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47-677: He was the first tsar to sign laws on his own authority and his council passed the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, which strengthened the bonds between autocracy and the lower nobility. In religious matters, he sided closely with Patriarch Nikon during the schism in the Russian Orthodox Church which saw unpopular liturgical reforms. While finding success in foreign affairs, his reign saw several wars with Iran , Poland (from whom left-bank Ukraine and Smolensk were annexed) and Sweden , as well as internal instabilities such as

94-563: A devaluation of the ruble and a severe financial crisis. As a result, angry Moscow residents revolted in the 1662 Copper Riot , which was put down violently. In 1669, the Cossacks along the Don in southern Russia erupted in rebellion. The rebellion was led by Stenka Razin , a disaffected Don Cossack who had captured the Russian terminus of Astrakhan . From 1670 to 1671, Razin seized multiple towns along

141-477: A gradual deterioration of Moscow's economy because of the Livonian War with Poland and Sweden and a sharp rise in taxes . In 1654, the Russian government decided to begin issuing copper money in large quantities and equated them with silver money. The measure caused the devaluation of copper money, which led to price inflation of staple goods and the mass production of counterfeit copper money with

188-476: A personal insult, leaving the seat of the patriarch vacant. In 1666, the tsar convened the Great Moscow Synod , which was attended by Patriarch Macarius III Ibn al-Za'im and Patriarch Paisius of Alexandria , in order to address the problems caused by Nikon. The synod agreed to formally depose Nikon, and also decided to excommunicate all who opposed the reforms of the church; those opponents broke away from

235-470: A series of reforms that aimed to bring the practices of the Russian Orthodox Church into line with its Greek counterpart . Most notably, the church began to mandate the use of three fingers instead of two in making the sign of the cross . This resulted in significant dissent among the church community. Nevertheless, Alexis continued to support Nikon until 1658, when Nikon abandoned his post due to

282-515: Is a certain spiritual Epicureanism , manifested in an optimistic Christian faith, in a profound, but unfanatical, attachment to the traditions and ritual of the Church, in a desire to see everyone round him happy and at peace, and in a highly developed capacity to extract a quiet and mellow enjoyment from all things. In 1666, his doctor Samuel Collins described Alexis (then aged 37) as having "a sanguine complexion with light brown hair, his beard uncut. He

329-538: Is all we have of him. But it is sufficient for Sergey Platonov to proclaim him the most attractive of Russian monarchs. He acquired the moniker Tishayshy , which means "most quiet" or "most peaceful". He received this moniker through the ways he behaved—he would be kind and friendly, but the sounds created from instruments would provoke him. Certain aspects of Russian Orthodoxy , not its most purely spiritual, but its aesthetic and worldly aspects, found in him their most complete expression. The essence of Alexis's personality

376-620: Is tall and fat of a majestical deportment, severe in his anger, bountiful, charitable". The full title of Alexis in 1667 was: By the Grace of God , We, the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince Alexei Mikhailovich, Autocrat of all Great , Little and White Russia , Moscow , Kiev , Vladimir , Novgorod , Tsar of Kazan , Tsar of Astrakhan , Tsar of Siberia , Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Prince of Tver , Yugorsk , Perm , Vyatka , Bulgar and others, Sovereign and Grand Prince of Novgorod of

423-538: The Boyar Duma and Consecrated Sobor comprised one house, and elected people of different ranks took part in sessions of another house. Deputies of the nobility and posad people had a major impact on the adoption of many of the norms of the Ulozheniye . On 29 January 1649, the drafting and editing of the Ulozheniye concluded. The original of this historical document is a scroll consisting of 959 narrow columns. At

470-541: The Duma as petitions of Zemstvo . Some of these were enacted in cooperation with the elected officials, the Duma and the Tsar. Vasily Klyuchevsky singles out several technical stages at process of lawmaking of the Ulozheniye : The Sobornoye Ulozheniye represents the first attempt by Russian legislators to form system of norms and classify them by areas of law . Significant attention

517-527: The Habsburg emperor and the other enemies of Sweden, Alexis declared war on Sweden. Great things were expected by Russia of the Swedish war, but nothing came of it. Dorpat was taken, but countless multitudes of men were lost in vain before Riga . In the meantime, Poland had so far recovered herself as to become a much more dangerous foe than Sweden, and, as it was impossible to wage war with both simultaneously,

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564-622: The Salt Riot in Moscow and the Cossack revolt of Stenka Razin in southern Russia. At the time of his death, Russia spanned almost 8.1 million km (3.1 million sq mi). Born in Moscow on 29 March [ O.S. 19 March] 1629, the son of Tsar Michael and Eudoxia Streshneva , the sixteen-year-old Alexis acceded to the throne after his father's death on 12 July 1645. In August,

611-451: The Ulozheniye was reprinted twice in 1649, with 1200 copies made each time. The Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649 is considered a new stage in the development of Russian jurisprudence. All Sobor members endorsed handwritten copies of the Ulozheniye with their signatures, and these copies were then distributed to all state offices ( prikazes ) in Moscow as a guide for policy and law. Elected people sent their own amendments and additions to

658-686: The Volga river. The turning point in his campaign was his failed siege of Simbirsk in October 1670. Razin was finally captured on the Don in April 1671, and was drawn and quartered in Moscow. In 1651, Safavid troops attacked Russian fortifications in the North Caucasus . The main issue involved the expansion of a Russian garrison on the Koy Su river, as well as the construction of several new fortresses, in particular

705-406: The 19th century (up to 1832), when its articles were revised under the direction of Mikhail Speransky . The code consolidated Russia's slaves and free peasants into a new serf class and pronounced class hereditary as unchangeable (see Russian serfdom ). The new code prohibited travel between towns without an internal passport . The Russian nobility agreed to serve in the army, but were granted

752-938: The Lower Land , Chernigov , Ryazan , Rostov , Yaroslavl , Beloozero , Udoria , Obdoria , Kondia , and Ruler of all the Northern Countries , the Sovereign of the Iverian Lands, the Kartlian and Georgian Tsars and the Kabardian Lands, the Cherkasy and Mountainous Princes and many other States and Lands of the East and West, and the North from Father and Grandfather, and Heir, and Sovereign, and Possessor. Alexis's first marriage to Miloslavskaya

799-634: The Polish state out of existence, in what became known as the Deluge . The Russians, unopposed, quickly appropriated nearly everything that was not already occupied by the Swedes. When the Poles offered to negotiate, the whole grand duchy of Lithuania was the least of the demands made by Alexis. However, Alexis and the king of Sweden quarrelled over the apportionment of the spoils, and at the end of May 1656, with encouragement by

846-627: The Tsar's mother died, and following a pilgrimage to Sergiyev Posad he was crowned on 28 September in the Dormition Cathedral . He was committed to the care of his tutor Boris Morozov , a shrewd boyar open to Western ideas. Morozov pursued a peaceful foreign policy, securing a truce with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and carefully avoiding complications with the Ottoman Empire . His domestic policy aimed at limiting

893-521: The backbone of the new army of Tsar Alexis. To fulfill the reform goals, a large number of European military specialists were hired for service. This became possible because of the end of the Thirty Years' War , which created a colossal surplus of military professionals in Europe. Throughout his reign, Alexis faced rebellions across Russia. After resolving the 1648 Salt Riot Alexis faced rebellions in 1650 in

940-425: The boyars promised to lower the taxes and conduct an investigation in accordance with the demands of the petition and the proclamation presented by the angry crowd. The insurgents believed the Tsar's promises, and rushed back to Moscow, where rioters, meanwhile, had been destroying the residences of the most hated merchants. After meeting halfway between Moscow and Kolomenskoye , both groups of insurgents went back to

987-617: The cities of Pskov and Great Novgorod . Alexis put down the Novgorod rebellion quickly, but was unable to subdue Pskov, and was forced to promise the city amnesty in return for surrender. The Metropolitan Nikon distinguished himself at Great Novgorod and in 1651 became the Tsar's chief minister. By the 1660s, Alexis's wars with Poland and Sweden had put an increasing strain on the Russian economy and public finances. In response, Alexis's government had begun minting large numbers of copper coins in 1654 to increase government revenue but this led to

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1034-406: The civil unrest, mostly Muscovites ( posad s, soldiers , reiter s, some of the streltsy from the Moscow garrison , kholop s and peasants ). After they read out their proclamation , the insurgents made their way to Kolomenskoye to meet with Tsar Alexis I of Russia . They demanded the surrender of "traitors" to the people and the taking of steps to stabilise the economy. The Tsar and

1081-530: The conflict, stating that the conflict was initiated without his consent. In 1653, the weakness and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged from the Khmelnytsky Uprising , encouraged Alexis to attempt to annex the old Rus' lands. On 1 October 1653 a national assembly met at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying it out, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon , who had been elected patriarch in 1652. The campaign of 1654

1128-592: The end of Alexis's reign. When Charles I of England was beheaded by the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell in 1649, an outraged Alexis broke off diplomatic relations with England and accepted Royalist refugees in Moscow. He also banned all English merchants from his country (notably members of the Muscovy Company ) and provided financial assistance to " the disconsolate widow of that glorious martyr , King Charles I." In 1653, Patriarch Nikon established

1175-477: The end of the document are 315 signatures of Sobor members. The signatures of the scribes are located at the margins of the columns. Centuries later, during the reign of Catherine II , a silver ark was created to store this original scroll. At the present time, the original of the Sobornoye Ulozheniye is housed in the Kremlin Armoury . Later, a copy of the scroll was transcribed in book format. From this book,

1222-424: The exclusive privilege of owning serfs. The law code conceded many demands that were raised in the preceding decades, it satisfied the nobility's demand to retrieve runaway serfs without a time-limit, and which allowed the 'serf bondage to the soil' to later evolve into a far more comprehensive serfdom system in the 18th century. Further, the code also forbade boyars in accepting taxpayers as bondsmen. It attacked

1269-660: The house of Artamon Matveyev , whose wife was the Scottish-descended Mary Hamilton. Their children were: Sobornoye Ulozheniye The Sobornoye Ulozheniye ( Russian : Соборное уложение , lit.   'Council Code', IPA: [sɐˈbornəjə ʊlɐˈʐɛnʲɪjə] ) was a legal code promulgated in 1649 by the Zemsky Sobor under Alexis of Russia as a replacement for the Sudebnik of 1550 introduced by Ivan IV of Russia . The code survived well into

1316-517: The influence of the clergy by refusing them to accept landed estates and reduced the competence of the ecclesiastical courts. As the Time of Troubles ended, a new dynastic government, the Romanovs , commenced active law-making. An intensive growth in the number of edicts ("ukases") since the Sudebnik of 1550 can be seen from the following data: In the period of 1550-1610, only 100 edicts were issued, but in

1363-427: The involvement of some top officials. By 1662, Russia had already been experiencing an acute financial crisis . A few days before the riot, there had already been rumours on the so-called vorovskiye listki (воровские листки, or black lists ), which contained the names of those responsible for economic misfortunes. The lists suddenly appeared posted in several areas of Moscow during the night of 25 July. They included

1410-497: The more important cities of Smolensk and Kiev remained in the hands of Russia together with the whole eastern bank of the Dnieper river. This truce was the achievement of Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin , the first Russian chancellor and diplomat in the modern sense, who after the disgrace of Nikon became the tsar's first minister until 1670, when he was superseded by the equally able Artamon Matveyev , whose beneficent influence prevailed to

1457-443: The names of the "traitors", such as boyar Miloslavsky , okolnichy s Fyodor Rtishchev and Bogdan Khitrovo , diak D.M. Bashmakov, merchants V.G. Shorin, S. Zadorin and others. Those people were accused of causing economic collapse following the introduction of copper money and of having secret ties with Poland. The riot began early on the morning of 25 July and continued until the afternoon. Up to 10,000 people took part in

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1504-504: The new legal code. Members of the committee included Prince Semyon Prozorovsky, an okolnichy prince (one of highest ranks of boyars in old Russia), Fyodor Volkonsky , as well as the scribes Gavrila Leontyev and Fyodor Griboyedov. At that time, the practical job of the Zemsky Sobor began. The Zemsky Sobor was intended to consider the bill of the Ulozheniye . It had many members, including representatives of posad people communities. The Zemsky Sobor consisted of two houses. The tsar,

1551-605: The official Russian Orthodox Church to form the Old Believers movement. Across Russia, Old Believers were harshly persecuted. One such old believer was Avvakum "the leader of the old Believers". Avvakum "had his wife and children buried alive in front of him; he himself was just exiled". Several old believers fled to the monastery of Solovki which had revolted in the Solovetsky Monastery uprising . The monastery would be besieged for seven years until 22 January 1676 which

1598-650: The one built on the Iranian side of the Terek river. The successful Safavid offensive resulted in the destruction of the Russian fortress and its garrison being expelled. In 1653, Alexis, initially thinking about sending the Zaporozhian Cossacks , eventually decided to send an embassy to Persia for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. In August 1653 courtier Prince Ivan Lobanov-Rostov and steward Ivan Komynin traveled from Astrakhan to Isfahan . Shah Abbas II agreed to settle

1645-460: The other hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he would never have encouraged the great reforming boyar Matveyev. His last years, notwithstanding the terrible rebellion of Stenka Razin , were deservedly tranquil. Alexis's letters were first published by Pyotr Bartenev in 1856. They have earned him a place in the history of Russian literature , as assessed by D. S. Mirsky : A few private letters and an instruction to his falconers

1692-413: The privileges of foreign traders and abolishing useless and expensive court offices. On 17 January 1648, Morozov procured the marriage of the tsar with Maria Miloslavskaya , himself marrying her sister Anna, ten days later, both the daughters of Ilya Danilovich Miloslavsky . Alexis empowered Morozov to conduct reforms in reducing social tensions, however his measure of tripling the tax burden (arrears for

1739-520: The promulgation of the Sobornoye Ulozheniye , one of the demands of the rioters being to call the Zemsky Sobor and to make a new legal code. The riot was suppressed, but as one of the concessions to the rioters, the tsar called the Zemsky Sobor, which continued to work until the promulgation of Sobornoye Ulozheniye in 1649. A special committee headed by Prince Nikita Odoyevsky was created to draft

1786-463: The riot was partially responsible for Alexis' 1649 issuance of a new legal code, the Sobornoye Ulozhenie . In 1648, using the experience of creating regiments of the foreign system during the reign of his father, Alexis began reforming the army. The main direction of the reform was the mass creation of New Order Regiments : Reiters , Soldiers, Dragoons and Hussars . These regiments formed

1833-501: The tsar resolved to rid himself of the Swedes first. In the Peace of Kardis (2 July 1661), Russia retroceded all her conquests. The Polish war dragged on for six years longer and was then concluded by the Truce of Andrusovo (11 February 1667), nominally for thirteen years, which proved the most durable of treaties. According to the truce, Polotsk and Polish Livonia were restored to Poland, but

1880-495: The tsar’s residence to stand their ground. When they reached Kolomenskoye, a large military force of 6,000 to 10,000 soldiers had already been assembled to counter the rebels. The Tsar ordered a merciless suppression of the unrest. As a result, up to 1,000 men were killed, hanged or drowned in the Moscow River . Several thousand people were arrested and later exiled after a brutal investigation. The Copper Riot had lasted for only

1927-545: The two years preceding 1648 was demanded) saw heightened popular discontent. Morozov was regarded as a corrupt, self-seeking boyar and was accused of sorcery and witchcraft . In May 1648 Muscovites rose against his faction in the Salt Riot , and the young Tsar was compelled to dismiss them and exile Morozov to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery . Four months later, Morozov secretly returned to Moscow to regain some of his power. The popular discontent demonstrated by

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1974-465: The years 1611-1648 the number of edicts was 348. In total there were 448 edicts. This led to the situation in the Russian state that many edicts were not only obsolete, but sometimes contradicted each other. This chaos was contributed to by the scattering of normative acts throughout different state institutes (traditionally new edicts were made on demand of some prikaz , and after their promulgation were attached to an edict book of this prikaz ). There

2021-564: Was a few days before Alexis's death on 8 February 1676. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition : It is the crowning merit of the Tsar Alexei that he discovered so many great men (like Fyodor Rtishchev , Ordin, Matveyev, the best of Peter's precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man of superior strength of character, or he would never have submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on

2068-401: Was also an absence of coordination in law application: a new article in this book was often known only to the statesmen of the given prikaz. Also, the casual character of legal rules was becoming inefficient. The legislators now sought to regulate legal rules, that is, to pass on to a normative interpretation of legal rules. The Salt Riot , which broke out in Moscow in 1648, also contributed to

2115-584: Was an uninterrupted triumph, and scores of towns, including the important fortress of Smolensk , fell into the hands of the Russians. Ukrainian Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky appealed to Tsar Alexis for protection from the Poles, and the Treaty of Pereyaslav brought about Russian dominance of the Cossack Hetmanate in left-bank Ukraine . In the summer of 1655, a sudden invasion by Charles X of Sweden briefly swept

2162-514: Was given to procedural law . The sources of the Sobornoye Ulozheniye originated both from Russian and international law . Copper Riot The Copper Coin Riot , also known as the Moscow Uprising of 1662 ( Russian : Медный бунт, Московское восстание 1662 года ) was a major riot in Moscow , which took place on 4 August [ O.S. 25 July] 1662. The riot was preceded by

2209-517: Was harmonious and felicitous. They had thirteen children (five sons and eight daughters) in twenty-one years of marriage, and she died only weeks after her thirteenth childbirth. Four sons survived her (Alexei, Fyodor, Semyon and Ivan), but within six months of her death two of these were dead, including Alexei, the 15-year-old heir to the throne. The couple's children were: Alexis remarried on 1 February 1671 to Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina (1 September 1651 – 4 February 1694). She had been brought up in

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