Russia, from the earliest times to Peter the Great, 862-1720s

HIST 345: RUSSIA FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO PETER THE GREAT
Alan Kimball | Office = McK 340V | Hours: MO & WE 10:15-12:15, and by appointment
Much consultation can get done just before & just after class, and via email = KIMBALL@UOREGON.EDU

Most course materials are in the Knight Library or the course webpage (see URL below). There is no textbook for this course, but you will purchase a lab book (let's call it "the journal" -- see exercise#1 below).

Here is a basic calendar of the term's three dramatic deadlines =

!! oc15 (MO):------------------- FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL at end of class meeting
!! oc31 (WE):------------------ MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL, written during class meeting
!! de07 (FR at 10:15am): --- FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL, written in regular classroom

First, exercise#1 = Purchase and set up your journal. Ask at the customer service desk in the basement of the UO Book Store for a blue lab book (the larger one, 11x9 inches; Stock # 43-581, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE). The first thing I want you to do with your journal is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Inscribe other personal contact info on the inner face of the cover, and leave the first 4-5 numbered pages blank for keeping your own table of contents through the term, indicating sources consulted. It is your responsibility here to provide a paginated guide to each part of your journal. Leave page 120 blank for instructor comments & grading. In this journal you will enter lecture notes, keep a record of library work and webpage work, research and write seven take-home "draft" essays, & write your midterm & final exams.

Second, exercise#2 = Locate on the internet and hop to this course, listed on the following webpage =
     http://uoregon.edu/~kimball/courses.htm
On this page, click on HIST 345 for our specific extended electronic syllabus. You'll go there often this term.
Add that internet address to your web-browser "favorites" page, or on a "tab".

These first two and ten further exercises are listed and explained in detail on that specific electronic course webpage. Everything is organized in a weekly schedule of events.

ABOUT GRADES: Draft essays & exams are due at the time the class meets on the days specified. Late exercises are penalized one grade. Exercises AWOL 24 hours after due date are given a failing grade. Failure to complete any one of the essays or exams will result in a failing grade for the course. Unpenalized postponement of an exercise is possible only when documented illness or happenstance forces delay, or when arranged in writing beforehand. If you attend class regularly, keep good lecture notes, devote nine hours of your outside-of-class study-week to your reading & writing, & keep a good record in your journal, you may be sure that you are meeting course expectations.

 

ACADEMIC CALENDAR

1st Week (our weeks run from the end of the MO class to the beginning of the next MO class [IE=over the coming weekend])
DIMENSIONS OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Like all histories, Russian history can be said to have three dimensions =

A. Humanistic = Concepts, the underlying mechanisms and philosophy of the course itself (exercise#1 and #2)
B. Chronological = Time, the extended "time bridge" arching over the whole academic term (exercise#3)
C. Geo-physical = Space, the geographic foundation of Russian history, especially Early Russian history (First-week Readings)

excercise#1
Purchase and set up your journal

Ask at the customer service desk in the basement of the UO Book Store for a blue lab book (the larger one, 11x9 inches; Stock # 43-581, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE). The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let's call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Inscribe other personal contact info on the inner face of the cover, and leave the first 4-5 numbered pages blank for keeping your own table of contents through the term, indicating sources consulted. It is your responsibility here to provide a guide to each part of your journal. Leave page 120 blank for instructor comments & grading through the term.

!! Study the extended description of how to employ the journal !! (devote up to one and a half hours to this reading)

exercise#2
The course website (for now, devote about 3 hours to exercise#2)

exercise#3
You are ready to jump directly to the time period (the second dimension) of our course (for now, devote about 2 hours)

Time is a universally significant dimension of all histories. You will now check out (IE=Make hypertext hops to) the first monster website page of The Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography [SAC].

At first concentrate on the "Table of Contents" at the top of this first SAC webpage [then hop back here (ID)]

Now study the entry for the year 453 AD, titled "BYZANTINE STEPPE FRONTIER"

Now study the "Table of Contents" at the top of the next SAC webpage (then hop back here)

This term's chronology stretches down to the entry for the year 1722ja24, the intensification of "The Petrine Transformation" at the end of the Great Northern War and the declaration of tsar Peter I as Emperor

Establish a general personal sense of the chronology, the main periods or peak events in the epoch we are studying. Click on a few of those that relate directly to Russia. Browse a bit in what we will be doing later. You need not go into the chronology too deeply right now.

As we get ourselves launched, this HIST 345 syllabus web page will provide weekly guides to SAC and readings in several campus locations (see exercise#4).

First Week Readings (about 3 hours)

Select one or more of the following readings =
\\
*--RRC1(1) & RRC2(16) (Sumner,"Frontier")
*--RRC1(15) (Obolensky on Byzantine heritage)
*--TXT on Byzantium
*--Riasanovsky (chapters 1 &2) COPIES OF RIASANOVSKY ARE IN RBR & ON OPEN SHELVES
*--Vernadsky (chapter 1) COPIES OF VERNADSKY ARE IN RBR & ON OPEN SHELVES
The next two suggestions are for those enthusiasts who feel confident about their use of indexes =
*--Vernadsky,1 (This is a whole volume, so select passages about Slavs and various folk migrations)
*--Vasiliev, Byzantine Empire,1:300-74 [DF552.V3+1]

 

 

2nd Week
BYZANTINE STEPPE FRONTIER & ORIGINS OF RUS'

Let's begin this second week by looking at one of the library tours you are asked to take in exercise#4, the MAP ROOM

Read this long single entry [text between <> and <> In SAC] on the Byzantine Steppe Frontier
At the bottom of this long entry you could launch yourself on a 15-hop Byzantine LOOP [or take first hop here]

Follow the LOOPS that outline the early histories of seven different Slavic (or semi-Slavic) populations important to our story. Notice how these histories require us to set aside our presumptions about "nation-states" and to adopt a "multicultural" perspective =
    Bulgars (12-hop LOOP to the time of tsar Samuel)
    Bolgars [NB! arbitrary spelling distinction] (9-hop LOOP to 15th-c. conquest by Moscow)
    The Rus' (local Slavs mixed with Scandinavian warrior merchants) (5-hop LOOP, to prince Igor & full assimilation)
    Lithuanians (6-hop LOOP to the time that Polish and Lithuanian stories flow together in an epoch of medieval grandeur)
    Poles (a 24-hop LOOP [first 6 hops through ca. 1000 years prior to union with Lithuania])
    Czechs (6-hop LOOP into the time of the Hussite controversy)
    Ukrainians (9-hop LOOP into the late 17th century)

The Byzantine Empire was not the only significant power in these earliest years =
    Muslim Arabia (8-hop LOOP)
    Khazars (8-hop LOOP)
    Pechenegs (Patsinaks, Patzinaks) (5-hop LOOP)
    Charlemagne (13-hop LOOP covers 800 years of German imperial intersections with East European History)

The website reading and note taking should take about four hours
Then devote about 2 hours to one or more of the following readings =
\\
*--Obolensky:42-68, 136-53, 184-7
*--Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs, ch.2 and/or ch.3
*--Florinsky,1:1
*--Riasanovsky(3-6)
*--Auty, ch1:1-48

Then, for now, give 2 hours or so to exercise#4 =

exercise#4
Tour Eight UO "library" collections
You will find the first, the second, the third, the fourth and the seventh library locations very useful through the term
But exercise#4 asks you now to CONCENTRATE ABOUT 3 HOURS on the third, the seventh and eighth locations

First library location =
KNIGHT Course Reserves
(holding a big part of our main primary source anthologies and "textbooks") EG=

*--Primary source anthologies =
CPC
DMR (2nd and 3rd editions)
KRR
RRC
RRH
VSB
ZNC

*--Secondary sources =
Nicholas Riasanovsky
Michael Florinsky
Vasilii Kliuchevskii
CHR

Check "stacks" for more of these

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Second library location =
KNIGHT Reference Division,
holding, among other useful readings, our main "encyclopedias" =

MERSH | Notice the electronic table of contents, available only on our website, which allows FIND searches [ID]
GSE

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Third library location =
KNIGHT MAP Room

Before you go to the MAP Room, open our webpage devoted to GEOGRAPHY
Near the bottom of the screen you just opened, notice the several universally useful electronic maps

If you print out the the first sixteen rows of the Geographic TABLE (reading down the table to the Johnny-come-lately city Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva River), you could then carry the print-out to the MAP LIBRARY and search out our most important river systems on any good atlas or map there. You will see, also, that the final column on this table offers hypertext hops to digitized maps

MORE MAP LIBRARY = When you looked at the Table of Contents of the first two SAC pages (exercise#3), your goal was to get a general sense of chronology (time), the second dimension or organizational principle of our history. Here in the MAP Room your goal is to develop broad familiarity with the third dimension, geography (space), and with certain other visual/spatial aspects of our history

In the MAP LIBRARY, browse the range devoted to Russia, G2111.S1 C…, and G2111.S1 G…. Locate and leaf through the pertinent chronological sections of the atlases by Channon and Gilbert. Browse the first 100 or so pages of Cultural Atlas of Russia.... Also spend some time with Cultural Atlas of the Viking World

At first, concentrate on the geo-physical features of the territory sometimes called "European Russia" which lies within the space north of Constantinople (Istanbul) [ID], south of the White Sea [ID], west of the Ural Mts. [ID], & east of the Carpathian Mts. [ID]. Pay particular attention to the way major rivers drain the low, flat land.

Here is a series of maps on our SAC website, in chronological order (with three maps of broad compass in boldface) =

814:"Europe" at the time of Charlemagne
862:Viking routes
1054:Kievan Rus'
1095:+; western European crusades into the eastern Mediterranean
1236:Conquests of the Golden Horde (three maps before and in early phases) plus one map of extended western regions of Mongol authority
1294:Asia
1300:1533; (200+ years) Russian expansion over two centuries
1328:Mosoow in the reign of prince Ivan I Kalita
1355:Moscow in the reign of prince Dmitrii Donskoi [NB! also map of Europe in 1360]
1389:Moscow in the reign of prince Vasilii I
1425:Moscow in the reign of prince Vasilii II
1462:Russia in the reign of Muscovite tsar and grand prince Ivan III the Great
1492:+; European overseas discovery
1533:Russia in the reign of Muscovite tsar and grand prince Ivan IV the Terrible [2 maps]
1596:1800; (200 years) Russia in the era of Siberian expansion [2 maps]
1613:Russia in the reign of the new Romanov tsar Mikhail
1645:Russia in the reign of the modernizing tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich

As you tour the MAP ROOM, you will want to be looking ahead to course exercise#5 and your choice for draft essay#1

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Fourth library location =
The Knight Library stacks

FOR EXAMPLE =

*--Primary source anthologies (Check RBR list) =
BL&T
FTS
VML
WRH
ZMR2

*--Secondary sources (Check RBR list) =
Nicholas Riasanovsky
George Vernadsky

 

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Fifth library location =
Information Technology Center

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Sixth library location =
All UO students ought at least once to visit the Jacqua Law School Library

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Seventh library location =
Take a walk to the Lawrence Hall Art and Architecture Library

Once at the Art and Architecture Library, here's what I want you to do = Browse the shelf-range N8187 through N8189.5
Here and in the encyclopedias learn something of the life and achievements of Andrei Rublev [ID]. This will follow up very nicely on what you see in the Art Museum. Look for other pictorial representations of medieval Russian art and architecture. Here are two specific recommendations =

Viktor Lazarev, ed., Early Russian Icons
Novgorod icons, with intro by Dmitrii Likhachev

As you tour the A&AA Library, you will want to be looking ahead to course exercise#5 and your choice for draft essay#1

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Eighth (near the) library location =
On your way back to KNIGHT, stop by the UO Art Museum.

 

exercise#5
Over the final nine weeks of the term, you will research and write seven brief draft essays
[What is a "draft essay"? (devote 1 hour to this reading)]

We begin here with a description of
draft essay#1
and
draft essay#2
(devote about 5 hours this week getting under way with these draft essays. Over the following two weeks, devote about 5 more hours)

Draft essay#1

Draft essay#1 should be completed by the beginning of the third week
I will read it at the time of first submission of the journal [ID]

Choose one of the following topics for draft essay#1 =

First option for draft essay#1 =
Write an essay on some select feature(s) of Eurasian steppe geography ("European "Russia").
What was their impact on some features of the Russian historical experience prior to the Christianization of Rus' [ID].
This first option would build on what you discovered of greatest interest to you on your tour of the Map Room.

OR

Second option for draft essay#1 =
Write an essay on some aspect(s) of the great icon "writer" Andrei Rublev's achievement
This second option would build on what you discovered of greatest interest to you on your tour of the A&AA library and the UO Art Museum.

These two options seem to be very big topics.
The purpose for that is to give you some latitude to select your own detailed topic within the larger topic.
Chose something you discovered in either the MAP ROOM or A&AA LIBRARY.
Relate your selected discovery to the larger issues suggested in lectures, SAC and readings

DON'T FORGET =
What is a "draft essay"? (devote 1 hour to this reading)]

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Draft essay#2

Draft essay#2 should deal with some select aspects of the Byzantine impact on Russian and/or eastern European historical development (including, e.g., Bulgaria) up to the Christianization of Rus' [ID]. The issue is one of contemporary significance = How do great imperialist powers exert themselves in the lives of culturally, politically, militarily and economically vulnerable peoples on their borders? How do lesser powers protect themselves from, but also take advantage of, the looming presence of greater powers? The best guide to readings will be found along the Byzantine LOOP in SAC.

Draft essay#2 should also be completed before the first submission of the journal [ID]

And just to look ahead =

Draft essay#3 and draft essay#4

Draft essay#5, draft essay#6 & draft essay#7

 

 

 

 

3rd Week
KIEVAN RUS

KIEVAN RUS' (9-hop LOOP on the morpheme "Kiev", with 2-3 instances in which hops include several entries)

Here is a summary of ten key moments =

The invitation to the Rus'
The Rus' took Kiev and established close relations with Byzantium
Prince Oleg and the trade treaty with Constantinople
Prince Igor and the Slavicization of the Rus'
His wife, princess Olga, moved Kievan Rus' toward a more sophisticated status
Rough-and-tumble prince Sviatoslav brought down the Khazars
Prince Vladimir Christianized Rus'
The glorious years of Yaroslav Mudryi
A final glow in the years of Vladimir Monomakh
Feudal dissolution [a 5-hop LOOP on the word "mestnichestvo"]
 \\
*--Kimball, Olga and Anna & Christianization of Rus' [TXT]
*--For the place of Russia in the general history of the Vikings, see Jones| OR
*--The History of Sweden: The Viking Age [TXT]
*--CHR.1:73-97
*--Florinsky,1(2)
*--Vernadsky(2)
*--Auty, ch2:49-77
*--Blum:1-56
*--ORC:36-83

 

 

 

4th Week
RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY & MEDIEVAL WORLD VIEW
(and first submission of journal)

*--Huge 45-hop Church LOOP
*--RRC1(5, 9-11 & 16) RRC2(5,10 & 17) (Religion)

Five hops cover certain aspects of early church history
Four hops cover Byzantine missionary activities throughout the Pontic Steppe region
*--Cyril and Methodius
Six hops cover development of Russian Orthodoxy in Kievan Rus'
*--Kiev-Pechersk Monastery
Five hops cover the Russian Orthodox Church under the authority of the Golden Horde
Fourteen hops cover the Muscovite Church
*--Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery
Thirteen hops cover the the Russian Orthodox Church in its first Patriarchal century and its great crisis
This is our first giant chronological gulp, stretching from earliest times to the final era covered this term, a very complicated. Stretch your work on this big issue into next week
 \\
*--CHR.1:338-59
*-- Florinsky,1(6)

 

exercise#6
In the 4th Week you will make
FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL [ID],
WITH DRAFT ESSAY#1 & #2 [ID] ALREADY INSCRIBED IN THE JOURNAL

Consult hand-out syllabus for exact date of first submission

On the last page of your journal, I enter my evaluations, using what I call "Frequently Observed Qualities" [FOQs]

 

5th Week
DOMINANCE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE

*--Golden Horde (Tatars, Mongols) and Russia (18-hop LOOP)
*--Phase one, a century of destruction and dominance (two long-striding hops cover this busy Mongolian century)
*--Phase two of Golden Horde in Russia corresponds to phase one in the rise of Moscow (nine hops)
*--LOOP on Muscovite or Russian  "isolation" (much richer question than simply isolation from "The West")
*--In phase two, the reign of Vasilii I (five hops)
*--In phase two, the reign of Vasilii II (two hops)
\\
*--Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols:1-26, or, better yet, pp. 36-63 (institutional influence on Russia)
*--Halperin:7-11
*--Hartog
*--RRC1(14) RRC2(4 &15) (On Russian cities, and Vernadsky's assessment of the impact of the Golden Horde)
*--CHR.1:127-57
*--Florinsky,1(3)
*--Riasanovsky(7-8)
*--Vernadsky(3)
*--Blum:57-116
*--ORC:84-93

 

exercise#7
REGIONAL HISTORY

Select a region & concentrate on its historical experience. Exercise#7 is a call to get started on a continuing, five-week project. I recommend that you begin now to prepare yourself to write draft essay#6 on the long-term relationship and significance of your selected region to the course of early Russian history [ID].

I strongly recommend that you select one of the following river systems described on the Geographic TABLE =

Danube
Dnepr
Volga
Oka
Volkhov.

Consult GSE and MERSH (particularly because we have on our website an electronic MERSH table of contents).

Also consult the various atlases you find in the MAP ROOM or listed on the website GLOSSARY.

Also consult the indexes of Riasanovsky and Florinsky.

exercise#8
ETHNO-HISTORY

Select one non-Russian people and learn the main outline of their historical experience over the time period covered this term. Select a non-Russian people who have lived within the boundaries of, or in direct relationship to, Russian history. Become an ethno-historian of their fate in our period.

Exercise#8 is a call to get started on a continuing, five-week project that will culminate in your draft essay#7 [ID]

As you seek a non-Russian people to study, look away from the geographic area you chose in exercise#7 above (regional history). This allows you to broaden the scope of your studies.

Think about the meaning of "national" history. Where do the two terms "nationality" and "nation" overlap and where do they describe different meanings? Here you start to become an "ethno-historian"

The following list is meant to be suggestive of some important groups of non-Russian peoples. I have created a hypertext link to SAC for several of these. While you will be specializing on one of these non-Russian groups, be sure you have a general sense of the historical role played in our period by each of the following:

Germans
Varangians (Vikings, Rus', Dany)
Danubian Bulgars
Volga Bolgars
Khazars
Pechenegs (Patsinaks, Patzinaks)
Mongols (Tatars, Golden Horde)
Crimean Tatars
Lithuanians
Poles
Ukrainians
Cossacks
Ottoman Turks

Use the main textbooks and other appropriate secondary source readings [ID] indicated in "SAC" and available in the library [EG]
*--A few FIND searches for certain "key-words" in SAC would yield quick, brief chronologies and some reading suggestions
*--For example, you could search SAC for "Asia", "Siberia", "Bashkir", "Cossack", etc
*--You may find, as the academic term progresses, that your readings on the group of your choice are scattered throughout your journal, but you may compose your table of contents in such a way that it pulls your non-Russia nationality together, for you and for me, your first reader. Arrows in the margin might do the job.

The Knight Library Reference Room holds two helpful books on the peoples of Russian-dominated Eurasia (if not there, check open shelves) =

An Ethnohistorical dictionary of the Russian and Soviet empires [1994 | DK33.E837]
Ronald Wixman, The peoples of the USSR : an ethnographic handbook [1984 | DK33.W59]
Naturally, we are interested in the very early history

Toward the end of the term, you will write draft essay#7 [ID] on the significance of the people of your choice to the long-term history of early Russia.

 

exercise#9

Get started with draft essay#3 and finish draft essay#4 [ID] before the midterm exam [ID]

Draft essay#3

I want you to take up the following topic in your draft essay#3 = "How do the authors of the Russian Chronicles see the world?" This is a very important and challenging "think piece", an exercise in "historiography", the study of how history is written (or "made" -- remember my essay we read earlier, "Ways of Seeing History" [TXT])

I want you to get started now reading and thinking about draft essay#3, though it will not have to completed until final exam time

To get started, click through this longish LOOP on "Chronicles". I recommend that you select your own passages from the Chronicles, concentrating on what you think are "big historical issues", guided by lectures and the important entries in SAC. There are several famous and fabulous accounts in the Chronicles relating, just for example, to the following historical moments =

Russian Chronicles covered events of Russian history from the earliest moments well into the 15th century. For example =

Citation to primary documentation is attached to the most important chronological entries in SAC. In our early historical period these translated primary documents are frequently Chronicle texts

Of course, you need not read all the Chronicles. That would be a daunting task [EG]. Make careful and intelligent choices. Follow your instincts and curiosity, but make choices that contribute to your understanding of main course themes

Certain of the entries in the Russian Chronicles are translated and linked to our course on a special webpage where you can get some further suggestions about where to find translated passages = [TXT]

You will learn many "facts" about Russian history as you read the accounts in the Russian Chronicles, but I want your draft essay#3 to concentrate less on the facts and more on the way the chroniclers [authors] see the world. How do they describe (or gloss over) the qualities of the Prince, the nature of cause and effect, concepts of "national unity", the common people (peasants, craftsmen, etc.), the social hierarchy, how things are made and grown and how they are distributed, etc. How much daily life do you see there? Think hard about the nature of the world view embedded in these texts. Look for what the authors see and consider what they do not see, or do not care about.

You might find it useful to compare the world view of the chroniclers with what you see in other sources from the early history, for example, folk legend [as in ZMR1 or ZMR2], or Arabic and Byzantine sources. The "Testament" of Kievan Prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich "Monomakh" was imbedded in the Chronicles, but does this crusty old prince, as revealed in his Testament, "see the world" in the same way as the monkish authors of the Chronicle whose accounts surround his Testament there?

You might want your draft essay to emphasize the comparison and contrast of Chroniclers' accounts with the accounts found in our main and more-or-less contemporary textbooks and other appropriate secondary source readings [ID] indicated in "SAC" and available in the library [EG]

You might also get some ideas about how to analyze these authors from "Ways of Seeing History" and associated webpages =
"Dozen Categories". Do the chroniclers show a consciousness of social diversity? What distinguishes one people from another?
Taxonomy of Historical Experience. What levels of our "taxonomy" are most emphasized by the chroniclers?
"Perceived Interests". Do chroniclers assume that individuals and groups pursue their own perceived self-interests? If not, what causes things to happen?.

First, you want to learn about the Russian Chronicles and the chroniclers themselves. When, where and by whom were they written? The Chronicle LOOP has some suggestions about where to go to learn more about the compilation of the Chronicles.

Second, you want to find out about the persons and events described that most grab your attention in those chronicle texts. What is emphasized in the chronicles that does not make it into the more contemporary secondary sources [ID]? And what is left out of the chronicles that gets emphasized in the more contemporary secondary sources? If, for example, a great monastery or a wicked prince or a vicious invading army is mentioned in the chronicles, find out what some of our secondary sources have to say on the topic [EG]

Finally, you want to be alert to those points where the authors of the secondary historical accounts and/or reference works specifically amplify, augment, correct, or criticize the chroniclers' accounts. Riasanovsky, for example, cites the 862 account of the invitation to the Rus and notes that he does not like the translation. (The 862 Chronicle entry in SAC presents a new translation.)

You cannot do all these things, but over the next five or so weeks of the term you can fit research on draft essay#3 into your 9 hours a week outside of class. I have also freed up week nine, the week of Thanksgiving [no19 through no25]. No class meetings are scheduled that week so that you can devote a larger share of your time to this topic. Feel free to make choices among the suggestions. Research draft essay#3 at greater length than in the other draft essays. Be creative. You have to exert yourself but you can also enjoy yourself as you try to put yourself into the medieval Russian world view.

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Draft essay#4

Draft essay#4 should look beyond the chronicles at some other sort of primary document (or documents) [ID] related to some aspect of our history since the coming of the Golden Horde [ID] and before the time of Ivan IV [ID]. This would include the history of the Russian Orthodox Church after the Mongol invasion [ID]

Remember, you find guidance to primary documents in brackets and attached at the end of SAC sub-entries [EG]

A good organizational strategy would be to read about your topic also in some of the most important secondary sources on reserve or in the reference division of KNIGHT library [EG]

Your essay could offer an evaluation of what you learn from the primary document(s) that you do not learn from the secondary sources, and what you learn from the secondary source(s) that you do not learn from the primary document(s).

Next week you will write a midterm exam [ID] in your journal. In other words, as you begin writing the midterm exam in class, your journal will already contain draft essay#1, #2 and #4 (as well as notes related to all your early work). They will prove very useful as you compose your midterm exam in your journal, in class

 

 

6th Week
RISE OF MOSCOW / FALL OF NOVGOROD

Between midterm exam and the following week, devote 9 hours to all or some part of the following issues. Be sure to identify them clearly in your journal table of contents =
*--Hanseatic League (Hansa, Hanse) LOOP
*--Sergei Eisenstein's movie "Alexander Nevsky"
*--Andrei Tarkovsky's movie "Andrei Rublev"
*--Teutonic Knights GO 1410
*--Livonian Order GO 1500
*--Survey the years of Ivan III (thirty hops cover the whole epoch)
\\
*--RRC1(6) or RRC2(6) (George Vernadsky and L.V. Cherepnin debate issue of whether there was a "Russian Feudalism")
*--RRC1(4) or RRC2(3, 4) (Novgorod)
*--CHR.1:188-210 (On Novgorod in its greatest period)
*--CHR.1:213-39 (On rise of Moscow)
*--Florinsky,1(4-5)
*--Riasanovsky(9-15)
*--Vernadsky(4)
*--Auty, ch3:78-120 (concentrates on rise of Moscow, Ivan III and Ivan IV)
*--ORC:95-111

exercise#10
MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL [ID],
WITH TAKE-HOME DRAFT essay#1, #2 and #4 [ID]

Consult hand-out syllabus for exact date
 On the last page of your journal, I enter my evaluations, using what I call "Frequently Observed Qualities" [FOQs]

In addition to lecture notes and notes on other course exercises and SAC readings, the journal at this time will contain draft essay#1 & #2 [ID] completed two weeks ago, and now draft essay#4 [ID]. Your journal by this time should show early research notes for draft essay#3, though essay#3 will not be submitted as a finished draft essay#3 until the time of the final exam

Exam form

Exam Topics Review =

Here are some suggestions and important terms on the basis of which I will construct the exam. These study guides are arranged here according to our taxonomy of historical experience [ID]

Remember that I will ask you to show breadth of learning (i.e., avoid duplication of choices) in exam questions and draft essays =

I. Mentalities =
Describe your discoveries of greatest relevance to our course in Cultural Atlas of Russia
"Song of Igor's Campaign"
Cyril and Methodius
The Life of Saint Sergius
Andrei Rublev
II. Institutions =
Invitation to the Rus'
"Golden Age" of Byzantium and its meaning for Kievan Rus
Danubian Bulgars and Volga Bolgar realms
Varangian Prince Oleg
Olga and Anna & Christianization of Rus'
Bulgarian kingdom and Byzantium
Kiev-Pechersk Lavra [Great Kievan Cave Monastery]. NB! Midterm exam covers the big Church LOOP to only 1589, up to, but not including, when the Muscovite Metropolitan See was elevated to the status of Patriarch
Vladimir Monomakh
Kievan mestnichestvo in decline
Aleksandr Nevskii and his relations with the Golden Horde
Yarlyk [Tatar word for "license" from a superior authority]
Yasak [Tatar word for "tribute" or "tax" owed superior authority]
Grand Prince of Moscow as agent AND enemy of the Golden Horde, especially Vasilii II
Novgorod and the veche [urban council] (5-hop LOOP on word "veche"). NB! Midterm exam covers the rise, but not the fall (after 1494), of Novgorod as member of the Hanseatic League
Krewo Union
Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery
Ivan III as "tsar"
III. Society =
4-hop LOOP (up to 1478) on Votchinnik and Votchina [patrimonial aristocrat and heritable noble estate and status]
Primogeniture
Veche (above) is also an expression of social and economic history. Why? See Hanse below
IV. Economy =
Novgorod and the Hanseatic League (8-jump LOOP on word "Hanse")
Birth of market economics as policy of certain sovereign political powers
Rise of mercantilist centralized national monarchy in Russia, and elsewhere in Europe
V. Geography. Review the main hypertext terms mentioned in connection with exercise#4, especially the following =
Valdai Hills (1138 ft. (far lower than Mt.Tom in our Coburg Hills), this the highest spot in European Russia), from that "height" flow the rivers
Dnepr [Dnieper] and
Volga
Also be able to locate the following =
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
Baltic Sea
White Sea

Think about how and why some consider early "Russian" history to be "Swedish" [one hop] or "Ukrainian" [two hops]
Review the LOOP on the FIVE geo-political results of Mongol rule in old Rus'
And gather your thoughts about the complexities in the question of Muscovite or Russian "isolation" in the 14th and 15th centuries [6-hop LOOP]

After you complete your midterm exam review, enjoy this brief and simplistic narrative of Russian history with its MAP and some illustrations (with its emphasis on portraits of rulers). Watch just the account of the period covered by this exam [YouTube]. How does this account seem to you now that you have completed preparations for the exam? Do not be flummoxed by the narrator's English accent or his frequent mispronunciation of certain key Russian terms, EG= mestnichestvo.

 

 

7th Week
IVAN THE TERRIBLE & THE TIME OF TROUBLES

Suggested readings =
\\
*--CHR.1:240-63
*--Florinsky,1(7-9)
*--Riasanovsky(16-19)
*--Auty, ch3:78-120 (concentrates on rise of Moscow, Ivan III and Ivan IV)
*--ORC:112-26
*--Alan Kimball, TXT on the historical content of Sergei Eisenstein's movie IVAN GROZNYI
*--Dunning deals with the reign of Ivan IV as a causal factor in the Time of Troubles, pp. 13-60

 

*--Ivan's era summarized in SAC. Ivan's era contains about 40 SAC entries. It is important to read through them all in order to get a full sense of this 54-year era
 

Ivan's era arranged according to our taxonomy of historical experience =

I. Mentalities =
 
 *--Church and culture [Carolyn Pouncy's 2 paragraphs]
 *--Ivan Peresvetov 
 *--Does the correspondence of Ivan IV & Kurbskii signal a clash of religious and secular ways of thinking?
 *--First Russian printing press [LOOP]
 *--Domostroi tried to bring order to daily practices in the Russian family. Does it harmonize with the following? =
 *--Sudebnik [Law Code] compiled
*--Do these two previous sources harmonize with what you discovered about the way authors of the historical chronicles saw the world [ID]?

II.A. Institutions -- the Church =
 *--Stoglav [Hundred Chapters Orthodox Church Assembly] met
      What does this assembly suggest about church/state relations? [One paragraph suggests one general answer]

II.B. Institutions -- the State =
*--Ivan IV's coronation and formation of Chosen Council
 *--First Zemskii sobor [Assembly of the Land] summoned [A century-long LOOP follows]
 *--The infamous Oprichnina
 *--Ivan killed his son

III. Society =
 *--Domostroi suggests much about daily practices in the Russian family
 *--Ivan IV and Kurbskii corresponded about rights and duties, touching on several significant social issues
      Think about the ironic parallel in the experience of patrimonial aristocrats and peasant villagers in this era

IV. Economy =
 *--English mercantilist intrusions into White Sea region and the rise of the Stroganov family

V. Geography =
 *--Victory over Kazan Khanate and expansion east and south
 *--After a promising decade, Ivan bogged down in the 25-year Livonian Wars
 *--Poland-Lithuania created a monarchical republic, entering their final years of early-modern grandeur [LOOP]
 *--Yermak crossed the Urals eastward into Siberia

 


The Time of Troubles summarized and analyzed in SAC. About 30 entries are broken into five phases
\\
*--CHR.1:264-85 (On the early phases, 1584-1605)
*--CHR.1:409-31 (On the times of greatest troubles, up to 1612)

The Time of Troubles (1587:1612) and
the reign of tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (1613:1645) taxonomized =

I. Mentalities =
*--As throughout Europe, religious traditionalism and innovation split Christian congregations, and all were now challenged by emerging secularism. Christendom was shattered and locked in brutal inter-denominational struggles. Over the shoulders of these struggling religious zealots, a new and powerful rationalism and empiricism arose to challenge all spiritual doctrines. This was an era when the technical demands of political and military rule brought accountants, rationalist-minded administrators, engineers and other technicians to the fore, into influential advisory positions earlier occupied by Church officials or feudal landowners

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--Russian Orthodox Metropolitan elevated to status of Patriarch
*--When other bulwarks of national identity & defense failed, the church united the Russian Orthodox people
*--Then came the unique event = Powerful Monk Filaret (who was the father of tsar Mikhail Fedorovich) become Patriarch

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Boris Godunov and dynastic instability
*--Old boyar rule
*--Narodnoe opolchenie and the greatest Zemskii Sobor

III. Society =
*--Go week eight (following)
*--Consult the 1649:Ulozhenie (Law Code)

IV. Economy =
*--Rural labor bondage (serfdom) expanded and intensified
*--Go week eight (following)

V. Geography =
*--Poland twice ruled in Moscow, then began a slow retreat and decline

 

exercise#11
Compose draft essay#5, #6 & #7 over the next four weeks.
[Reminder = "draft essay" ID]

Draft essay#5
to be completed in the 7th or 8th week

The topic can be of your own choosing from among the topics covered in the final half of the term. Select a topic that shows off your breadth of learning (i.e., a topic that you have not hitherto written about in draft essays or midterm exam). The following list is offered simply to suggest some general topics, not to restrict your choice. Your own topic should be as narrowly focused as possible, guided by the primary source(s) you put at the center of your attention. I'm glad to consult with you during my office hours, on this or any other course-related issue =

The Life of Saint Sergius
Ivan III as "tsar"
Hanseatic League (Hansa, Hanse) LOOP
Ivan IV "the Terrible"
Votchinniki & pomeshchiki (braided LOOP [7 hops on votchinnik & 10 hops on pomeshchik] to the year 1682)
"Time of Troubles" (5-hop LOOP)
Zemskii sobor [Assembly of the Land] (10-hop LOOP to the 1649 Ulozhenie)
"Westernization"
1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code]. We have E-TXT, so this makes an especially good topic
Serfdom (7 hops from the time of Ivan III to the great 1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code])
Old-Ritualists [Old-Believers] and the great Orthodox Raskol (9-hop LOOP to 1721)
The reign of tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich and Russian "westernization" (or should we say "modernization"?)
Nerchinsk Treaty

Draft essay#6
to be completed in the 8th or 9th week

The topic of this draft essay#6 has already been defined by you under exercise#7

Draft essay#7
(the final draft essay)
to be completed in the 9th or 10th week

The topic of draft essay#7 has already been defined by you under exercise#8

I will read draft essay#3, #5, #6 and #7 after you hand in your journal with the final exam [ID]

In these final four essays, you are concentrating on primary documents [ID] that illustrate important questions of early Russian history. You find these documents among the many primary sources cited in SAC and available in the library. Also compare what you find in your primary documents with what you find in some of our standard secondary sources = lectures, in SAC, in Riasanovsky, Florinsky, Vernadsky, MERSH, etc. USE INDEXES TO GET RIGHT TO THE TOPICS OF YOUR CHOICE.

Otherwise, draft essay#3, #5, #6 and #7 are like draft essay#1. I insist only that you work to avoid duplication. To put this more positively, demonstrate the breadth of your learning.

8th Week
PEASANT CULTURE & SERFDOM

*--Origins of serfdom, a LOOP
*--RRC1&2(13) (1649:Ulozhenie [Law Code])
*--HML:85-94 (Full printed text of 1649:Ulozhenie, highlighting legal procedures for peasants)
*--SAC TXT of 1649:Ulozhenie
\\
*--CHR.1:286-97
*--Blum:117-276
*--Florinsky,1(10-11)
*--Vernadsky(5, 12, 18)
*--Kliuchevskii,3(6-12)

 

 

9th Week
"WESTERNIZATION" AND CHURCH SCHISM

*1645:1676; Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich ruled for 31 years and was the first autocratic "westernizer"
*--He originated the great clash of cultures which we too often associate only with his more famous son, Peter I
\\
*--Florinsky,1(11)
*--Kliuchevskii,3(13-18)

The era of Aleksei Mikhailovich "taxonomized" =

I. Mentalities =
*--The great Law Code [Ulozhenie]

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--The great calamity, the Orthodox Raskol [Schism] = LOOP on keyword "Old-Ritualist" all the way to 1721
*--Significant primary documents = RRC1(10 & 11) RRC2(11 & 12) (Avvakum & Schism)
*--Nikon deposed

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Growth of early modern forms of rational statecraft

III. Society =
*--Social disorders 1648:1649 and 1670

IV. Economy =
*--Mercantilism LOOP

V. Geography =
*--Cossack territories [LOOP]
*--Poland ceased to be a threat [LOOP]
*--Siberian expansion to eastern limits
\\
*--CHR.1:360-86 (law in early Russia)
*--CHR.1:618-39 (on the great Church schism [Raskol] )
*--CHR.1:317-37 (on the Moscovite frontier)
*--CHR.1:520-38 (on the more remote frontier)

 

 

 

10th Week
TSAR PETER I & THE END OF MEDIEVAL RUSSIA

*--Complete the LOOPS designed to illustrate the continuing mid-17th-century crisis
*--RRC2(14) (Russian commercial relations with other European countries)
 \\
*--Florinsky,1(12)
*--Riasanovsky(20)
*--Kliuchevskii,4(3)
*--ORC:127-34

exercise#12
FINAL EXAM [ID] IN JOURNAL [ID],
WHICH SHOULD BY NOW CONTAIN ALL SEVEN OF YOUR DRAFT ESSAYS [ID]

The final exam is scheduled for Finals Week. Consult hand-out syllabus for exact time and day

Taxonomized hypertext list of study items for the final exam
Combine these hypertext hops with lecture and library readings as you prepare for the final exam

I. Mentalities =
*--"Third Rome"
*--Domostroi
*--1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code]
*--Yurii Krizhanich
*--Twelve-hop LOOP on "Secular" (an aspect of modern mentality with significant institutional significance) [Historical introduction of word "secularization"]

II.A. Institutions -- Church =
*--Maksim Grek
*--Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, rise & fall (10-hop LOOP, from creation to dissolution)
*--Greek, Slavonic and Latin Academy in Kiev
*--Old-Ritualists [Old-Believers] and the great Orthodox Raskol (9-hop LOOP to 1721)
*--Boyarynya Feodosiia Morozova
*--Archpriest Avvakum

II.B. Institutions -- State =
*--Ivan IV "the Terrible"
*--Zemskii sobor [Assembly of the Land] (10-hop LOOP to the 1649 Ulozhenie)
*--The Oprichnina [Ivan IV's votchina and his dreaded and violent retinue]
*--Boris Godunov (5-hop LOOP)
*--"Time of Troubles" (5-hop LOOP)
*--First pseudo-Dmitrii and second pseudo-Dmitrii
*--The reign of tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich and Russian "westernization" (or should we say "modernization"?)
*--LOOP on Petrine transformation

III. Society =
*--Andrei Kurbskii (2 hops)
*--Votchinniki & pomeshchiki (braided LOOP [7 hops on votchinnik & 10 on pomeshchik] to the year 1682)
*--Serfdom (7 hops from the time of Ivan III to the great 1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code])
*1649 Ulozhenie [Law Code] chapter 11 on Peasants, especially articles 1-3, article 20, article 31, and articles 33-34
*--Cossacks (10-hop LOOP, 1581 to 1697| Distinguish between Siberian and Ukrainian Cossacks )
*--tsar Peter's "dress code"
*--Table of Ranks

IV. Economy =
*--Possessors and Non-Possessors (Think about what part of this might fit in taxonomic level I. above?)
*--Stroganov family (9-hop LOOP)
*--Muscovy Company
*--6-hop LOOP on Mercantilism (also on midterm list, but now with greater historical richness)
*--The Gerschenkron Thesis on post-Petrine economic development

V. Geography =
*--Teutonic Knights and Livonian Order (4-hop braided LOOP, 1200s-1580s)
*--Defeat of Kazan
*--The Fate of Lithuania and Poland (25-hop LOOP on braided terms "Lithuania" & "Poland", from 1385 to 1667)
*--Pereiaslavl Treaty
*--Nerchinsk Treaty
*--1697:Grand Embassy

After you complete your final-exam review, once again enjoy this brief and simplistic narrative of Russian history. Watch just the account of the period covered by the final [YouTube]. How does this account seem to you now that you have completed our course?

You may submit a self-addressed and stamped envelope of proper dimension to me at the end, and I will mail your journal to you after grades are submitted. Or email me that you wish to pick up your journal. I will reply telling you where and when you may do that. Good luck to all.

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