How Russia became Polish (spoiler: Ukraine helped)
Russia's been historically affected by many cultures. German impact of 18-19th cc is well-recognised, Tatar impact of 14-16th - only grudgingly. But ppl are unaware of Polish influence that transformed Russia in 17th c (thread)
It all started in 1598 with the death of Fyodor Ivanovich. He was the last Rurikid on the Russian throne - descendant of Vikings who reportedly ruled Russian states since 862. After his death Russia entered into dynastic crisis and quickly spiralled into chaos
Poland-Lithuania first entered the conflict by supporting pretenders - False-Dmitry I and II. Then Poland got involved directly. Poles smashed Russian armies, captured Tsar Shuisky and occupied Moscow. They raided Russia very deep north and east putting it to fire and sword
I just randomly chose one of many towns that were burnt down - Galich-Mersky. 'Mersky' refers to 'Merya' - Finno-Ugric tribe. That means it was a very remote fort built in then Finnic land and isn't easily accessible even now. Still Polish cavalry got there and burnt it
What did Russia do? Well, it submitted. The Bojar Duma (kinda House of Lords) elected Polish prince Wladislaw as the new Tsar. Why didn't he become a Tsar then? For two reasons. First, he didn't convert to Orthodox Christianity. Second, he didn't bother to come to his coronation
In other words, Polish prince didn't become Russian Tsar because he didn't do the formalities. So the chaos continued. Finally, the levy from Nizhny Novgorod made Polish garrison of Kremlin to surrender and slaughtered them all. Next year, new Romanov dynasty was elected
One could assume that the Old Muscovy was restored. I disagree. I will argue that the Old Muscovy died in the Time of Troubles and new New Muscovy was different. The effect of Polish destruction of Old Muscovy was far stronger than that of destruction of Old Prussia by Napoleon
Let's start with the language. How were the noblemen called? In Old Muscovy the aristocracy were called Bojars, and the gentry - Dvorjans. In New Muscovy gentry called themselves шляхта. It was a borrowed Polish term szlachta. Russian nobles styled themselves after the Poles
Let's open biography of admiral Ushakov: 'In 1761 he was admitted to a Szlachta (Dvorjan) Naval College'. Sounds strange. Well, initially both Army and Navy academies were called Szlachta colleges. They were renamed to Dvorjan in 1760s when old Polish terms became problematic
So the new Russian nobility called themselves szlachta and probably thought of themselves similarly. That coincided with a huge social revolution in Russia which is described empirically but not conceptualised theoretically. The enormous expansion of serfdom in 1610-1620s
How did Russia look like in 16th c? According to the tax documents (we remember these are 'sources-remains' not BS chronicles), it was predominantly a country of:
1. single-homesteads or small villages 2. personally free peasants
Ofc serfdom existed. But it was mostly clustered in:
1. Moscow 2. Tver 3. Novgorod
Moscow (orange) was the seat of power and much of slaveowning class lived here. Tver and Novgorod were new conquests of Ivan III (pink) and their population was mostly turned into property
What happened in the 1610-1620s was the huge expansion of serfdom. What had previously been one of many statuses of peasants now became the one predominant. Almost every farmer living all the way northward till Beloozero (see that small lake above Moscow) became private property
Clerical serfdom by monasteries occasionally expanded even further, till the White Sea. Consider a case from Arkhangelsk. In the 1600s Siiski monastery was suing peasants of two villages, insisting they're its property. Peasants objected. In 1610 they won the case in the court
But with Romanov election rules of the game changed. Now monastery hegumen Jonah simply sent his armed servants who destroyed houses, broke stoves and forced peasants to remove to the monastery villages. They had to kill one of them to persuade others spbiiran.nw.ru/wp-content/upl…
This shows the social trend of the age. New authorities award gentry with land and serfs. To control their property better new landlords move them into bigger villages. What used to be a country of small farms and free peasants becomes a country of large plantations and peons
Very good book that I strongly recommend. It's a pre-Revolutionary study of the land tax of Muscovy and what data we can draw from the tax documents. I must warn it's not narrative-entered and is not an easy reading
This one is more pleasant. It's a very erudite and well written book by early Soviet historian Pokrovsky. Promoted in 1920s, cancelled in 1930s. His approach and conclusions were very similar to what Braudel or Wallerstern were doing much later. Kinda world-systems theory
That wasn't unique. Everywhere to the East of Elbe peasants were losing their freedom, their rights were reduced, duties expanded = second serfdom. Why did it happen? Usual explanation is - so that landlords could export food to feed the booming cities of the Western Europe
That was a major factor in Poland with its huge grain export via Danzig which fed much of the Northern European cities. But Muscovy didn't really export grain. It didn't even have decent access to the world ocean. Why were its trends so similar to Eastern European then?
I'd speculate this can be impact of the Polish folwark. May be that's an example of what Warren Buffet called institutional inertia. Most of what we're doing, we're doing cuz we did it in the past or cuz someone else's doing it. Especially someone attractive, whom we'd like to be
Polish effect was apparent in the most important institute - in the army. Many assume Westernisation of the army was started by Peter. Some know it started earlier. In fact, the first 'Foreign-styled regiments' in Muscovy were raised in the year 1630 for the war with Poland
They were established by Alexander Leslie - a Scottish mercenary who previously served in Poland. Very typical. Poland had many Scots, too many. In fact English parliamentarians in 1600s pointed to the unfortunate Poland overrun by the Scotch immigation, arguing against the Union
That was only the prelude however. The real rapid and irreversible Polonization of Russia which as later Eurasianists (e.g. Trubetskoy) lamented, destroyed the old Muscovite culture and tradition started with the annexation of Left-Bank Ukraine in 1654. To be continued tomorrow
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Wagner march was incredible, unprecedented to the extent most foreigners simply do not understand. Like, yes, Russia had its military coups in the 18th c. But those were the palace coups, all done by the Guards. Purely praetorian business with zero participation of the army.
Yes, there was a Kornilov affair in 1917, but that happened after the coup in capital. In March they overthrew the Tsar, then there was infighting in the capital, including a Bolshevik revolt in July, and only in September part of the army marches to St Petersburg.
Half a year after the coup. Not the same thing
I think the last time anything like that happened was in 1698, when the Musketeers marched on Moscow from the Western border. And then, next time, only in 2023.
(Army leaves the border/battlefield and marches on the capital without a previous praetorian coup in the capital)
As a person from a post-Soviet country, I could not but find the institutions of People’s Republic of China oddly familiar. For every major institution of the Communist Russia, I could find a direct equivalent in Communist China.
With one major exception:
China had no KGB
For a post-Soviet person, that was a shocking realisation. For us, a gigantic, centralised, all-permeating and all powerful state security system appears to be almost a natural phenomenon. The earth. The sky. Force of gravity. KGB
All basic properties of reality we live in
It was hard to come up with any explanation for why the PRC that evolved in a close cooperation with the USSR, that used to be its client state, that emulated its major institutions, failed to copy this seemingly prerequisite (?) institution of state power
Soviet output of armaments was absolutely gargantuan, massive, unbeatable. “Extraordinary by any standard” , it was impossible for any other country to compete with.
From 1975 to 1988, the Soviets produced four times as many ICBMs and SLBMs, twice as many nuclear submarines, five times as many bombers, six times as many SAMs, three times as many tanks and six times as many artillery pieces as the United States.
Impossible to compete with.
Which raises a question:
How could the USSR produce so much?
It is not only that the USSR invested every dime into the military production. It is also that the Soviet industry was designed for the very large volumes of output, and worked the best under these very large volumes
We are releasing our investigation on Roscosmos, covering a nearly exhaustive sample of Russian ICBM producing plants. We have investigated both primary ICBM/SLBM producers in Russia, a major producer of launchers, manufacturers of parts and components.
Each material includes an eclectic collection of sources, ranging from the TV propaganda to public tenders, and from the HR listings to academic dissertations. Combined altogether, they provide a holistic picture of Russian ICBM production base that no single type of source can.
Overall, you can expect tech moguls to have much, much higher level of reasoning abilities compared to the political/administrative class. But this comes at a cost. Their capacities for understanding the Other (masses count as the “Other”) are much poorer.
E.g. Putin is much, much less of an outlier in terms of intelligence compared to Thiel. He is much more average. At the same time, I am positively convinced that Putin understands the masses and works with masses much better.
One problem with that is that too much of the supply chain for drone production is located in China. The thing with drones is that they grew out of toys industry. Cheap plastic & electronic crap that all of a sudden got military significance
That is also the major problem I have with "China supports Russia" argument. China could wreck Ukraine easily, simply obstructing & delaying the drone/drone components shipments. That would be an instant military collapse for Ukraine.
Both Russian and Ukrainian drone industries are totally dependent upon the continuous shipments from China. To a very significant degree, their "production" is assembly from the Chinese components which are non alternative and cannot be substituted with anything else (as cheap).