William Tyler
The Early Romanovs: 1613-1696

William Tyler | The Early Romanovs 1613-1696 | 05.23.22

- Thank you, Wendy, and hello to everybody who’s joined us for this talk, which is entitled “The Early Romanovs: 1613 to 1696.” In other words, Russia in the 17th century. 1613 is the date when Michael Romanov became the first Romanov czar. And as you know, the Romanovs survived on the throne of Russia until the revolution of 1917. The 1696 date is the year when Peter, whom history recalls as Peter the Great, became the sole czar after the death of his co-czar and half-brother, Ivan. So 1613, Michael becomes the first Romanov czar, 1696 Peter the Great rules as czar for the first time on his own. Now, the last time we met, we noted that Michael’s accession to the Russian throne marked the end of a political time of turmoil in the country known as the Time of Troubles. Mark Galeotti writes in the book that I’ve been using, “From the Time of Troubles emerged not only the new Romanov dynasty, but also a new coherent narrative that Russia would be prey for as many foes if it did not have a single powerful ruler around whom all the classes and peoples of the nation could and must unite. This became the basis for the Russian Empire, and with it a growing national self-image as both the beleaguered fortress amid a sea of enemies.”

Now, that is of course the narrative which is currently being followed by Vladimir Putin. Russia needs a strong leader because its enemies are many. It’s surrounded, in fact, by its enemies. That’s the basis of Putin’s political viewpoint. And we keep seeing links between this distant past from the early 17th century to the early 21st century, and there’s no denying that this is part and parcel deeply embedded in the Russian DNA. But Mark Galeotti points out that those two twin tenants of Russian political life, a strong autocratic ruler and fear of enemies on its borderers comes and came with problems. And he writes, “With this though, was the inevitable tension- how to secure the borders, assert Russian interests and maintain order at home without adopting Western technologies. And could those technologies be adopted without associated social and even political change? The answer was ultimately that they could not, but for centuries the Romanov czars would certainly try to do so.” And that’s not only true, you see, of the Romanov czars, is it? It’s true of Stalin, and it’s true of the Soviet Union post-Stalin, and it’s true today of Putin. Russian history has a very common theme running through it. But before I take this story any more forward, chronologically from 1613 to 1694, I was asked a question last week of which I didn’t readily have the answer to. And that was population size.

Now, the first thing to remember is there were no censuses in any modern way at all. And so these are historians trying to interpolate the past in various ways to come up with figures. Now, when we get to the 17th century, it isn’t too rough and ready if we look at England because of the records kept by the Church of England of births, marriages, and deaths, and you can get to a figure. But in a country like Russia, it’s very difficult. But the usual figures for Russia are in 1600, the beginning of my talk today, the population of Russia was something like 9 million. A hundred years later, 1700, where my talk will end today, the population was something just slightly over, they reckon, 13 and a half million. Now, you have to remember that throughout this period, Russia is expanding territorially. So this isn’t a birth rate. This is simply… Well, it’s partly a birth rate, but it’s mainly in terms of acquired territories and their populations. If we take 1600 in England as a guide, the Americans will know that to take America as an example is pointless at this period. If we take England, Ireland, and Wales, because in 1600 Scotland is still an independent kingdom, the population of England, Ireland, and Wales in 1600 is five and a three-quarter million. 1700, a hundred years later when Scotland joins and we’ve got England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, the population is still only 8.6 million and it isn’t going to increase until we have the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Then of course it takes off. So Russia, 9 million up to 13 and a half million. In short, we can say about Russia that it’s sparsely populated and its population lies mainly in the west. It was and remained until the 20th century, a largely rural society. Before someone asks in the chat room how many is, how much is the population of Russia today, the official census figures from 2020 are 144.1 million. But these are very awkward figures because unlike England and Wales, Russia isn’t the same land mass. It keeps changing. So to compare population figures is not over helpful in terms of Russian history. What can be helpful is to compare Russian population figures at a particular date with the date of other countries around it. Whereas in England, you can legitimately, and Wales, and indeed Scotland and Ireland, you can legitimately compare one year or century or decade with another because the land mass remained the same. So to return to my chronology, in 1613, therefore Michael Romanov became czar. He is to reign until his death in 1645, the end of the first civil war in England. Indeed subsequently, after the execution of Charles I in England, the Russian government, the Russian czars, withdrew all the privileges given to the English Muscovy Company because they believed that the English Muscovy Company was funding Parliament in the war against Charles I and the autocracy of the Romanovs couldn’t take in the fact that in England we had beheaded an anointed God-given king. Now, as I look at the first half, therefore the 17th century, that is the reign of Michael Romanov between 1613 and 1645, we’ll take some headings. And we’ll take the headings war, Russia’s obsession about the security of its boundaries.

We’ll take the word expansion because we must remember that this is a Russian empire and we’re using the word empire in the same sense that we can use it in 18th and 19th century America, the United States as an empire expanding across one land mass. We can also look at rebellion, which is ever a feature of Russian society. And we can look at that old division between the West and the East with Russia. If I look at war, expansion, rebellion, and the division between West and East, I hope it will give you some insight into the first half of the 17th century, i.e., Michael’s reign. First of all, then war. In the west, Russia fights against Sweden and Poland. Next week when we come to the story of Peter the Great, we shall see the end of the rise of Sweden. Poland, well, Poland and Russia remain in 2022 as opposed to each other as they’ve always been even if at times Poland has been subsumed in part or in whole within the Russian axis. So there’s war in the west then against Sweden and Poland pushing into those very territories where Russia has the highest population. In the east it finds itself at war with Persia, that is to say modern Iran. And in the south, it finds itself at war with the Tartars in the Crimea. Now, the Tartars are not a Mongol people, they are a Turkic people, but they were also a subject race under the Mongol Empire. And the word Tartar and Mongol become to some extent intermixed.

But there are Tartars now, of course, still living in Russia, predominantly Volga Tartars and Crimean Tartars. The word Tartar got taken into English with a specific meaning. When you say, oh my goodness me, he’s a right Tartar. But actually the word itself comes from Persian, and simply means a mounted, like the Mongols, horseback, like the cossacks, horseback, messenger. So they fought against the Tartars in the Crimea. The whole story is about Russia securing its borders. It’s the same story, the same narrative, to borrow Mark Galeotti’s word, the same narrative as Putin has today. To not bore you rigid with the stories and the ins and outs of these wars, I will simply read this short account so that we know where we are. “The highest priority for Russia was to bring an end to the destabilising conflicts with Sweden and Poland. The former was achieved in 1617, and while Sweden agreed to return Novgorod to Russian control, it remained in possession of towns on the Gulf of Finland.” That of course remains in 2022. An issue with Finland joining NATO, and with Estonia having managed to escape the claws of Russia in 1991. “All told this was a price worth paying for Russia. A truce was arranged with Poland in 1618, but the Poles kept hold of Smolensk.

This issue would resurface in 1632 and another rather shorter Russian-Persian-Polish war would be the result.” Russian-Polish wars go on and on, and we shall also come to a whole series of Russian-Ottoman wars that go on and on. But the conclusion with Sweden we shall meet next week with Peter the Great. And one final sentence, “The Tartars of Crimea became an increasingly irritating thorn in the Russian’s side given their habit of kidnapping Russians and selling them into the Ottoman slave trade.” So war, securing its boundaries, but it was also extending its boundaries. And during Michael Romanov’s reign, it reached the far Pacific Coast on a permanent basis. And, well, as a result, gained a lot of native Siberian tribes people into its empire. And I will read just this short piece here. “In 1639, a band of Cossacks reached the Pacific Coast, while behind them would come stockades, tax collectors, missionaries, and smallpox, decimating the thinly scattered Indigenous population of Siberia more viciously than any gun or blade.”

Remind you of anything? What about my American friends? Is this not the same as the expansion of the United States three centuries later, in their case, westwards not eastwards? And themselves reaching the Pacific Coast and along the way spreading European diseases amongst the Indigenous population. I want to give you that thought that the Russian Empire and the American Empire are very similar. We don’t think of the American as an empire because the Indigenous peoples were… Well, were not large enough in population when the expansion from the East Coast began to register. I know the story is different today, but it’s slightly different because this is a European colonisation empire, whereas the Russian was a Russian colonisation empire. But the point is, they were the same. An expansion across one continent. Except of course, America had a bonus. America had the Pacific on one side, but it had the Atlantic on the other giving firm borders. It also established a firm border with Canada after very little fighting in 1812 and so on. It managed to secure a border there, and we can’t see that border being in any way difficult. The border with Mexico, of course, has proved more troublesome through the centuries and is a, I think, one will describe it as a troublesome border today. But it doesn’t have the threat of being conquered, which is what Russia feels.

Poland, now NATO. So that’s the story of expansion. I also mentioned rebellion. It’s obvious that an autocratic and expanding and nationalistic, frankly, empire, as Russia was, would inevitably succumb to be the victim of rebellions. The most serious in Michael’s reign came from the Cossack tribes in the south. The Cossacks are always going to be a problem for Russia. Russia has these problems with these minority groups like Tartans and like Cossacks. And let me just read you this little piece. A Cossack rebellion that saw towns burn along the Volga, and a short-lived Cossack republic, followed by a peace that saw the largest of their communities, and with it much of what is now Ukraine, brought under the rule of the czar.“ This is the first time since Ukraine entered our story at the very beginning with Kievan Rus that Ukraine has entered our story. So here it is in the reign of the first Romanov. And here it is in Putin’s reign in 2022. And then we come to our old favourite that Russia is Janus-like, looking both one way and the other, West and East. It’s never wholly Western. It’s never wholly Eastern. It’s very difficult really to sort of explain. It wanted all the goodies of the West, but it didn’t want what came with it, which is largely to say different ideas of governance, and as the years go by, democracy. And that’s much the same as Putin is in a position now. He needs some of our goods. We understand that he needs some of our manufactured goods to enable his army to perform. And yet he doesn’t want to be Western. He wants Russia to be different.

He wants Russia to be what it always was, defending its borders with a strong autocratic leader. So in order to control Westerners, whether the Westerners were merchants, entrepreneurs, or whether they were diplomats or academics, whoever the Westerners were, shortly after Michael’s death in 1652, they were put into what we can call a ghetto, a Western ghetto. The Russians called it the German Quarter. Now, that did not mean there was an English Quarter, a French Quarter, et cetera. The Russians used the word German to mean any Westerner. So the German Quarter had in it English, French, German, whatever. So a German Quarter is set up in Moscow so that they could control it. And so one of their concerns was that the West wouldn’t preach its form of Christianity, whether Catholicism or Protestantism, to the Orthodox Russians. But it is this obsession with the West. It’s the obsession with Western ideas. Yes, we’ll have Western technology, but we don’t want the ideas which go with it. And that it remains, as I said, a truism then and now. Now, here is another story about precisely that West-East division. It’s a true story, and it’s a very sort of odd one in a sense. And it goes like this. "When Michael, the czar, sent an embassy to Denmark in 1642 with hopes of securing a marriage between his daughter, Irina, and the son of the Danish king, the Danes requested a portrait of Irina.” That that was the normal thing. You remember the portrait that was sent to Henry VIII of Anne of Cleves? The problem is that painters are not like photographers and she looked quite… Well, she looked quite attractive until she actually arrived and she was called by the English the Flanders mare, the Flanders horse.

Well, this is what happens to Denmark. “Just as Western diplomatic protocol demanded, the Danes asked for Irina’s portrait. The Russian response was that a Russian princess could never be seen, either in the flesh or in effigy by anyone other than her close relations.” Makes marriage a bit of a lottery. “The worlds were still somewhere distance apart for all that. Michael was keen to recruit the services of foreign cannon-makers, foreign soldiers to train his troops, and to import the latest weaponry from Western Europe.” And that’s Putin! “In 1624, 168 Polish soldiers, 130 German, and 64 Irish were to be found in Russia dispensing their military wisdom to the locals. By the 1630s, Swedish wheelwrights and carpenters were a common site in the capital.” Oh, incidentally, they had no wheelbarrows. We’ll come to that story next time. “On the right bank of the Yauza River, the German Quarter in Moscow, home to all and any overseas visitors to the capital, thrived.” They needed the West, but they despised the West, and they were in truth frightened of the West. Well, frightened of course in terms of invasion by Poland and Sweden, but frightened overwhelmingly by the ideas of the West. I keep saying, and I’ll go on saying, this is all deep in Russian DNA, and it’s important.

It’s important at the moment because it gives us an understanding of where Putin is, and the belief you get rid of Putin and everything is resolved. I don’t buy into that. I simply don’t. On my paper it says “Stop,” or pause. Michael’s reign, as I’ve said, ended with his death in 1645. He was succeeded by his son Alexis, and life goes on, war. We saw just a moment or so ago that in the reign of Michael, Russia found itself fighting in the Ukraine against the Cossacks. Poland was not happy about this. We’ve all, you all know where Poland is in relationship with the Ukraine. It’s on our TV news every night. And Poland was further into the what is now Ukraine in those days. And a 13-year-long war took place in what we call Ukraine today between Poland and Russia over the Crimea. The Crimea is important because of its access to the sea. And at the end of 13 years, they came to a peace, an arrangement. All wars end somehow or other- in a peace, some with one party totally dominant, and sometimes a stalemate. Now, many commentators think the war today in the Ukraine will end in a stalemate. And if it does, maybe the solution they found in the reign of Alexis will be adopted once again. And that solution was to divide Ukraine into two, a Western Polish part and an Eastern Russian part based on the River Dnieper. Are we going to see precisely that at the end of this war? A Russian Eastern Ukraine, and not a Polish Western Ukraine, but a Ukrainian. A Ukrainian Western Ukraine.

Zelensky is totally opposed to that, but he isn’t going to have, surely he isn’t going to have a military victory. I think that’s impossible in Eastern Ukraine. And whether Putin lives or dies, whether Putin remains in charge or not, the Russians having established a land bridge right down and if they can manage it, take Odessa and Transnistria too, they’re not going to give it up. And that looks, and many people are commenting along those lines, that the solution of Alexis’s reign will be the solution in 20-whatever date it ends. But because Russia was expanding southwards, this led to bigger nations around it, bigger nations at the time, beginning to be worried about Russia. Russia was seen, as we see it today, as a threat to stability. And I wanted just to read this little bit. “Russia’s territorial ambitions alarmed its old enemy Sweden.” Because it began to have territorial ambitions in the north as well as the south. This is an expanding empire. “And so as not to be left out in the geopolitical morass, the Tartars of the Crimea were apt to then as being against Moscow again. Persia also decided again to the fray along with the Ottoman Empire on this occasion.” Every, this is NATO by another name. Ottoman Empire, Turkey. Turkey is a member of NATO. Sweden, Sweden is now a member of NATO. Ukraine wants to be.

This is exactly the scenario being played out in 2022. Now, this is another pause in what I’m saying. It’s a pause because I want to introduce you to a range of different ideas here. You know that Belarus is White Russia and the people living in Belarus are known as White Russians. What you may not know is in the 17th century Ukraine was known as Little Russia and what we call Russia was known as Great Russia. And I brought along for this evening, this extraordinary, it’s on my, it’s on my list, by Plokhy, “The Lost Kingdom,” subtitled “The History of Russian Nationalism.” This is an academic book, but an outstandingly good book. He’s the professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard, and he’s written a lot of books about Russia and Eastern Europe, all of which demand to be read. They are splendid books. They’re not easy books by any means, but they are splendid. Now, here he’s explaining, I’m going to short circuit it ‘cause he goes back to church divisions, which I think confuses it for us. First of all, he says, “White Rus or Belarus was added to the czars title in 1655.” So Belarus becomes Russian within the Russian Empire in 1655. It only leaves in 1991. Plokhy goes on to say, “The name Little Rus, earlier only applied to Kyiv in the Ukraine, was now applied to all of Russian Ukraine. Just as the czarist chroniclers insisted on differentiating not only Great and Little Rus, but White Rus also. So the intellectuals of Little Rus and White Rus maintained that the identities of Little and White Russia were separate from that of Great Russia or Great Rus.”

In other words, Belarus, there is a view in Belarus in 2022 that we are not Russian, we are White Russian. Now, in this period, the 17th century, the Ukrainians, Little Rus, claimed that they were the true Russia because had not Russia actually begun in Kyiv right in my first talk about Russia? So we’re really the true Russians and Great Russia are not the true Russians. And Plokhy writes, “Curiously enough, from today’s point of view,” and this was before the Ukrainian war, “the Ukrainians were reluctant to extend membership in the nation that they called Russia to the inhabitants of Great Rus.” They said we are the true Russians, not those who live in Moscow. They’re Muscovites, not Russians. Today, Putin says they’re not Ukrainians, they’re Russian. This is not about ethnicity so much as about a perception of independence and nationalism. After all, Plokhy’s book is called “A History of Russian Nationalism.” So what I’m trying to say is some of the issues of today go right back to the 17th century. Belarus, some in Belarus want to be part of Russia, as it were, Lukashenko and so on. But there are Belorussians who want to be completely free, not just because they want a democratic rule, but because they don’t see themselves as part of greater Russia. And the Ukrainians certainly don’t see themselves as part of greater Russia, although as you well know, from all the reports we’ve had on our media, there were intermarriages and people didn’t take much notice. Now, they take an enormous… It’s made them more nationalistic. That’s obvious.

And that’s what they were in the 17th century. Sometimes, well, I suppose it’s obvious really, the media have to simplify things. And unfortunately in the Russian-Ukrainian war, it’s been simplified into good versus bad, good versus evil or whatever way you want to express it. But the truth is many-layered, and it goes right back into history. And what solution is that? Well, as I said a moment or so ago, many people feel that the obvious solution is the solution of the 17th century, an Eastern Russian Ukraine and a Western Ukrainian Ukraine. A division again between Greater Russia… After all, that’s exactly what Putin is after. Greater Russia, to restore the empire of the USSR, to restore the empire of the czars. And the Ukrainians see themselves as different, but also the cradle of being Russian in Kyiv, right, right back in those early centuries. Alexis died in 1676. What was Russia sort of like in 1676 at his death?

Let me read you this editorial part in “The Chronicles of Russia.” He, Alexis, by the way, was very religious. “By the time the most pious czar, Alexis, died in January, 1676, a number of cracks had already begun to appear in the facade of traditional Muscovite culture as Russia drew closer to Europe through war, diplomacy, and territorial expansion.” Now, I’ve talked about territorial expansion frightening people as far apart as the Swedes and the Ottomans. War, when the Russians see that their army isn’t quite what Western armies like the Swedish army is, is that not what we’re seeing exactly in Ukraine today? That the Russian army isn’t the equivalent of NATO? And the Russian army in the 1670s wasn’t the equivalent of the Swedes or the Poles. They’ve also had to engage in diplomacy. Why? Because they can’t cut themselves off trade-wise. We’re back to the Ukrainian war. Trade, that’s what the conference in Davos has been talking about. Trade with Russia. Zelensky says cut all trade. I’m not sure that’s entirely possible, but here in the late 17th century, the Russians need to trade. They’ve got things we want in the West and we’ve got things they want.

Largely speaking, they want, they want our technology, like military technology. That’s why they employed all these Westerners in their army. Not only the technology of the army, but the way that the tactics are formed. How do you form up a line of battle, for example. Subsequently, lots of Scots go, including a man called Gordon, who began his life in Russia as a tutor to the czar, or later czar, Peter, Peter the Great. And he then served as a senior commander for Peter. They drew on expertise from outside. So let me read this again in full. “By the time the most pious czar, Alexis, died in January, 1676, a number of cracks had already begun to appear in the facade of traditional Muscovite culture as Russia drew closer to Europe through war, diplomacy, and territorial expansion. The Russian Orthodox Church had been divided and weakened.” And that’s something else that’s been going on at this period. The Russian Orthodox Church divided between a group of reformers and those who held to the old ways and became known as old believers. Old believers and reformers. And that division still exists, although there was as late as 1974, some sort of rapprochement. We’ll come back to the Orthodox Church at a later point. But the reformers, this is quite difficult because logically you’d think it was the old believers. What was the divisions? Well, like many theological divisions, odd. How did you cross yourself? From left to right or right to left? It’s like how many angels are there on the head of a pin?

But there is important aspect in this. The reformers wanted the church to be strong in relationship to the czar. Why is that important? Because in an autocracy, there’s really only two bodies that can stand up to an autocrat. If there isn’t a parliament, and there isn’t in Russia until the first decade of the 20th century, and then it’s got rid of because the czar didn’t like what it said, then you’ve only got the aristocracy, the boyars. And that’s the argument about Putin today. That he will be taken out by those closest to him, and that was always the fear of the czars. So that’s one issue. The boyars, he’s got to keep them happy as Putin has to keep his generals and those close to him happy. And if he can’t keep them happy, he needs to get shot of them. And shot might be the appropriate word. But the other, the other element in the state that can control the autocrat is the church. And that’s what the reformers are arguing at the end of the 17th century. You must speak truth to the autocrat. We’ll see next time when I speak how Peter was having none of that. And Peter’s solution was the solution of Lenin and Stalin as well. And to a large extent, the solution of Putin to control the church. The church is valuable in keeping the people down, but you need to control the church.

So if I am the patriarch of Moscow and I give a speech which criticises Putin today or criticised Peter the Great in the late 17th century, I will be removed, usually sent to a monastery for the rest of my days, and a more pliant patriarch is put in my place. So we have that all going on as well. What does it tell us? It tells us that this Romanov autocracy, although it’s looking to the West, and you can write an essay saying how marvellous, it was looking forward. It isn’t, it’s also looking backward, Janus-like. It wants what the West has to offer in material terms,. It doesn’t want what the West has to offer in political or even social terms. Thus, the appalling, to the Russians, the appalling execution of Charles I. They don’t want to know anything about a society that can take its own king’s head off. Now, there’s one other thing that I must mention, talking about the church and the state of Russia at this time. Let me read on, if I may. “A few bold individuals at court even began to adopt semi-Westernized lifestyles.” They shaved their beards off. Oh, big deal. “But by Western standards, Russia still seemed backward. At best, a fringe nation, ruled by an autocratic monarch and hampered by a serf-based economy without the benefit of a middle class, universities,” well, they did have institutes of higher education, but very limited in what they were able to do, “or even secular culture. Foreigners contemptuously referred to Russia as a 'rude and barbarous kingdom.’” That’s how they saw it.

Now, I mentioned serfdom. And I think a couple of weeks ago somebody said would I say about something about serfdom? I’ll say a brief word now. I shall say more in later talks. First thing I have to say is serfdom is not slavery. We all know what a slave is. He’s owned by a master. Think of the United States in Southern states before the Civil War and Emancipation. You are owned by a master. You might even carry his name around your neck. Serfdom is not that. Serfdom means you are tied to the land. If I own this estate around me here, I don’t own you, but you are not allowed to leave the estate without my permission. But say I go bust and I sell my estate. The serfs move with the land. So somebody else comes in and is the lord of the estate, the serfs serve him as they served me. Alexis had confirmed and defined serfdom in legislation in 1649. And serfdom was to survive in Russia until 1861. In England, it was on massive decline after the Black Death in 1349 and the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, and was pretty well extinct by 1500. And the coup de gras was given by Queen Elizabeth in 1574 that simply banned it. But it had gone, and this was tidying up legislation in 1574, 1574. 1861, it finishes in Russia, but actually in some ways it still continued after 1861. We’ll come to all that in due course. Just let me read you a little bit before I move on from serfdom and this sort of quasi-feudal structure, which still existed in Russia in the 17th century and basically through to the 20th century. “In the 18th century, serfdom was more efficiently enforced than in previous centuries, and the serf position actually worsened as they were increasingly regarded as the master’s possession with ever less protection.”

In other words, although they weren’t slaves, in reality many of them were. “Serfs discharged their obligations by working a certain number of days per week, often three, or by paying a quick rent.” In other words, I’m not going to work for you, but I’ll pay you. How did they pay? Well, out of the days they worked for themselves, or if they were allowed to work away from the estate, that is to say in a neighbouring town to earn money, then they would pay that instead of working. That’s serfdom. What does it tell us? It tells us that Russia was a backward society in terms of Western Europe. And it is this backwardness which Russia has been fighting from the 17th to the 21st centuries. It seems sometimes to have caught up, think of the Space Race, but then falls behind again. And this escapade of Putin’s has put a huge dent in the catching up process. He’s exposed Russian power to be pretty thin in terms of military, naval, and air resources. So Alexis dies in 1676 and he succeeded by his son, Fyodor. Fyodor III, who only reigns briefly between 1676 and 1682. And Russia stills moves excruciatingly slowly towards Westernisation, but a Russian version always of Westernisation. Fyodor’s problem was he didn’t have an heir, and that is always a major catastrophe for an autocracy. And there was a double disaster.

Because he had no son to succeed him, the next in line was a younger brother called Ivan. But Ivan was challenged both physically and mentally, and when Fyodor died, Ivan was only 15 and was terribly unsuitable to be a czar. So his elder sister, called Sophia, steps in and becomes a regent, and she basically reigned with her lover well, we can’t be sure. Well, I’m, come on. Yeah, I’m sure he was her lover, Prince Golitsyn. But they couldn’t quite get away with that, and so they were forced to have two czars, 15-year-old Ivan, physically and intellectually challenged, and an even younger, and an even younger half-brother of Ivan and Sophia called Peter. Peter the Great, who’s only nine years old, no threat to Sophia. Ivan, although 15, and over 20, 21 when Sophia’s reign comes to an end is not in a position to challenge her. No one’s going to support Ivan, and better to have Sophia with a strong hand with her lover than this sadly disabled young man. Peter is different. Peter is also growing up. Of course Sophia has other concerns on Peter’s education. Peter, I said, was being educated by a Scottish soldier, but in addition to that, Peter became immensely interested in playing at soldiers with other children.

But maybe Sophia didn’t care, didn’t really notice that Peter and the other children grew up, and the toy soldiers that they were, the boy soldiers, perhaps I should say, become young men organised in two regimens. Sophia is still concerned about the border. She’s dealing with Poland, the Crimea, and she’s also dealing now with China. And she comes to treatise with both Poland and China, but the Crimea is still a real problem for her and for Russia. And I read this, “The disastrous campaigns of 1687 and 1689 against the Crimean Tartars in which Russia was defeated, not so much by enemy force of arms, so much as the logistical challenges amounting military expeditions that the borders of what had become a large state.” Really Putin should have read Mark Galeotti’s book before he entered the war in Ukraine. The long logistical supply lines. We move the story now forward into really next week. This is the pre-bit of Peter’s reign. “Sophia either could not or would not declare herself empress. Instead, she had to watch his Ivan sickened, and Peter became increasingly willful.

In 1689, the 17-year-old Peter had decided that enough was enough. He demanded that Sophia step aside. Though she sought to resist him, she faced the majority of the boyars, most of the army, and Peter’s play army of two regiments. By then he had cavalry and artillery as well.” Perhaps even more importantly, Ivan was willing to go along with Peter. We should say for whatever we come to about Peter and his character, Peter protected his older, sad stepbrother. He got on well together, and Peter looked after him. So Sophia was forced into a monastery by Peter, which is what happened to women as well as clergy who offended the czar. But she’s rather clever because she knew which monastery she would be assigned to, and I reckon she knew it was coming and she spent… Well, I was going to say millions. We don’t know how much. She spent a large amount of money on this monastery to make sure it was extremely comfortable for her to spend the rest of her life in. I think that’s rather good and rather clever. Ivan finally died in 1696, leaving Peter sole czar.

A French visitor to Russia around precisely this time described Peter in these terms, the Frenchman writes, “Peter amuses himself,” this is him as czar, “Peter amuses himself by making his favourites play tug of war with each other, and often they knock each other out in their efforts to pay court.” We’re going to see this sort of Peter next time when he visits England and destroys a rather nice 17th century garden in Greenwich. Well, that’s next week’s story. “Peter amuses himself by making his favourites play tug of war with each other, and often they knock each other out in their efforts to pay court. In the winter, he had large holes cut in the ice and makes the fattest lords pass over them in sleds. The weakness of the new ice often causes them to fall in and drown.” Oh, what wonderful entertainment. “But his dominant passion is to see houses burned.” Oh, what a delightful young man. Peter is a complex personality, a very complex. Mark Galeotti described Peter in this way. “Peter towered over those around him, both figuratively and literally. He was a veritable giant over six-foot-eight in an age when the average man was five-foot-six.” Six-foot-eight. That’s nearly a foot taller than I am. “He had a prodigious enthusiasm for enthusiasm, forever seeking to learn new skills from dentistry. His unfortunate courtiers had to let him practise on them whether they had toothache or not.” And he was interested in clock making. He is an extraordinary man. “He had a genuine curiosity for the outside world, even travelling across Europe, a first such venture for a Russian ruler.”

And he was impressed by what he saw in the Netherlands, and he was impressed by what he saw in England. And we’ll come, as I keep saying, next week to tell that story. “Nonetheless, in many ways, Peter was at most a combination of a process. Many of his reforms were rooted in the practises of his Romanov predecessors. And his policies were often dictated not by his own will, but by the circumstances in which he found himself, not least war with Sweden.” I got one final quotation, again, from editor of the “Russian Chronicles.” What was Russia like then in 1700 as Peter comes into full possession of the throne and of all of Russia? At the end of the 17th century, “Russia was a country in transition.” Well, I think you’ve seen that from what I’ve said today. “During the reign of Alexis, she had drawn closer to Europe through war, diplomacy, and the hiring of foreign specialists.” We’ve seen that. “But by Western standards, Russia was still culturally backward,” and we’ve mentioned that, “a landlocked country,” because the north, the White Sea is icebound, “a landlocked country ruled by an autocratic monarch, its economy based on serfdom.”

So if you were at school and children and knew nothing of the history of Russia, I would end by saying, so what does Peter do? Does he advance Russia along a Western route or does he dig his heels in and remains a traditionalist? And the truth of the matter, he is both. He is both. I think he was the one man, I say that carefully because we’ve got Catherine the Great to come. He was the one man who could have brought Russia into the Western European fold. But in the end, that doesn’t happen. So same time, same channel, unfortunately, the same speaker. Tune in next week. See you then. So I expect, oh, I’ve got lots of questions, yes. Hang on, where am I? Let’s have a look.

Q&A and Comments

Oh, the people are just saying nice things.

Q: “Regarding East-West, I’m interested to know is Russia part of the East or the West?” A: If you can answer that question, Putin will employ you. The the truth is, Tim, it’s part of both. It’s never resolved itself. Now, this is not like America. Theoretically, America on the East Coast and the West Coast would be the same. You are aware that it’s very different. But in Russia, they look both ways, sometimes at the same time. And sometimes they lean one way and sometimes the other.

Q: “What proportion of of the population of Russia are ethnic Russians? Russian-speaking Russia’s mother tongue?” A: Overwhelmingly Russian is the mother tongue. In terms of the population ethnicity. I’ll bring you the full figures. I’ll bring you a breakdown next time.

Q: “Does Russia think they’re going to be conquered by NATO?” A: Yes, they do. They’re frightened. Well, when you say Russia, Putin carries that fear. He believes that NATO is on his borders and if he isn’t strong will come in. We know that NATO, well, we keep hearing that NATO is a defensive alliance. But if you were Russian, how is a defensive alliance supplying all these weapons of war, America and Britain primarily, to the Ukrainians? This is like America in World War II prior to Pearl Harbour supplying Britain with weapons. It’s hardly neutral, and it’s hardly defensive. If Hitler had taken Britain, that did not threaten America. If Putin takes Ukraine, it doesn’t threaten America. So he has a point, you see. That if you, we know different than that. Or do we? Is there a point at which NATO would go aggressive? Well, yes it would. If he invaded NATO territory. Finland, Estonia, Poland, if he was to invade their territory, we are obliged, all of us in NATO, to go to their aid. Or would we simply say we’ll supply you with weapons, but not men on the ground? I don’t know. This is the uncertainty that Putin has created in Europe and the rest of the world. The assumption was always been that, well, the assumption in the Cold War is if Putin pressed the red button, the American president will press the red button and there will be mutual destruction. Mad, you remember. Remember the magazine called after that, “Mad.” Well, that doesn’t, that doesn’t work anymore. The interesting thing is what is China making of all of this as it’s desperate to get Taiwan. America will fight for Taiwan. My guess is America will fight for Taiwan, but it may not. It may use the Japanese to fight for Taiwan and supply more weapon. It’s very difficult to judge what is happening at the moment because everything is up in the air.

Q: Irene says, “Doesn’t Peter have a point, the West being obsessed with defeating Russia since the ‘17 revolution?” A: Absolutely.

“It doesn’t excuse Putin’s monstrous behaviour any more than excuses than it excuses Lenin or Stalin.” Absolutely right, Irene. I agree with you. In 1917 Revolution, large numbers of forces, including America, Canada, Japan, Britain, Czechs, and so forth, fight in Russia for the White Russians against communism. So of course, of course Putin realises all of that. And it, oh, sorry, I’m not going to go into Cossacks again. I’ve answered that a number of times, and when I come across them again, I’ll give you another brief. They’re tribal peoples. They came from the East. They’re not Mongols, they’re not Tartans. Well, that’s a very simple explanation. Oh, yes.

Jonathan says, “I highly recommend Richard Overy’s this latest book, 'Blood and Ruins,’ which bears out much of your lecture.” Yes, hang on. Not that I used it for this lecture, let me get rid of that, but here it is. Richard Overy, “Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931 to 1945.” I will undoubtedly use it when we get to that period, but you are absolutely right. That is spot on. Richard Overy is the Emeritus Professor in Britain at the University of Exeter, and he writes a lot on World War II in a very, a very, he’s very academic, but the books are, he writes beautifully and they’re very accessible to all of us. Oh, I’ve got to, sorry, I’ve got to go down now a bit.

Q: Oh, Peter says, “Is the fact that Russia kept it people in serfdom well into the 19th century, whereas Western Europe was done with feudalism centuries before, the reason for Russia’s anxiety about Western ideas?” A: No, not serfdom particularly. I don’t think that’s so. We’ve got to look at how the Enlightenment affected Russia. One of the problems is that nothing affected the Orthodox Church as it affected, neither the Reformation nor Enlightenment affected the Orthodox Church, and that’s a problem, but not serfdom particularly, I don’t think. Michael says,

Q: “Based on your comments, can the conflict between Russia and Ukraine be partly viewed to be similar to US Civil War?” A: No, no, because the Civil War was between Americans and Americans. And this, the Ukrainians don’t see themselves as Russian. They see themselves as Ukrainian. If the South had seen themselves as, I don’t know what, British or something. No, no, no, no, it isn’t. No, I think it is not a comparison that works.

Q: “Why not a plebiscite?” A: Well, why not? Because Zelensky won’t agree to a plebiscite. And the problem is that the population has been so scattered that a plebiscite would be meaningless now in East Ukraine and Crimea. That those who would’ve voted to remain with Ukraine have either been killed, have left voluntarily, or have been imprisoned, and Russia will be importing, as they have done, more Russians. So I don’t think a plebiscite is the answer.

Q: Marilyn says, “If Eastern Ukraine becomes part of Russia, Western Ukraine will have no ports which give access to the Black Sea.” A: No, that’s absolutely true. That’s true. And that’s a problem for everybody. And that’s another issue that would have to be resolved.

Oh, who’s this? Mona, great. “While I was teaching in Belarus, there were fierce arguments about the teachers about their citizenship. Those who’d demanded to be known as Russians were determined to right. The Belorussian believers felt that the others were just scared. It was surprising to me as an American that there could be any question about who they were, no winner.” Well, thank you, Mona. That’s splendid because I think that’s exactly what I was trying to say, but you have said it better and you’ve said it with direct experience of working there. So many thanks for that. I would’ve thank you if you disagreed with me, but as you agree with me, you can have double thanks. You can have three stars for that.

Q: Estelle says, “I understand but what does it signify for those who claim to be of that group?” A: That they’re Belarus, that’s what they’re called. No other reason than that.

“I once read that Putin told the Western countries that Russia has democracy.” Well, Russian democracy, it seems that this goes back in history forever. Ooh, some of you may have heard me say this before. I think we now live in a time when words to describe political structures are becoming increasingly meaningless. Democracy, populism, Nazism, fascism, commune. These are losing their old… Left and right, Democrat and Republican. We are losing, a Conservative Party in Britain, we are losing what these words once meant and we haven’t got a language to speak about it in.

Q: Oh, “How did Michael obtain the position of czar?” A: Because of the, as I said last time, because of the Time of Troubles, in the end they decided they had to have an autocratic ruler. They, being the Boyars, the aristocracy, and the Romanovs gave them the best. They were the strongest of the, they appeared to be the strongest of the families available, and Michael didn’t seem a threat, but seemed a solid, a safe pair of hands, as we say in Britain. So that’s why the Romanovs got it. Oh, thanks.

Q: “If the Russians didn’t see themselves as Western, what do they see themselves as?” A: Who asked that? Erica. Erica, this is going to sound a rude answer, but I think it’s the true answer. They saw themselves and see themselves as Russian. They see themselves as superior, Russia, Mother Russia. They have a hugely inflated sense of their own importance.

Oh, is there a way? Oh yeah, sorry. Judy is typing and answer there. Yes, the border. Sorry,

Q: “Does China have any land claim against Russian Siberia?” A: Yes, because the border is fractious. In the far east, the Chinese-Russian border is… Fluid is the wrong word to use, but is, if I say the Wild West, perhaps everyone knows. An English comparison, English Scottish comparison is the border country in the Middle Ages where you have, where neither England nor Scotland really controlled the border. And we’re saying that in terms of the China-Russia border. In many places, it’s not really controlled by either major power. And if we say the Wild West, yes, in terms of the American Wild West, it is. The gun rules, okay.

Q: “How long will this series continue?” A: Hopefully until current times. Either current times or to when I completely lose it, flake out, or dementia takes hold. But yes, hopefully up to the present day. I eventually intended to take it to Putin, but Putin might not be there when I reach the final talk.

Q: If Ukraine is defending itself and the West is supplying arms, why is that not defensive? A: Jonathan, I’m not saying it isn’t. I’m saying give yourself, put yourself in Putin’s position and it isn’t defensive. Give us eyes to see ourselves as others see us. It is such an important lesson. And in this case, Putin doesn’t see it like that, and why should he?

“It seems that Europe does not want to have another war in Europe.” No, but it was quite happy with the Yugoslav’s Civil war, was it not? I think it’s quite happy to have wars in Europe provided they don’t involve major countries. It’s quite happy to have the Greek Civil War. Post-1945, Greek Civil War. The 20th century Spanish Civil War. I’m not prepared to say that. And if you say Europe, it isn’t Europe. It’s America. Is America? Who knows. Who is the next president of the United States? Oh yes, thanks very much.

Biden has… “Thanks from America. Biden has just stated this weekend that it will come to Taiwan’s aid militarily if China attacked.” But in the event, what would that mean? The deployment of the US Navy along with Allied ships, the deployment of the US Air Force, or troops on the ground? I’m not sure he’d put troops on the ground. I really am not. America hasn’t been overly successful in putting troops on the ground. Think Korea, think Vietnam. Would it really do that? I’m not sure. Oh, sorry. I’ve gone and lost it. I’ve gained, gosh, I’ve got more. I thought I’d nearly at the end of the questions. They just seemed to be growing. Hang on, I’ll get back to the question. Hang on, there we are.

Q: “Well, isn’t Russian expansion the point?” says Myrna. “Plus, does one actually believe Putin will give up his lifestyle to share with his people?” A: Well, I can’t say anything but yes to the first. Russian expansion is the point. He wants to recreate the empire. And will Putin give up his lifestyle? Hardly.

Q: “Isn’t Putin’s dread of NATO caused by his intentional return to the imperial Russia?” A: Yes, although he actually talks about the Soviet Union, and you’ll have seen on your television screens Soviet flags on some of the Russian tanks in Ukraine. I find that quite worrying.

Oh, this is Rose. “For your information, the normal height was much smaller than Peter Romanov. He could well have had gigantism, which is due to a pituitary tumour and related to excess pathological amount of growth hormone.” Well, that’s interesting. I guess you are talking from a professional standpoint. That is very interesting. Oh, Myrna says, “‘Foreign Affairs Magazine’ just gave a rather scathing opinion of Overy as being a little dismissive of many inconvenient historical facts.” One historian’s book is poison to another. So the only thing I can ever say is I find him interesting to read. I don’t mean to say that I agree with every word. You don’t do that. But as an educator, my answer is read his book for yourself, “Blood and Ruins,” and come to your own decision always.

Q: Esther, “Could your claim of becoming neutral before today’s war have satisfied Putin?” A: No, I don’t believe so.

Maxine says, “The Russian chapter in ‘Prisoners Geography’ is worth reading.” “Prisoners Geography” by Tim Marshall is an excellent book in paperback now. Anything by Tim Marshall is I find fascinating.

Q: “Are there any seeds in Russia today from which a democracy could one day sprout?” A: Yes, the internet, knowledge of the West, educated Russians, and the fact that they had a very brief experience, a matter of months, during the Kerensky period in 1917. No, you must never think that autocracy lasts forever. Most of us, all regimes of whatever type, in the end, end. So we have to hope that it ends. But whoever replaces Putin, whatever structure replaces him, it doesn’t mean to say relations are going to be good even with a democracy.

Q: “How can the war in Ukraine be describe as anything but defensive when Russia invaded?” A: Well, no, I’m not saying that, Maura. Obviously it’s defensive.

“Surely the arms provided by the West only took place after the invasion.” Yes, but that’s not how Putin sees it. He sees the West not sending troops on the ground, but sending everything but troops. And anyhow, we are not at all clear whether there might not be special American forces and special British forces, my guess is there definitely will be, operating undercover in Ukraine. So it’s not what we think, and it’s not that logic which applies. It’s the other person’s logic that we’ve got to worry about. We know what we are doing. We don’t, we’ve got to work out what he might be doing and what he might be saying and thinking.

“I thought the Russians were European, which means they’re Western as opposed to Eastern peoples. Saying the Russians think of themselves as Russians is like saying the English think of themselves as English, and they also consider themselves superior to everyone else.” No, not everyone in England thinks themselves English. Many of us think ourselves as British and not English. The Russians, no, because so many Russians have lived in the East. But that’s not the point. The point about the East in Russia is they’re harking back to Byzantium. So it’s a mindset. So English, it’s the same as Black British people who don’t regard themselves as Black English or Black Scottish because if they’re immigrants and and they become British, that’s what they become, British. So they describe themselves in any surveys they do as Black British, whereas I would describe myself on a survey probably now as English. It is not straightforward, I have to say. It’s an extraordinary difficult thing about how people see themselves. Oh gosh, I’m getting quite, I’m getting quite heated. I didn’t mean to get heated, Erica, but it’s so fascinating. And well, I think… Oh no, there’s still more. I thought I’d come to the end.

“Neutrality cannot produce peace,” says Diva, “because as we should believe from our time on earth, it is the psychology of the leaders you’re intimating right now.” Well, and that’s an interesting thought, yes.

Q: “Isn’t that why modern rulers like Putin don’t realise that going too far and threatening their neighbours drives their neighbours into antagonistic behaviour? Self-fulfilling prophecy.” A: Yet that’s why it’s difficult to understand that the Russian, that the Russian analysis of going to war wasn’t made. But from what we understand, Lavrov wasn’t really told in advance, the foreign minister, that they were going to to war. Only, what was it? A couple of days or a couple of hours or something. So this was down to Putin. Now Putin may or may not have all his mental faculties. We simply don’t know. But they certainly never looked at the consequence. Any of you, and lots of you have, worked in business or in any job. It was me in education. What happens if we do this? If I raise the fees for courses at the City Lit when I was principal, what effect would that have on enrollment? And what knock on effect would that have to government grant? So there were lots of, lots of questions. If we were to do something very popular, if we would do a course on, well, this happened to me a long time ago, on ballroom dancing, one of the consequences is all the independent ballroom dancers would complain that it was being supported, but my course was being supported by local authority money and it wasn’t a fair playing field. So it’s really quite difficult.

Q: Why didn’t the Russians sort out all of this before they started? A: Well, there’s no, what shall I say? There’s no error that politicians won’t commit. I hope there are no politicians listening. But many of the rest of us don’t think politicians are necessarily the brightest people on the block. And many politicians increasingly are not taking independent advice, in Britain from the Civil Service, but taking it from special advisors who don’t speak truth to power. So it’s very difficult to understand why the Russians have got themselves into this position. And it comes down, I think, to one man’s paranoia and one man’s obsession.

And we shall look at another man like that next week with Peter the Great.