revolutions havegone so far as to argue against searching for any...