For 10 centuries, the representatives of the ruling dynasties determined the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian state. As you know, the greatest prosperity of the state was under the rule of the Romanov dynasty, the descendants of an old noble family. Its ancestor is Andrey Ivanovich Kobyla, whose father, Glanda-Kambila Divonovich, baptized Ivan, came to Russia in the last quarter of the 13th century from Lithuania.

The youngest of the 5 sons of Andrei Ivanovich, Fedor Koshka, left numerous offspring, which include such surnames as Koshkin-Zakharyins, Yakovlevs, Lyatskys, Bezzubtsevs and Sheremetevs. In the sixth generation from Andrei Kobyla, in the Koshkin-Zakharyin family, there was a boyar Roman Yuryevich, from whom the boyar family originates, and later the Romanov tsars. This dynasty ruled in Russia for three hundred years.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov (1613 - 1645)

The beginning of the reign of the Romanov dynasty can be considered February 21, 1613, when the Zemsky Sobor took place, at which the Moscow nobles, supported by the townspeople, proposed to elect the sovereign of all Russia, 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. The proposal was accepted unanimously, and on July 11, 1613, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, Mikhail was married to the kingdom.

The beginning of his reign was not easy, because the central government still did not control a significant part of the state. In those days, the robber Cossack detachments of Zarutsky, Balovia and Lisovsky walked around Russia, which ruined the state, already exhausted by the war with Sweden and Poland.

So, the newly elected king had two important tasks: the first, the end of hostilities with his neighbors, and the second, the pacification of his subjects. He was able to cope with this only after 2 years. 1615 - all free Cossack groups were completely destroyed, and in 1617 the war with Sweden ended with the conclusion of the Stolbovsky peace. According to this agreement, the Muscovite state lost access to the Baltic Sea, but peace and tranquility were restored in Russia. It was possible to begin to bring the country out of a deep crisis. And then the government of Michael had a chance to make a lot of efforts to restore the devastated country.

At first, the authorities undertook the development of industry, for which foreign industrialists were invited to Russia on favorable terms - miners, gunsmiths, foundry workers. Then the turn came to the army - it was obvious that for the prosperity and security of the state it was necessary to develop military affairs, in connection with this, in 1642, transformations began in the armed forces.

Foreign officers trained Russian military men in military affairs, “regiments of a foreign system” appeared in the country, which was the first step towards creating a regular army. These transformations were the last in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich - 2 years later the tsar died at the age of 49 from "water sickness" and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin.

Alexei Mikhailovich, nicknamed the Quietest (1645-1676)

His eldest son Alexei began to reign, who, according to contemporaries, was one of the most educated people of his time. He himself wrote and edited many decrees and was the first of the Russian tsars to personally sign them (others signed decrees for Mikhail, for example, his father Filaret). Meek and devout, Alexei earned the people's love and the nickname of the Quietest.

In the first years of his reign, Alexei Mikhailovich took little part in state affairs. The state was ruled by the tsar's educator boyar Boris Morozov and the tsar's father-in-law Ilya Miloslavsky. Morozov's policy, which was aimed at strengthening the tax oppression, as well as the lawlessness and abuse of Miloslavsky, caused popular indignation.

1648, June - an uprising broke out in the capital, followed by uprisings in southern Russian cities and in Siberia. The result of this rebellion was the removal of Morozov and Miloslavsky from power. 1649 - Alexei Mikhailovich had a chance to take over the rule of the country. On his personal instructions, they compiled a set of laws - the Cathedral Code, which satisfied the main wishes of the townspeople and nobles.

In addition, the government of Alexei Mikhailovich encouraged the development of industry, supported Russian merchants, protecting them from the competition of foreign merchants. They adopted customs and new trade charters, which contributed to the development of domestic and foreign trade. Also, during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, the Muscovite state expanded its borders not only to the south-west, but also to the south and east - Russian explorers mastered Eastern Siberia.

Fedor III Alekseevich (1676 - 1682)

1675 - Alexei Mikhailovich declared his son Fyodor the heir to the throne. 1676, January 30 - Alexei died at the age of 47 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin. Fedor Alekseevich became the sovereign of all Russia and on June 18, 1676 he was married to the kingdom in the Assumption Cathedral. Tsar Fyodor ruled for only six years, he was extremely independent, power was in the hands of his maternal relatives - the boyars Miloslavsky.

The most important event of the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich was the destruction in 1682 of localism, which made it possible for not very noble, but educated and enterprising people to advance in the service. In the last days of the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich, a project was drawn up on the establishment in Moscow of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and theological school for 30 people. Fedor Alekseevich died on April 27, 1682 at the age of 22, without making any order regarding the succession to the throne.

Ivan V (1682-1696)

After the death of Tsar Fyodor, ten-year-old Peter Alekseevich, at the suggestion of Patriarch Joachim and at the insistence of the Naryshkins (his mother was from this family), was proclaimed king, bypassing his older brother, Tsarevich Ivan. But from May 23 of the same year, at the request of the boyars Miloslavsky, he was approved by the Zemsky Sobor as the "second tsar", and Ivan - the "first". And only in 1696, after the death of Ivan Alekseevich, did Peter become the sovereign tsar.

Peter I Alekseevich, nickname the Great (1682 - 1725)

Both emperors pledged to be allies in the conduct of hostilities. However, in 1810 relations between Russia and France began to take on an openly hostile character. And in the summer of 1812, a war broke out between the powers. The Russian army, having expelled the invaders from Moscow, completed the liberation of Europe with a triumphant entry into Paris in 1814. Successfully ended wars with Turkey and Sweden strengthened the country's international position. In the reign of Alexander I, Georgia, Finland, Bessarabia, and Azerbaijan became part of the Russian Empire. 1825 - during a trip to Taganrog, Emperor Alexander I caught a bad cold and died on November 19.

Emperor Nicholas I (1825-1855)

After the death of Alexander, Russia lived for almost a month without an emperor. On December 14, 1825, the oath was announced to his younger brother Nikolai Pavlovich. On the same day, an attempted coup d'état took place, later called the Decembrist uprising. The day of December 14 made an indelible impression on Nicholas I, and this was reflected in the nature of his entire reign, during which absolutism reached its highest rise, the costs of officials and the army absorbed almost all state funds. During the years, the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was compiled - a code of all legislative acts that existed in 1835.

1826 - a Secret Committee was established to deal with the peasant question, in 1830 a general law on estates was developed, in which a number of improvements were designed for the peasants. About 9,000 rural schools were organized for the primary education of peasant children.

1854 - the Crimean War began, ending with the defeat of Russia: according to the Paris Treaty of 1856, the Black Sea was declared neutral, and Russia was able to regain the right to have a fleet there only in 1871. It was the defeat in this war that decided the fate of Nicholas I. Not wanting to admit the fallacy of his views and beliefs, which led the state not only to a military defeat, but also to the collapse of the entire system of state power, the emperor, it is believed, deliberately took poison on February 18, 1855.

Alexander II the Liberator (1855-1881)

The next from the Romanov dynasty came to power - Alexander Nikolaevich, the eldest son of Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna.

It should be noted that he was able to somewhat stabilize the situation both within the state and at external borders. Firstly, under Alexander II, serfdom was abolished in Russia, for which the emperor was nicknamed the Liberator. 1874 - a decree on universal military service was issued, which abolished recruiting kits. At this time, higher educational institutions for women were created, three universities were founded - Novorossiysk, Warsaw and Tomsk.

Alexander II was able to finally conquer the Caucasus in 1864. Under the Argun Treaty with China, the Amur Territory was annexed to Russia, and under the Beijing Treaty, the Ussuri Territory. 1864 - Russian troops began a campaign in Central Asia, during which the Turkestan Territory and the Ferghana Region were captured. Russian dominion extended up to the peaks of the Tien Shan and the foot of the Himalayan range. Russia also had possessions in the United States.

However, in 1867 Russia sold Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to America. The most important event in Russia's foreign policy during the reign of Alexander II was the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, which ended with the victory of the Russian army, which resulted in the proclamation of the independence of Serbia, Romania and Montenegro.

Russia received part of Bessarabia, torn away in 1856 (except for the islands of the Danube Delta) and a cash contribution of 302.5 million rubles. In the Caucasus, Ardagan, Kars and Batum with their environs were annexed to Russia. The emperor could still do a lot for Russia, but on March 1, 1881, his life was tragically cut short by a bomb of terrorists of the People's Volunteers, and the next representative of the Romanov dynasty, his son Alexander III, ascended the throne. Hard times have come for the Russian people.

Alexander III the Peacemaker (1881-1894)

During the reign of Alexander III, administrative arbitrariness increased to a large extent. In order to develop new lands, mass migration of peasants to Siberia began. The government took care of improving the life of workers - the work of minors and women was limited.

In foreign policy at that time, there was a deterioration in Russian-German relations and there was a rapprochement between Russia and France, which ended with the conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance. Emperor Alexander III died in the autumn of 1894 from kidney disease, which worsened due to bruises received during a railway accident near Kharkov and constant immoderate alcohol consumption. And power passed to his eldest son Nikolai, the last Russian emperor from the Romanov dynasty.

Emperor Nicholas II (1894-1917)

The entire reign of Nicholas II passed in an atmosphere of growing revolutionary movement. At the beginning of 1905, a revolution broke out in Russia, which marked the beginning of reforms: 1905, on October 17, the Manifesto was issued, which established the foundations of civil freedom: personal immunity, freedom of speech, assembly and unions. They established the State Duma (1906), without the approval of which no law could enter into force.

According to the project of P.A. Stolshin, an agrarian reform was carried out. In the field of foreign policy, Nicholas II took some steps to stabilize international relations. Despite the fact that Nicholas was more democratic than his father, popular dissatisfaction with the autocrat was growing rapidly. At the beginning of March 1917, the chairman of the State Duma, M.V. Rodzianko, told Nicholas II that the preservation of autocracy was possible only if the throne was handed over to Tsarevich Alexei.

But, given the poor health of his son Alexei, Nicholas abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich. Mikhail Alexandrovich, in turn, abdicated in favor of the people. The republican era has begun in Russia.

From March 9 to August 14, 1917, the former emperor and members of his family were kept under arrest in Tsarskoye Selo, then they were transferred to Tobolsk. On April 30, 1918, the prisoners were brought to Yekaterinburg, where on the night of July 17, 1918, by order of the new revolutionary government, the former emperor, his wife, children, and the doctor and servants who remained with them were shot by the Chekists. Thus ended the reign of the last dynasty in the history of Russia.

February 21, 1613 was a great and joyful day for the Russian people: on this day, the “stateless” time ended in Russia! It lasted three years; For three years, the best Russian people struggled with all their might to get rid of their enemies, to save the church, the people, and their native land from desecration, from final disintegration and ruin. Everything went apart; everywhere there was unsteadiness; there was no one strong power that would hold everything together, give everything strength and a certain course.

Young Tsar Mikhail Romanov

It seemed that everyone lost faith in the salvation of their native land ... Already the best Russian people were preparing reluctantly to put the Polish prince on the orphaned throne of Moscow; they only demanded that he accept Orthodoxy and that there be no damage to the original Orthodox faith. Behind this, the matter began ... The Polish king, of course, was not thinking about Orthodoxy - he himself wanted to seize Moscow instead of his son; but at that time, the Nizhny Novgorod militia, led by Minin and Pozharsky, accomplished their great deed - they drove the Poles out of Moscow. And here, in this heart of the Russian land, on February 21, 1613, when the boyars went to Red Square to ask from the Execution Ground all the elected people and the people who filled the square, whom they want to reign, there was a unanimous cry:

- Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov will be the tsar-sovereign of the Muscovite state and the entire Russian state!

So, the Russian land found itself a tsar - its Tsar, Russian, Orthodox, from the boyar family of the Romanovs, not stained by any dark deed, shining with such names as Anastasia, the first wife of Grozny, like Metropolitan Filaret, who stood firmly, with complete selflessness at that time Orthodoxy and the benefits of the native land in the Polish camp. Finally, such a tsar was found, around whom scattered Russian forces could now gather and save their land. That is why the day of the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the throne should be considered a great event in the life of the Russian people.

Moscow swore allegiance to the new Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. Letters of notice were sent to all cities, and a large embassy was equipped from the Zemsky Sobor - solemnly from the whole Russian land to invite Mikhail Fedorovich to the kingdom.

The joyful news that the stateless time was over quickly spread from Moscow throughout the Russian land. The hopes of all the best Russian people now focused on the young people's choice; but at this time a new terrible grief almost struck them.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, still a youth of sixteen, then lived with his mother, nun Marfa, at the Romanov family estate Domnina near Kostroma. A gang of Poles, who at that time were scouring the Russian land everywhere, made their way to the Kostroma district, looking for Mikhail Fedorovich; to destroy him meant to render the greatest service to the Polish king, who considered the throne of Moscow already his own. The Poles grabbed the peasants they met, scouted their way, subjected them to torture, and finally found out that Mikhail lives in the village of Domnino.

The gang was already approaching the village. Here the Poles fell into the hands of a Domninsky peasant; they demanded that he take them to the estate of Mikhail Fedorovich. Susanin, of course, immediately realized why the enemies might need his young boyar, elected to the royal throne, and, without thinking twice, undertook to show them the way. Secretly from them, he sent his son-in-law Bogdan Sabinin to the estate to inform about the trouble threatening Mikhail, and he himself led the enemies in the opposite direction from Domnin.

For a long time he led them through various forest slums and deaf paths, and finally led them to the village of Isupovo. Here the whole thing is explained. Furious, the Poles, in a rage, first tortured Susanin with various tortures, and then chopped him into small pieces. Mikhail Fedorovich, meanwhile, managed to leave with his mother for Kostroma, where he settled in the Ipatiev Monastery; behind its strong walls they were safe from gangs of thieves and Poles and Cossacks.

The legend of the valiant deed of Susanin, who did not hesitate to give his life for the king, is sacredly kept in the memory of the people. (The reliability of this feat is fully confirmed by the royal charter, where Tsar Mikhail Romanov frees the offspring of Susanin as a reward for his self-denial from all duties and generously allocates land.)

The great embassy from the Zemsky Sobor to Mikhail Fedorovich arrived in Kostroma on March 13. The next morning, a magnificent spectacle opened up. The Kostroma clergy with the local miraculous icon of the Mother of God moved at the ringing of all the bells, accompanied by a multitude of people, from the cathedral to the Ipatiev monastery. From the other side, the Moscow embassy was approaching here with the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, with crosses and banners. At the head of the embassy were Fedorit, the Archbishop of Ryazan, Avraamiy Palitsyn, the cellar of the Trinity Monastery, the boyars Sheremetev and Prince. Bakhteyarov-Rostovsky. Crowds of people crowded behind them.

There was a sacred chant. Mikhail Fedorovich and his mother left the monastery towards the procession and humbly fell on their knees before the images and crosses... They were asked to go to the monastery, to the main Trinity Church, and listen to the petition of the Zemsky Sobor. Then Michael "with great anger and weeping" said that he did not even think of being a sovereign, and the nun Martha added that she "would not bless her son for the kingdom." Both, both the son and the mother, for a long time did not want to enter the cathedral church for crosses, the ambassadors managed to beg them by force; they went off in tears. They served a prayer service. Then Archbishop Fedorit bowed before Michael and said to him a greeting from the clergy:

- Metropolitan Kirill of Rostov and Yaroslavl of the Moscow State, archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, abbots and the entire consecrated cathedral bless you, the great sovereign, tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich, they pray to God for you and beat you with their foreheads.

Then the boyar Sheremetev said hello from all the laity:

- Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of all Russia! Yours, sovereign, boyars, okolnichi, chasniki, stewards, solicitors, nobles of Moscow and clerks, nobles from cities, residents, heads of archers, centurions, chieftains, Cossacks, archers and all sorts of service people, guests, merchants of the Moscow state and all cities of all ranks, people ordered you, sovereign, to strike with your forehead and ask about your sovereign health.

After that, Fedorit began to read the conciliar message to Mikhail Fedorovich. It was mentioned here about the suppression of the royal root on the throne of Moscow, about the atrocities of traitors and Poles who wanted to "trample the faith of the Greek law and perpetrate the damned Latin faith in Russia! ..". “Finally,” it was said further, “Moscow has been cleansed, the churches of God have clothed themselves in their former splendor, the name of God is still glorified in them; but take care of the Muscovite state and there is no one to provide for God’s people: we don’t have a sovereign.” Then the Zemsky Sobor informed Mikhail about his unanimous election to the kingdom, about the oath of all to serve the tsar with faith and truth, to fight for him to death, prayed to Michael that he go to his kingdom, and expressed wishes, "may God exalt his right hand; the Orthodox faith may it be indestructible in the great Russian kingdom and shine in the whole universe, like a bright sun under the sky; and may Christians receive silence, peace and prosperity.

Boyar Sheremetev and Archbishop Fyodorit then turned to the mother of Mikhail Fedorovich, said everything that was ordered to them from the cathedral, and begged: "Do not despise prayers and petitions and go with your son to the royal throne!"

But mother and son did not want to hear about it.

“My son must not be king!” Martha exclaimed. - I will not bless him; I didn’t have it in my mind and it couldn’t come to my mind!

- I do not want to reign, and can I be the heir to the great Russian tsars! Michael said.

Their ambassadors pleaded long and in vain. Martha also gave reasons for the refusal; she said:

- Still, Mikhail is not in perfect years, but the people of the Moscow state of all ranks are sinful were exhausted, - having given their souls (that is, having sworn) to the former sovereigns, they did not directly serve.

– Seeing such crimes of the cross, disgrace, murders and insults to the former sovereigns, how can even a born sovereign be a sovereign in the Muscovite state? And that’s why it’s still impossible: the Muscovite state from the Polish and Lithuanian people and the inconstancy of the Russian people is completely ruined; the former royal treasures, collected from ancient times, were taken away by the Lithuanian people; palace villages, black volosts, suburbs and towns were distributed as estates to nobles and boyar children and devastated, and service people are poor; and to whom God will command to be king, then how should he favor service people, fill his sovereign's household and stand against enemies?

Martha, apparently, opposed the election of her son not only for the sake of appearance and for good reason: she clearly understood the plight of the Russian land and realized how difficult and dangerous it was to be king at such a time; she was afraid to bless her son for the kingdom and at the same time for death. In addition, there was another important reason for the refusal.

“Michael’s father, Filaret,” added Marfa, “now the king in Lithuania is in great oppression, and as the king knows that his son became king in the Muscovite state, now he orders to do some evil against him, and Mikhail without the blessing of his father there is no way to be your own in the Moscow state!

The ambassadors persuaded both the mother and the son in every possible way, begged with tears, beat them with their foreheads so that they would not despise the conciliar prayers and petitions, they said that he, Mikhail Fedorovich, had been chosen by the will of God; and the former sovereigns - Tsar Boris sat down on the state with his will, having exhausted the royal root; the thief Grishka-rasstriga in his affairs from God took revenge; and Tsar Basil was elected to the kingdom by a few people ...

“All this was done,” the ambassadors added, “by the will of God and all Orthodox Christians by sin; in all the people of the Muscovite state there was discord and civil strife; and now the people of the Muscovite state have been punished and come to union in all cities ... We have chosen your son with all the land, we want to lay down our heads and shed blood for him. Do not test the fate of God, even though the Godunovs and Shuisky died: the will of God acts on the fate of kings; should she resist? Do not be afraid for our sovereign, Metropolitan Filaret: we have already sent to Poland and are giving away all the captured Poles for his ransom.

About six o'clock the ambassadors begged the inflexible nun to bless Mikhail Fedorovich. The clergy with icons approached her; ambassadors, warriors, people fell on their knees before her. All in vain ... She stood, hugging her son, pouring tears on him ...

“Does it please you,” Fyodorit finally spoke in grief, “you, the poor, should not be spared and leave the orphans? And the surrounding sovereigns, and enemies, and traitors will rejoice that we are orphans and stateless, and our holy faith will be trampled and ruined by them, and we all, Orthodox Christians, will be plundered and captivated, and the holy churches of God will be defiled, and a many-man, many-gathered people will perish in a stateless time, and internecine strife will rise again, and innocent Christian blood will be shed ... All this, everything God will exact on the day of the Terrible and righteous judgment on you - on you, the great old woman nun Marfa Ivanovna, and on you , our great sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich. And in our country, all of the entire great Russian kingdom of all cities, from small to large, has a strong and unanimous council laid down and confirmed with a kiss of the cross that, past our sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, to the Muscovite state, no one else wants and does not think about it! ..

“If it be the will of God,” she said, “be taco!”

Fedorit blessed Mikhail; they laid a pectoral cross on him, handed him the royal staff. Served the liturgy; they sang a thanksgiving service and proclaimed many years to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich ... Then he, sitting on the throne, began to accept congratulations. The ringing of bells, the joyful cries of the people filled the air...

The wedding of Mikhail Fedorovich to the kingdom

On the eve of the Annunciation (March 24), joyful news was received from the embassy in Moscow. The next day, early in the morning, the Kremlin was filled with people. In the Assumption Cathedral, a notice from Kostroma was read, a thanksgiving service was served, and many years were proclaimed to Tsar Michael. This day was a great holiday for all of Moscow. On March 19, the tsar, accompanied by the clergy, the entire embassy, ​​people of various ranks who had gathered in Kostroma, preceded by holy icons, moved to Moscow. The mother followed him. The people everywhere ran out to meet the king with bread and salt; the clergy met him with icons and crosses. When he drove up to Yaroslavl, the whole city came out to meet him. The journey from Yaroslavl to Moscow lasted more than two weeks: Tsar Michael, according to the Russian pious custom, stopped in the cities lying on the road - Rostov and Pereyaslavl, to worship St. relics, visited monasteries. The solemn procession of Michael to Moscow was joyful and mournful at the same time: the people rejoiced, coming out in crowds to meet their sovereign, the young king rejoiced at the joy of his people; but everywhere on the way poverty and ruin were thrown into the eyes; people mutilated, exhausted, robbed by gangs of thieves constantly came to the tsar with complaints ... Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich himself had to endure hardships at every step. In response to the request of the boyars to go to Moscow as soon as possible, he wrote:

- We go slowly because the supply is small and the service people are thin: archers, Cossacks and yard people, many go on foot.

To the demands of Tsar Mikhail to prepare for him and his mother a mansion in the Kremlin for their arrival, the boyars replied that they had prepared Tsar Ivan’s rooms and the Palace of the Facets for the sovereign, and for his mother a mansion in the Ascension Monastery ... "The same mansion that the sovereign ordered to prepare, soon it is impossible to rebuild and there is nothing: there is no money in the treasury and there are few carpenters; the chambers and mansions are all without a roof; there are no shops, doors and windows; everything must be done new, and the forest will soon not be able to get it suitable.

The path of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich from the Trinity Monastery to Moscow was a touching sight: Muscovites rode, walked, ran in crowds towards the sovereign, greeted him with enthusiastic shouts, and near Moscow, the clergy with banners, with icons and crosses, and all the boyars came out to meet. The streets were crowded with people; many wept with emotion; others loudly blessed the tsar... Having prayed in the Dormition Cathedral, Mikhail went to his chambers. Martha blessed him and retired to her place in the Ascension Monastery.

On July 11, the royal wedding took place. Mikhail Fedorovich turned seventeen years old that day. Before going to the Assumption Cathedral, the sovereign sat in the Golden Chamber. Here he awarded the boyar rank to the valiant Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky and his relative Prince Cherkassky. (And the next day, on the royal name day, Kuzma Minin was granted the Duma nobles.) Disputes began between the boyars about who should take what place at the royal wedding, but the tsar announced that for this time everyone should be in all ranks without places .

The rite of the royal wedding was performed by the oldest of the clergy, Metropolitan Ephraim of Kazan, since after the death of Patriarch Hermogenes, a successor to him was not yet chosen.

They brought the "royal dignity, or rank" to Tsar Michael in the chamber (that is, the accessories of royal vestments: a cross, a crown, a scepter, orb, etc.). The sovereign venerated the cross. Then, at the ringing of all the bells, the "royal dignity" was carried to the cathedral on golden dishes. The royal confessor reverently carried on his head a dish with a life-giving cross; the boyar Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky carried the scepter, the tsar's treasurer - the orb, and the crown, Monomakh's cap - the tsar's uncle Ivan Nikitich Romanov. In the cathedral, everything was reverently placed on a richly decorated table (nala) in front of the royal gates.

When everything was ready, the tsar, accompanied by many boyars and stewards, went to the temple. Streltsy, placed in two rows, protected the royal path. A priest walked ahead of everyone and sprinkled the path with holy water. Tsar Michael entered the cathedral, the floor of which was covered with velvet and brocade. In the middle of the church, a platform (a drawing place) was built with twelve steps upholstered in red cloth; on it was placed a throne for the king and a chair for the metropolitan. The people were admitted to the cathedral. The courtiers and stolniki installed those who came and admonished them to "stand with silence, meekness and attention."

Upon the arrival of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in the cathedral, he was sung for many years. The king prayed before the icons and kissed them. The prayer began. Then Metropolitan Ephraim elevated the tsar to the "great place", that is, to the platform to the throne. Complete silence reigned, and Michael, standing at the throne, made a speech to the Metropolitan. Mentioning that Tsar Fyodor "childless" left the kingdom, that the tsars elected after that died, and Vasily refused the kingdom, that he, Mikhail Romanov, was elected tsar by the entire cathedral of the Russian land, the tsar ended his speech with the following words :

– By the grace of God and by the grace of the Holy Spirit given to you and by your and all the ranks of the Moscow State election, our pilgrims, bless and crown us in our great states with a royal crown according to the former royal rank and heritage.

In response to these words, the metropolitan recalled the disasters of the Russian land in a stateless time, about its deliverance from enemies, about the election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov and prayed to God that He would multiply the years of the tsar, subdue him all enemies, instill in the heart of the tsar His fear and mercy to obedient, so that he judges his people righteously, etc.; In conclusion, the Metropolitan said:

- Accept, sovereign, the highest honor and glory, the crown of the kingdom on your head, the crown that your forefather, Vladimir Monomakh, sought from ancient times. May a beautiful branch flourish for us from your royal, beautifully flowering root as a hope and a legacy to all the great states of the Russian kingdom!

Having said this, the metropolitan laid the cross on Tsar Michael and, holding his hands on his head, read a prayer; then he put on him barmas (shoulders) and the royal crown. After that, Mikhail Fedorovich sat down on the throne, and the metropolitan gave him a scepter in his right hand, and an orb in his left. Many years were proclaimed to the "God-crowned sovereign." Spiritual dignitaries and boyars bowed to the tsar "from the waist down" and congratulated him. The Metropolitan delivered a lesson to the Tsar.

“Do not accept, sir,” the archpastor said among other things, “a flattering language and a vain ear, do not believe the evil one, do not listen to the deceiver ... It is fitting for you to be wise or to follow the wise, on them, as on the throne, God rests. Not the blessings of this world, but virtue adorns kings. Do not despise those who are inferior to you: there is a King over you, and if He takes care of everyone, will you not take care of anyone ?! Be able, sir, be able, and when the hour of your judgment comes, you will be able to stand fearlessly before the Lord and say: "Behold I, Lord, and Your people whom You have given me," to say and hear the voice of the King and your God: " Good servant, Tsar Michael of Russia, you were faithful to me in a small way, I will put you over many things!

Then the metropolitan blessed the tsar with a life-giving cross and prayed loudly: "May the Lord multiply the years of the reign of Tsar Michael; may he see the sons of his sons; may his right hand be exalted above his enemies and his kingdom and his offspring be established peacefully and forever!"

In full royal attire, Mikhail Fedorovich then listened to the liturgy, during which the metropolitan anointed him; then he communed him and offered the prosphora. After mass, the tsar invited the metropolitan and all the spiritual people who were in the church to "eat bread."

Then the "God-crowned Tsar" in all his shining vestments entered the Archangel Cathedral to bow to the tombs of the former kings. When Tsar Michael left the cathedrals and on the platform of the palace stairs, according to the custom, he was showered with gold and silver money...

On that day, there was a rich feast in the sovereign's chambers. Bells rang in all churches, fun and folk revelry lasted three days.

Mikhail Fedorovich could not give special favors and benefits to the people upon accession to the throne: the treasury was empty! ..

Consequences of the Time of Troubles in Russia

Such a deplorable situation, in which the young Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov found the Russian land, assuming the throne, she did not tolerate since the first Tatar pogroms. Enemies mercilessly tormented her both on the outskirts and inside.

In the west there was a war with the Poles and Swedes; in their hands there were already quite a few Russian lands. Poland still hoped to put her prince on the Russian throne; the Swedish king read his brother against him; in the southeast, the Cossack freemen, worried by Zarutsky, proclaimed the little son of Marina as king ... (Even at one time, the German emperor tried to see if his brother could somehow be attached to the Moscow throne ...) Mikhail Fedorovich had plenty of enemies and rivals, and no means to fight them and no allies!

Gangs of dashing people, robbers, Cossacks roamed everywhere inside the state, who robbed everything that came to their hand, burned villages, mercilessly tortured, maimed and killed the inhabitants, extorting from them the last crumbs of the surviving property. In the places of former settlements, only ashes were found; many cities were burned to the ground; Moscow at the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov lay in ruins. Countless gangs of robbers were a real plague of the Russian land: they kept not only the villagers, but also the townspeople in constant anxiety, in languid fear ... Crafts and trade completely fell. Peasants in many places could not even collect bread from the fields and were dying of hunger. Extreme, hopeless poverty crushed the people. Some lost all courage, went down, turned into vagabonds, beggars, went begging around the world; others began to hunt by theft, a dashing deed, molested bands of robbers ... Service people and boyars also completely impoverished. They were also weak in spirit. In the Time of Troubles, with eternal anxiety, unsteadiness, violence, lawlessness and change of governments, people more and more lost their sense of justice and honor, got used to caring only for themselves, grew smaller in spirit, “fell into despair,” as nun Martha aptly put it. It was difficult for the government of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to find good, honest assistants: officials shamelessly used their power, crowded out subordinates, extorted handouts, sucked the last juices out of the people.

The young Tsar Michael, who needed experienced and honest advisers and leaders, unfortunately, was surrounded by deceitful and greedy people; Saltykovs, relatives of the tsar's mother, used special power among them ... Tsar Michael was kind and reasonable, but he did not show any special inclination to management, and he was still too young at that time. Those close to him could quite freely act in his name. A remark of a contemporary foreigner about the situation in Russia at that time is curious:

“The (Russian) tsar is like the sun, part of which is covered with clouds, so that the land of Moscow cannot receive either warmth or light ... All the tsar’s close associates are ignorant young men; clever clerks are greedy wolves, they all rob and ruin the people without distinction. No one brings the truth to the king; there is no access to him without great costs; petitions cannot be submitted to the order without huge money; and then it remains to be seen how the matter will end: whether it will be delayed or set in motion.

Of course, the foreigner presents the matter too gloomily, exaggerates the evil, but still it was great, if it was so striking even to an outside observer.

Despite the youth and inexperience of the tsar, despite the shortcomings of the persons who ruled his name, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was strong as a tsar, strong with the love of the people. The people saw in the tsar a bulwark against terrible anarchy and confusion; and the king saw in the people who elevated him to the throne, a solid support for himself. The connection between the king and the people was strong; this was both the strength and the salvation of the Russian land. Mikhail Fedorovich and his advisers fully understood this and, in the most important matters, called for advice to the Zemstvo Duma of the elected representatives of the whole earth.

Seat of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich with the boyars. Painting by A. Ryabushkin, 1893

Money, money and money - that's what was demanded first of all from the Moscow government from all sides. The war consumed an awful lot of money. The tsar had just ascended the throne, as requests, complaints, and prayers rained down on him from everywhere, especially from service people. Some asked for help, exposing that they shed blood for the Muscovite state, and their estates and estates were completely ruined, desolated, they did not give any income; that they have no clothes, no weapons, and there is nothing to rule the sovereign's service. Others demanded money, bread, cloth and directly stated that poverty would force them to rob along the high roads ... Some serving Cossacks, without receiving a salary, really fought back from the royal service and went to steal and rob.

Decrees were sent everywhere from Tsar Michael and from the cathedral - to collect all taxes, duties and arrears as soon as possible and more accurately. The government begged all wealthy people in cities and monasteries to lend to the treasury everything they could: money, bread, cloth and all sorts of other supplies. The tsar himself wrote to the wealthy merchants Stroganovs, begging them, in addition to taxes and duties, to lend, "for Christian peace and quiet, money, bread, fish, salt, cloth and all sorts of goods that can be given to military people." The clergy, on behalf of the entire cathedral, also begged the Stroganovs to help the treasury.

“Martial people,” the letter from the clergy says, “they beat the great sovereign with their foreheads incessantly, but they come to us, the royal pilgrims and the boyars, with great noise and crying every day, that they are poor from many services and from the ruin of the Polish and Lithuanian people and they can’t serve; they have nothing to eat in the service, and therefore many of them drive along the roads, from poverty rob, beat, and it’s impossible to appease them by any measures without granting them; unless they receive the royal monetary and grain salary, then all out of poverty, they will involuntarily begin to steal and rob, smash and beat ... "

Tsar Michael had to collect the treasury at all costs; but how to collect? Not only the people were in poverty, but also merchants and monasteries complained about the ruin from the Lithuanian people, asked for all sorts of favors and benefits. Even foreign merchants were crying for ruin and also asked for benefits, and the government, in order to strengthen trade, fulfilled their requests. Tax collectors, under the guise of state fees, often took interest, oppressed the dark people, robbed even more than gangs of thieves, angered them. In other cities remote from Moscow, there was even obvious resistance to the collectors. At Beloozero, for example, the townspeople did not want to pay taxes, and when the governors ordered them to be put on the right, they began to ring the alarm and wanted to beat the governor ... After such cases, the collectors had to walk through the villages with armed detachments.

To top it off, the Nogai crossed the Oka at that time and devastated many lands. From Ryazan, the archbishop, the clergy, the nobles and the boyars' children browbeaten the tsar: "The Tatars began to come often and burned down our little houses, our other little fellows and peasants were intercepted and many of our brethren themselves ... they took and beat ..."

At the same time, news came from Kazan that voivode Shulgin was planning to raise service people against Mikhail Fedorovich there. They managed to capture him in time and exiled him to Siberia.

Such was the sad state in which the Muscovite government was, when disaster threatened the state from all sides, from without and from within.

Ivan Zarutsky and Marina Mnishek

The first six years of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov had to strain all forces to fight against external and internal enemies. Fortunately, the Poles fought the war rather sluggishly, indecisively. Thanks to this, the Russians managed to deal with internal enemies.

Zarutsky tried by all means to raise the Cossack freemen on the Don, Volga and Yaik (Urals) against Moscow; he wanted to put on the throne the young Ivan, the son of Marina, and govern the state in his name. The royal army was sent against Zarutsky under the command of Prince. Odoevsky. Letters of exhortation were sent from Moscow to the Cossacks on the Don and Volga from the tsar, from the clergy and boyars, and salaries were also sent in money, cloth, wine, so that the Cossacks, "seeing the royal favor to themselves, served the great sovereign and stood against traitors." Two letters were sent from the tsar and the clergy even to Zarutsky himself: Mikhail Fedorovich promised him pardon in case of obedience; the clergy threatened with a curse for disobeying the royal charter. These measures did not work. Zarutsky settled in Astrakhan, started relations with Persia, asking for help; but with his cruelty and falsehoods, he aroused the people of Astrakhan against him. Among the Cossacks there were also many unkindness "to a thief with a heap and a raven", as their enemies called Zarutsky with Marina and her son. When the Streltsy head Khokhlov with a small detachment approached Astrakhan, Zarutsky fled up the Volga; Khokhlov overtook him and smashed him; he did not manage to escape even by flight: a few days later he fell into the hands of a detachment sent after him (June 25, 1614). The captives were sent to Moscow with a large convoy. Zarutsky and Marina's son were executed by death, and Marina was imprisoned, where she died. Somehow managed to calm Astrakhan and the southeastern region.

Fighting thieves after the Troubles

Great efforts cost Mikhail Fedorovich the fight against the gangs of thieves who tormented the Russian land everywhere; there was almost no area that did not suffer from them. Such torments that the Russian land endured then, according to the chronicler, did not happen in ancient times either. Terrible news was constantly coming from the governor to Moscow. “We saw burnt peasants,” they reported from one place, “more than seventy people and more than forty dead men and women who died from torment and torture, except for those who were frozen ...” “Thieves-Cossacks came to our county,” wrote from in another place, the voivode to the tsar, - Orthodox Christians are beaten and burned, they are tortured with various torments, they are not allowed to collect cash income and grain reserves ... "

Tsar Mikhail himself, according to the words of the governor, complains that "the collected money treasury cannot be brought to Moscow from theft of them (robbers)."

The actions of these gangs of thieves often reached outrageous atrocities. Wild and furious in the midst of constant robbery and murder, the villains often amused themselves with the torment of their victims: for some of the robbers, it was a common pastime to fill people's mouths, ears, noses with gunpowder and light them ...

The bands of robbers were often very numerous; so, for example, the gang that robbed in the north near Arkhangelsk and Kholmogor was up to 7,000 people. The governors from these places reported to Tsar Michael that in the whole region, along the Onega and Vaga rivers, the churches of God were desecrated, cattle were beaten out, villages were burned; on Onega, 2,325 corpses of tortured people were counted, and there was no one to bury them; many were mutilated; many inhabitants fled through the forests and froze to death ... With such huge gangs of robbers, the government had to wage a real war, and a very difficult one at that: the robbers, of course, avoided a real battle and meeting with military detachments; they attacked by chance: they will rob, burn, kill the people in one village and disappear; warriors will appear at the place of the pogrom - and the villains are raging already tens of miles away from them; military people rush there - and there only the huts burn out and the corpses of the killed people lie around, and those who escaped fled with fear, hide in the forests, and there is no one to ask in which direction the villains went, sit and wait for new news. It was not easy to overpower the countless wandering gangs of thieves; but it was even more difficult to catch them in the wide expanse of the Russian land, in its dense forests. At the same time, the Siberian prince Araslan raged in Vologda - he robbed the inhabitants, tortured them and hanged them mercilessly; Cheremis and Tatars rose in the Kazan region, took over the road between Nizhny and Kazan, captured people ...

In September 1614, at a Zemsky Sobor convened by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, they discussed how to stop all these troubles. They tried to act by agreement - they promised forgiveness and even the royal salary to those who would leave behind the thieves and go to the royal service against the Swedes, and the serfs, if they repent, were promised freedom. Few succumbed to promises and went to work, and even then others only repented in appearance, and then, on occasion, began to steal again. Then the tsar ordered the boyar Lykov to "hunt on the Cossacks" with military force. Lykov succeeded in breaking up their gangs in many places.

A huge crowd of thieves' Cossacks moved under the leadership of Ataman Balovnya to Moscow; they pretended that they were going to beat Tsar Michael with their foreheads and wanted to serve him, but their intention was different: they apparently planned to carry out a big robbery near the capital itself, where there was then little military force. When they began to make a census for them, and an army approached Moscow and stood near the crowd of thieves, it took to flight. The governors Lykov and Izmailov pursued the thieves, beat them several times, finally, in the Maloyaroslavsky district on the Luzha River, they overtook the main crowd and finally defeated it: many were killed, and 3256 people who begged for mercy were brought to Moscow. All of them were forgiven and sent to the service, only Minion was hanged. In this way they somehow managed with large gatherings of robbers; but still the state could not calm down for a long time, and its complaints about robberies and theft were constantly heard from different parts ...

In addition to the Tatars, Cheremis and robber Cossack gangs, at the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Romanov, they had to cope with the flying detachments of Lisovsky. This brave rider began his raids on the Russian regions, as is known, under the second impostor. He recruited a gang of dashing thugs, most of all from Polish and Lithuanian gentry, and soon became famous for his bold raids. His cavalry detachments, quickly moving from place to place, terrified the entire area where they appeared. keep up with foxes, as they were called, it was not possible: they made crossings of a hundred or more miles a day, they did not spare the horses - they threw the tired and exhausted on the way, grabbed fresh ones from the oncoming villages and estates and rushed on, leaving only the ashes of the robbed and scorched on the way villages and cities; they did no less inhuman cruelty than gangs of thieves. The famous Pozharsky, who was detached against Lisovsky, chased him first in the Seversk land for a long time and unsuccessfully, finally met him near Orel; but a decisive battle did not take place here; Lisovsky retreated near Kromy; Pozharsky is behind him; Lisovsky - to Bolkhov, then - to Belev, to Likhvin, with extraordinary speed was transferred from city to city, attacking by chance, destroying everything on the way. Pozharsky, tired of constant pursuit and anxiety, fell ill in Kaluga. Taking advantage of this, Lisovsky swept through the Russian regions to the north, broke through between Yaroslavl and Kostroma, began to smash the environs of Suzdal, made trouble in the Ryazan region, passed between Tula and Serpukhov. In vain did the governors of Tsar Michael chase after him; only near Aleksin did the royal army meet him, but they did not cause much harm to him.

Lisovsky would still have done many troubles to the Russian land; but the next year he accidentally fell from his horse and lost his life. Although the "foxes" continued their raids, there were no such amazing in courage and disastrous raids as under Lisovsky. No less trouble for the Russian land at the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Romanov was caused by the Dnieper Cossacks, Cherkasy, as they were called in Moscow: they also drove in separate bands even to the far north and robbed no worse than "foxes" and other gangs of thieves.

Financial need after the Troubles

The government of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich found it extremely difficult where to get money to continue the fight against enemies, to cleanse the land of thieves. Order after order was sent to the governors from Moscow to collect, by all means, the due fees from each yard in the cities, from each plow in the volosts ... But what was to be taken from the impoverished people? people; in other places, the collectors had to lead military people behind them in order to suppress resistance ... But, despite all the measures, most often the governors had to report to Moscow that from their cities and volosts nothing to take.

In 1616, a Zemsky Sobor was convened by Tsar Mikhail. It was ordered to select the best county townsmen and volost people for "the great sovereign's zemstvo affairs for advice." Here it was decided to take from all merchants the fifth money from the property (i.e., a fifth of it), and from the volosts 120 rubles from the plow; from the Stroganovs, in excess of the prescribed, to take another 40 thousand rubles.

“Don’t be sorry,” Tsar Mikhail himself wrote to Stroganov, “even though you will bring poverty to yourself. there will be no Christian bellies and houses at all."

The government of Mikhail Fedorovich thought it was to increase the state's revenues by state-owned sales of alcoholic beverages, ordered the construction of taverns everywhere, smoking wine, forbidding its sale to townspeople and service people; but with the extreme poverty of the people, this not only did not increase incomes, but harmed them: the people drank away their last pennies and could pay direct taxes even less... asking him to lend him money.

The end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries became in Russian history a period of socio-political, economic and dynastic crisis, which was called the Time of Troubles. The beginning of the Time of Troubles was laid by the catastrophic famine of 1601-1603. A sharp deterioration in the situation of all segments of the population led to mass unrest under the slogan of the overthrow of Tsar Boris Godunov and the transfer of the throne to the "legitimate" sovereign, as well as the appearance of impostors of False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II as a result of the dynastic crisis.

"Seven Boyars" - the government formed in Moscow after the overthrow of Tsar Vasily Shuisky in July 1610, concluded an agreement on the election of the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne and in September 1610 let the Polish army into the capital.

Since 1611, patriotic sentiments began to grow in Russia. The First Militia, formed against the Poles, failed to drive the foreigners out of Moscow. And in Pskov, a new impostor False Dmitry III showed up. In the autumn of 1611, at the initiative of Kuzma Minin, the formation of the Second Militia began in Nizhny Novgorod, headed by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. In August 1612, it approached Moscow and liberated it in the autumn. The leadership of the Zemstvo militia began preparations for the electoral Zemsky Sobor.

At the beginning of 1613, elected representatives of "the whole earth" began to gather in Moscow. It was the first indisputably all-class Zemsky Sobor with the participation of townspeople and even rural representatives. The number of "soviet people" gathered in Moscow exceeded 800 people representing at least 58 cities.

The Zemsky Sobor began its work on January 16 (January 6, according to the old style), 1613. Representatives of "all the land" annulled the decision of the previous council on the election of Prince Vladislav to the Russian throne and decided: "Foreign princes and Tatar princes should not be invited to the Russian throne."

Council meetings took place in an atmosphere of fierce rivalry between various political groups that had taken shape in Russian society during the Time of Troubles and sought to strengthen their position by electing their pretender to the royal throne. The participants of the council put forward more than ten pretenders to the throne. In various sources, Fyodor Mstislavsky, Ivan Vorotynsky, Fyodor Sheremetev, Dmitry Trubetskoy, Dmitry Mamstrukovich and Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky, Ivan Golitsyn, Ivan Nikitich and Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, Pyotr Pronsky and Dmitry Pozharsky are named among the candidates.

The data of the "Report statement on estates and estates of 1613", which recorded land grants made immediately after the election of the king, make it possible to identify the most active members of the "Romanov" circle. The candidacy of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613 was supported not by the influential clan of the Romanov boyars, but by a circle spontaneously formed in the course of the work of the Zemsky Sobor, made up of minor persons of the previously crushed boyar groups.

A decisive role, according to a number of historians, in the election of Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom was played by the Cossacks, who during this period become an influential social force. Among the service people and the Cossacks, a movement arose, the center of which was the Moscow courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and its active inspirer was Avraamy Palitsyn, the cellar of this monastery, a very influential person among both the militias and Muscovites. At meetings with the participation of cellar Avraamy, it was decided to proclaim 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich, the son of Metropolitan Philaret of Rostov, captured by the Poles.

The main argument of Mikhail Romanov's supporters boiled down to the fact that, unlike elected tsars, he was elected not by people, but by God, since he comes from a noble royal root. Not kinship with Rurik, but proximity and kinship with the dynasty of Ivan IV gave the right to occupy his throne.

Many boyars joined the Romanov party, he was supported by the highest Orthodox clergy - the Consecrated Cathedral.

The election took place on February 17 (February 7, old style), 1613, but the official announcement was postponed until March 3 (February 21, old style), so that by that time it would become clear how the people would accept the new king.

Letters were sent to the cities and counties of the country with the news of the election of the king and the oath of allegiance to the new dynasty.

On March 23 (March 13, according to other sources, March 14, according to the old style), 1613, the ambassadors of the Council arrived in Kostroma. In the Ipatiev Monastery, where Mikhail was with his mother, he was informed of his election to the throne.

Reigned: 1613-1645

From the biography.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov - the first Russian tsar from the Romanov dynasty. He was elected to the kingdom by the Zemsky Sobor in 1613. He was the cousin-nephew of the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty, Fyodor Ioannovich.

· His parents, Ksenia Shestova and Fyodor Romanov (later Patriarch Filaret) and himself, during the Polish intervention, hid in the Ipatiev Monastery, not far from Kaluga. The Poles wanted to kill them. But the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin led the army into the swamp, killing him and dying himself.

At first, his mother and relatives along her line, the Saltykovs, ruled on his behalf in 1613-1619, since Mikhail was only 16 years old at the time of his election as king. Then his father, Filaret, returned from Polish captivity. And from 1619 to 1633, that is, until his death, he was a prominent figure in the state.

Historical portrait of Mikhail Romanov

Activities

1. Domestic policy

Activities	results
In the political sphere: a course towards reconciliation in the country devastated by the Time of Troubles, further centralization of power and streamlining of the state administration system.	Reliance on the Boyar Duma and Zemsky Sobors. Convocation of Zemsky Sobors - in 1615 and from 1633 - after the death of Filaret, who limited their powers. Appointment of governors and elders in the field Expanding the powers of elected zemstvo authorities by limiting the power of governors, that is, limiting localism. The order system was restored and further developed. 1627 - decree allowing nobles to transfer land by inheritance with the condition of serving the king Thus, estates were equated to estates.
Improving the financial system	A new taxation was introduced, in order to accurately determine the amount of tax, a complete inventory of all manorial lands was carried out. Tax incentives were introduced for ruined counties. 1619 - the first land census.
2.Overcoming the consequences of the Time of Troubles, restoration of the country's economy.	1630 - the first iron-working plant in the Trans-Urals. 1630 - in Moscow, the Dutchman Firmbrand opened a manufactory for the production of brocade fabrics. 1631 - opening of workshops for the manufacture of gold and jewelry by the Englishman Glover. 1632 - the first ironworks was built near Tula by the Dutchman Vinius. 1634 - glassworks of foreigner Koets Involvement of foreign experts Establishment of the German Quarter in Moscow - settlements of foreign engineers and military specialists. In Moscow, the Velvet Yard was built to teach velvet and damask craft, business. The center of textile production was Kadashevskaya Sloboda and the sovereign Khamovny yard (khamovnik, that is, a weaver) The first water tower appeared in Moscow.
Reorganization and strengthening of the army	1631-1634 - creation regiments of the "new building": Reiter (that is, heavy cavalry), Dragoon (light cavalry, capable of operating on foot), soldier. Consisted of "eager free" people and dispossessed children of the boyars, the officers were foreign specialists. Later, cavalry dragoon regiments arose to protect the south of the country.
Further enslavement of the peasants.	Since 1641 the investigation of runaway peasants became 10 years old.
Extensive construction of fortresses, defensive lines, urban construction.	The Great Barrier Line, Simbirsk Fortress, Belgorod Line were built. Moscow was restored after the Time of Troubles. The Terem Palace, the Filaret Belfry, the Znamensky Monastery were built. A striking clock appeared in the Kremlin. 1642 - the beginning of construction of the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles in the Kremlin.
The beginning of large-scale geographical research.	1643-1651 - campaigns of Yerofey Khabarov and Vasily Poyarkov for the Amur.

2. Foreign policy

Activities	results
1.Establishment of peaceful relations with Sweden.	"Perpetual Peace" concluded with Sweden in 1617 .- Stolbovsky world. Russia lost access to the Baltic Sea, but returned many territories - Novgorod and other northwestern lands.
Relations with Poland.	Signed in 1618 Deulin truce. Russia lost the Smolensk and Chernigov lands. Smolensk war with Poland - 1632-1634. Polyanovsky world. The Polish prince Vladislav renounced his claims to the Russian throne. The lands of Smolensk and Chernigov could not be returned.
Expansion of the country	Accession to Russia of the Lower Urals (Yaik Cossacks), Baikal, Yakutia and Chukotka, access to the Pacific Ocean.
Protection of the southern borders from the raids of the Khan of the Nagai Horde.	Khan's raids continued, despite the annual gifts. 1636 - the beginning of construction in the south of the Belgorod notch strip.
Establishing diplomatic relations with countries.	In the 1620s–1640s, diplomatic relations were established with Holland, Turkey, Austria, Denmark, and Persia.
Difficult relations developed with Turkey.	1637-1642 - Don Cossacks took the fortress of Azov - azov seat Cossacks.Russia was not ready for war with Turkey, in 1642 the Zemsky Sobor decided to leave Azov.

RESULTS OF ACTIVITIES

• The establishment of a strong centralized power in the country.
• Further improvement of the financial system, including taxation.
• Restoration of the country's economy after the Time of Troubles.
• The army was reorganized, "foreign regiments" were created.
• Further enslavement of the peasants, the introduction of a 10-year investigation of fugitive peasants.
• Large-scale construction throughout the country.
• Large-scale geographical discoveries were made on the Amur.
• The signing of peace agreements with Poland and Sweden, which stabilized the situation in the past.
• The desire to return the lands lost during the Time of Troubles proved unsuccessful.
• Protection of the southern borders of Russia.
• Expansion of the territory of the country in the east. Access to the Pacific Ocean.
• Establishment of diplomatic and trade relations with many countries.

Chronology of the life and work of Mikhail Romanov

1617	Stolbovsky "eternal peace" with Sweden.
1618	Deulino truce with Poland.
1619	First land census.
1627	A decree authorizing nobles to inherit land. Estates became equal to estates.
1630	Ironworks in the Trans-Urals.
1630	Firmbrand Brocade Manufactory.
1631	Glover's gold and jewelry workshops.
1632	Ironworks near Tula Vintus.
1634	Glassworks Coetsa.
1632-1634	Smolensk war. Polyanovsky peace with Poland.
1631-1634	Creation of regiments of the "foreign system".
1636	The beginning of the construction of the Belgorod notch line in the south.
1620-1640	Establishment of diplomatic relations with Holland, Turkey, Austria, Denmark, Persia.
1642	10-year investigation of runaway peasants
1642	Start of construction of the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles in the Kremlin.
1637-1642	Seat of Azov Don Cossacks.
1642-1651	Campaigns of Yerofei Khabarov and Vasily Poyarkov beyond the Amur.

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Mikhail Fedorovich himself was an intelligent, gentle, but spineless man ...

Platonov S.F.
(Russian pre-revolutionary historian)

Popularly elected (by all estates) by the Zemsky Sobor on February 21, 1613 in Moscow, 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov became the founder of the new royal dynasty of the Romanovs, who ruled Russia until 1917. On the whole, his reign can be called successful, since it not only brought the country out of catastrophic socio-political crisis of the Time of Troubles, but also managed to establish political and economic life for the further progressive development of Russian civilization.

Personality of Mikhail Fedorovich

It was said about sixteen-year-old Mikhail that he was "pious (that is, trusting) very meek and merciful." Frankly speaking, character is not for autocratic Russia. The anointed to the royal throne, Mikhail Fedorovich, “was by nature kind, but, it seems, of a melancholic disposition,” wrote the pre-revolutionary historian Nikolai Kostomarov, “not gifted with brilliant abilities, but not without intelligence; but he did not receive any education and, as they say, having ascended the throne, he could hardly read.

Being a very gentle, indecisive and extremely obedient son, Mikhail for a long time was under the strong influence of his closest relatives - the imperious mother of the nun Martha and her kindred environment, later (since 1619) under the tutelage of the smart, tough and imperious father Fyodor Nikitich (Filaret) .

Brought up in the traditions of strict Orthodox piety, Michael was a deeply churched and believing person who strove to correlate all his actions and deeds with the gospel covenants. He perceived his royal crown and his power as a high service to God and strictly followed this service. And although he was reputed to be an indecisive person in personal matters (he could not even insist on marrying the first tsar's bride Marya Saltykova, whom he liked), but with regard to issues of autocratic honor and dignity, as in other state issues, then Michael was firm and uncompromising. Peace and order in the country after the many years of devastation of the Time of Troubles for the first Romanov were the highest values, for the sake of preserving which he could act extremely harshly with their opponents.

Mikhail Fedorovich married quite late at that time, at the age of 29. His first wife, Maria Vladimirovna Dolgorukov, was imposed on him by his power-hungry old mother. However, the first wife died after 3 months in January 1625. Tsar Mikhail entered into a second marriage (after the then traditional "look" of the royal brides) on January 29, 1626 on his own and out of love. which was born the royal heir and successor of Mikhail, Tsarevich Alexei. Mikhail Fedorovich himself was not distinguished by good health, he was short-sighted, the tsar's legs constantly hurt.

The Boyar Duma and the Zemsky Sobor - as limiters of autocratic power

In terms of time, the long reign of Mikhail Fedorovich (1613-1645) - 32 years was far from personally autocratic. Narrating the accession of the first Romanov, the clerk of the Ambassadorial order, G. Katoshikhin, pointed out that, allegedly, when Mikhail was elected to the throne, he was forced to kiss the cross so that he would not execute any of their noble and boyar families for any crime, but could only be sent to prison ". The same Katoshikhin, describing the reign of Mikhail Romanov, emphasizes that Tsar Mikhail could not do anything "without boyar advice."

Immediately after the elections at the Zemsky Sobor, a strong group of supporters - prominent princes, boyars, clerks, and nobles - immediately rallied around Mikhail. Mostly these were people close to the Romanov family, including relatives. Many of them did not become famous on the battlefield, freeing Moscow from the Poles, but rushed to seize lands, power and honors for themselves. But the real heroes, the saviors of the Fatherland, such as Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, they quickly pushed into secondary roles.

Princes Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, Dmitry Mamtryukovich Cherkassky, the uncle of the tsar Ivan Nikitich Romanov, cousins ​​of the boyars Saltykovs began to play a special role under the young tsar. These people made up a kind of government under the king. However, the reign of the first Romanov was limited not only by the Boyar Duma, but also by the all-estate Zemsky Sobor. In the first years of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, the Zemsky Sobors functioned almost continuously, in essence they turned into a body of administrative power, in which representatives of the nobility and townspeople played a very important role. In 1614, 1616, 1617, 1618, 1632 and later, Zemsky Sobors determined the amount of additional fees from the population, decided the question of the fundamental possibility of such fees.

Councils 1614-1618 made decisions on "pyatins" (collecting a fifth of the income) for the maintenance of service people. After that, "Pyatynshchiki" - officials who collected the file, using the text of the conciliar "verdict" (decision) as a document, traveled around the country. Zemsky Sobors until 1619 were convened frequently, almost annually. And then they expressed the will of "the whole earth" in their own way. Council deputies received from their voters "complete and strong sufficient orders", i.e. orders, represented the interests of their estates, their "world".

The fact that Mikhail Fedorovich, the ancestor of the new dynasty, was connected with the boyars by some kind of written agreement to limit his power, and also that he could not rule without the consent of the Zemsky Sobors, influenced the fact that he was titled "autocrat" from time to time. occasion, special occasions. Finally, autocracy was strengthened in the title of the Romanovs only under the son of Mikhail Fedorovich Alexei Mikhailovich.

Fight against rebels and interventionists

The power of the first Romanov was very shaky, in the conditions of uncontrollability by the center of a number of territories of the country. The government of the first Romanov was intensively engaged in the restoration of state sovereignty throughout Russia and the cleansing of it from foreign invaders, robber bands of Cossacks and impostors. To restore the impoverished treasury, the government introduced a number of new taxes. Loans from wealthy merchants, especially the Stroganovs, began to be practiced frequently.

With the successful Tikhvin popular uprising in May 1613, the struggle for the liberation of North-Western Russia and Veliky Novgorod from the Swedes began. The Cossack ataman Ivan Zarutsky, who was operating in the Astrakhan region, was captured in the summer of 1614, together with Marina Mnishek and his son, "Vorenko". And already in the autumn of the same year, Zarutsky and the five-year-old “Vorenka” were executed in Moscow, and the wife of the first two impostors, Marina, was sent to prison, where she would die.

The government fought against numerous robber gangs of Cossacks, runaway peasants and serfs. In 1612-1618. only about a dozen major Cossack uprisings took place. A fairly large 5,000-strong Cossack detachment under the command of Ataman Balovnya unexpectedly approached Moscow in 1615, but was repulsed by the governor Lykov. All the rebellious Cossacks were then killed or captured, and Baloven himself was executed.

In 1615, it was first necessary to repel the predatory raid of the Polish pan Lisovsky, who devastated a number of counties, as well as the Swedes. King of Sweden Gustav Adolf and his field marshals Jacob Delagardie and Evert Horn in July 1615, having gathered a mercenary army of Germans, British, Scots, French and Swedes, began the siege of Pskov. In 1615, the Pskovites skillfully repulsed three attacks and inflicted heavy damage on the enemy with gunfire, killing Field Marshal Gorn. Already in October 1615, Gustav Adolf lifted the siege, withdrawing the thinned troops to Novgorod and Narva.

The war with Sweden ended with the signing of the Stolbovsky peace treaty in 1617, under which Russia lost access to the Baltic Sea (the entire coast of the Gulf of Finland), but the cities of Novgorod, Porkhov, Staraya Russa, Ladoga and Gdov were returned to her. For Novgorod, Moscow paid Sweden 20,000 rubles. And Gustav Adolf boastfully then declared that he had taken the Baltic Sea from Russia forever.

The final episode of the Time of Troubles was the campaign against Moscow of the Polish prince Vladislav in 1617-1618. In April 1617, twenty-two-year-old Vladislav set out from Warsaw with the Polish-Lithuanian army in order to establish control over the Muscovite-Russian kingdom and sit on its throne himself. The position of Moscow and young Mikhail was aggravated by the invasion of the 20,000th Zaporizhzhya army led by Hetman Sagaidachny into Russia and the defection of a number of Russian governors to the side of the Poles.

The government of Mikhail Fedorovich fielded three armies against the enemy (Dmitry Cherkassky, Boris Lykov and Dmitry Pozharsky), with a total number of 16,500 people. But the attempt to keep the Poles from the city of Mozhaisk was not successful. As a result, the Russian army left Mozhaisk and retreated to Moscow. While the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, having gone deep into the Russian borders: - took by storm the cities of Livny, Yelets, Lebedyan, Dankov, Ryazhsk, Skopin, Shatsk and finally approached Moscow itself. On September 22, 1618, the Polish-Lithuanian army, having approached Moscow, settled on the site of the former Tushino camp, and Ataman Sagaidachny with the Cossacks settled at the Donskoy Monastery. The siege of Moscow began and the White City became the main line of defense. On the night of October 10-11, 1618, the Poles and Cossacks launched an assault on the Russian capital.

But the attackers immediately ran into well-prepared and stubborn resistance from the Russian troops. All Polish attacks by Moscow were successfully repulsed with heavy losses for the attackers. As a result, the failure of the assault on Moscow actually meant the failure of the entire campaign. Now Vladislav had only the opportunity, through negotiations, to achieve concessions from the Russian government.

The internal situation remained very difficult for Russia. The Polish army was located in the immediate vicinity of the capital - the Polish-Lithuanian at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and the Zaporizhzhya - at Kaluga. In such conditions, the truce signed in the village of Deulino (near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery) on December 14, 1618 was achieved at the cost of large territorial concessions to Russia.

Smolensk and Seversk lands with the cities of Smolensk, Roslavl, Belaya, Pochep, Starodub, Nevel, Sebezh, Novgorod-Seversky, Chernigov, Serpeisk, Trubchevsk and a number of small fortresses passed to the Commonwealth. At the same time, Prince Vladislav retained the right to write in the title "Tsar of Moscow", which meant the preservation of claims to the Russian throne. But the main goal was achieved: the truce in Deulino was the real end of the Time of Troubles and the return of Russia to normal development.

Political tandem: Mikhail-Filaret

In early June 1619, after the signed truce with the Commonwealth, there was an exchange of prisoners: the surviving noble Poles - for Metropolitan Filaret (in the world of Fyodor Nikitich Romanov), the father of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. After that, the Russian hierarchs immediately elected Filaret Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. From that time until 1633 (until the death of Patriarch Filaret), the joint reign of the tsar-son and the patriarch-father began. Moreover, all decrees came from both the king and the patriarch, since the patriarch received the right to be called the “great sovereign”, along with the king.

Moreover, the smart and energetic Filaret personally received foreign ambassadors and led the country's policy. In the tandem Mikhail-Filaret, the most active and dominant side was the patriarch-father, and not the son Mikhail Fedorovich, obedient to his father's will. Only the name of Tsar Michael in all decrees always stood in front. With the establishment of dual power (in 1619), the role of Zemsky Sobors, as well as the conciliar deputies themselves, changed and ceased to be decisive for the state. Gradually Zemsky Sobors became obedient instruments of the autocratic power of the tsar and the patriarch.

Filaret, who survived the Time of Troubles and Polish captivity, pursued a policy of clericalization of the country, strengthening religious and cultural traditionalism in it and distrusting all Western trends. Long years of foreign violence and looting during the Time of Troubles increased the degree of xenophobia towards foreigners in Russian society. Puritanically rigid, Filaret strictly followed the spiritual and moral appearance of his son's subjects. Even the boyars and clergy were severely punished for their depraved life, for religious free-thinking and love for everything Western, "Latin". Drunkenness, fisticuffs, buffoonery and other unpleasing "amusements" were persecuted.

The fight against drunkenness, which became widespread in the Time of Troubles, acquired a special scope. Drunkards were punished with a whip, a fine, and even put in a "bargain prison". Smoking was completely banned. Death was for him. At the initiative of Filaret, an accounting of the land fund in the country was carried out. Conducted "watches" - descriptions of deserted villages, lands; a "living quarter" ("palace quarter") was introduced as a unit of taxation. To restore the impoverished treasury, the government introduced a number of new taxes. Loans from wealthy merchants, especially the Stroganovs, began to be practiced frequently. The orders with the clerks and clerks working there were again restored. To manage the overgrown patriarchal house and economy, patriarchal orders (court, church affairs, state, palace) were formed.

The policy of enslaving peasants and searching for fugitives continued. Measures were taken to streamline legal proceedings, reduce the arbitrariness of the authorities, locally and in the center. A system of voivodeship administration has been established throughout the country. Usually the governor was appointed to cities and counties for a period of 1-3 years. For his service, he received estates and cash salaries. But this, however, did not stop their corruption. At the end of his life, Filaret initiated the Russian-Polish (Smolensk) war of 1632-1634. Filaret died in the midst of the siege of Smolensk on October 1, 1633.

Sole board of Mikhail Fedorovich

Only after the death of his father, Michael began to rule alone, although still far from autocratic, as his son Alexei later did. The life of the first Romanov was completely subordinated to the traditional way of life. The king got up very early - at 4 o'clock in the morning. Immediately after washing and dressing, with the help of the "children of the boyars" they brought him an icon of the daytime saint, the confessor came with a cross. After the prayer, the king was sprinkled with holy water, then he went with the queen to matins and spent more than an hour in the church.

After breakfast I went to lunch. After mass, the king and queen dined from several dozen dishes. And after lunch they were waiting for a mandatory daytime sleep for 2-3 hours. Then Vespers and again prayer. Weekly, the king and queen went on a pilgrimage to the monastery. So the outwardly burdensome, clerically inactive royal life dragged on, which sometimes diversified with various amusements: fistfights of combatants, but bear fights, buffoons and buffoons (but not under Filaret).

The government of Mikhail Fedorovich tried in every possible way to strengthen the international status of the country and expand international relations, including trade. Taking advantage of the weakness of Russia after the Time of Troubles, the British, the Dutch and other Western Europeans tried in every possible way to obtain exclusive privileges and concessions in trade from the tsar. First, the British, the Dutch, then the French and even the Holsteiners vied with each other to persuade the tsar to achieve the right to free trade and free passage through Russian possessions for trade in Persia. But all these harassment about free and duty-free travel to Persia through the Russian territories were not successful.

Only the British were allowed to trade duty-free in Russia. The Dutch managed to obtain from the government of Mikhail Fedorovich the right of free and duty-free bargaining only for 3 years, from 1614. In 1634, the Holstein embassy, ​​which arrived in Moscow, negotiated from Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich the right to duty-free transportation of their goods to Persia with the payment of 600,000 efimkov to the Russian treasury (Kostomarov.N.).

At the same time, when the vector of Russia (after the Time of Troubles) was clearly marked by greater political and cultural isolation from Europe, foreigners literally reached out to Russia itself, especially to its capital. During the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich in Moscow, a foreign settlement was already operating on a permanent basis, in which about 2,000 people lived.

The main European trading partners were the British and the Dutch, who traded with Moscow through the northern port of Arkhangelsk. The Russian government skillfully played on the age-old Anglo-Dutch rivalry for the rich Russian market, knocking out benefits for itself from both. Moreover, the Dutch merchants were able to overtake the British in terms of trade turnover with Russia. From Russia, the Dutch and the British exported furs, caviar, hemp, flax, resin, lard, soap, ship masts, and grain. They imported a large amount of silver into Russia, which was necessary for the Moscow state to mint its own coin. As well as luxury goods, cloth, weapons, metal products, wine.

Moscow, trying to get out of the terrible upheavals of the Time of Troubles and economic ruin, sharply increased its trading activity with foreign European states. “All the regulations of this country,” wrote a foreign traveler, are aimed at commerce and bidding .... And not only merchants participated in trade, but also the royal court, and even large monasteries. Moreover, the treasury-state, often to the detriment of its merchants, trying to get the maximum profit from popular export goods when selling them abroad, established its monopoly on them. In 1635, a state monopoly was established on the trade in flax, then saltpeter. The expansion of state-owned trade, state monopolism and freedom of trade for foreign merchants and entrepreneurs hit the interests of the Russian merchant class.

But then the Russian government had not yet thought about establishing protectionist measures for foreign goods and capital. This will happen a little later, under Alexei Mikhailovich. Weak in the financial and scientific and technological fields, Mikhail Fedorovich's Russia was in dire need of Western technology and foreign capital. It is not surprising that the government sought to open Russia more and more to Europe, and at the very time when, at the same time, hostility towards foreigners was growing in the country after the Time of Troubles and the hostage of the interventionists.

In fact, all industrial production in Russia under Mikhail Fedorovich, and then Alexei Mikhailovich, was created by the hands of Europeans, moreover, at the initiative of the government itself. There was a mutually beneficial real commercial and industrial partnership between foreign entrepreneurs and the Russian government. Most of the foreign enterprises that appeared in Russia during the reign of Mikhail Romanov were focused on military needs.

In 1632, on the basis of a letter of grant from Mikhail Fedorovich, the Dutch entrepreneur Vinius founded a large ironworks on the Tulitsa River, promising to manufacture cannons, cannonballs, and gun barrels. Following him, other factories appear in the area of ​​Tula and Kashira, three of which were built by the same Vinius. Tula and Kashira factories poured and forged cannons, cannonballs, grenades, musket barrels, reeds and other weapons ordered by the treasury. However, at that time, the products of the Tula factories were not of great quality, so the tsarist government preferred to buy weapons abroad.

It is curious that, faced with a shortage of labor, industrialists and manufacturers turned to the government with a request to "attribute" peasants to the factories. The tsarist government readily responded to the requests of foreign entrepreneurs (Marcelis and Akkeman), and ordered that 2 palace volosts be assigned to the Tula and Kashira factories. This is how, at the request of foreign capitalists, the Russian government for the first time embarked on the path of using forced serf labor in industry (Strumilin S. G.).

Soon, after foreigners and the treasury, even the boyars rushed to create their own manufactories, especially during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. But the government was in no hurry to entrust industrial production to Russian merchants. The dawn of Russian capitalism began with a close relationship between the state and foreign capital, but not with Russian private capital. However, neither the first manufactories, nor serf labor, did not allow Russia to overcome the technological lag behind the West, which in those years began to manifest itself more and more.

The strengthening of military power after the generally unsuccessful wars of the Time of Troubles era became a priority in the government of Mikhail Fedorovich. It was under him that the formation of the regiments of the new system began (the first soldier, reiter and dragoon regiments), and the advanced Swedish army was taken as a model.

Russia's international position remained difficult. Lost land in the European part of the country, access to the Baltic Sea. All attempts by foreign states to draw Russia into the completely unnecessary and bloody Thirty Years' War were unsuccessful. But Moscow took its past defeats from the Poles extremely painfully and longed for revenge. Tsar Michael was especially dissatisfied with the fact that the son of King Sigismund III of the Commonwealth, Vladislav, considered himself a "Russian tsar", and Moscow Russia - a province of the Commonwealth.

In 1632, a favorable situation developed for the war with Poland. In April, Sigismund III died and a period of "kinglessness" began. Sweden promised Russia support. In October 1632, the Russian army, led by voivode Shein, took Dorogobuzh and besieged Smolensk in December. However, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolf, who promised support to Moscow, died, and Sweden did not want to fight Warsaw for the Polish throne. In the Commonwealth itself, Prince Vladislav was elected king.

In September 1633, Vladislav approached Smolensk and cut off the supply lines of the Russian army. Being in a difficult encircled situation, a significant part of the foreign mercenaries changed and went over to the Poles. And the command of the Russian army was corroded by local strife: many governors were more well-born than the slow commander Shein. And part of the nobles left the army altogether, leaving to protect their villages and villages from the raids of the Crimean Tatars

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As a result, the Russian army of Shein actually capitulated, giving the Poles all the artillery and all the supplies, for the right to leave the encirclement of 8 thousand soldiers with the governor Shein. For this act, Shein was tried in Moscow and executed. Not having at that moment the strength to continue the war, the Russian government offered to start peace negotiations. But Vladislav himself was in a difficult situation: a people's war broke out, blocking his way to Moscow, the Polish guard was defeated near the city of Bely, Ottoman Turkey attacked Poland, and the truce with the Swedes ended.

Therefore, he agreed, and in 1634 the Polyanovsky peace treaty was concluded, according to which Russian artillery remained with the Poles, but Russia received Serpeisk, and Vladislav for 20 thousand rubles in gold refused the title "Tsar of Moscow" or "Tsar of Russia", t .e. from a claim to the Russian throne. True, Mikhail Fedorovich also undertook to exclude the words “prince of Smolensk and Chernigov” from his title and not to sign “sovereign of all Russia”. The results of the war showed the extremely low combat effectiveness of the army and caused a decrease in Russia's prestige in Europe.

The southern border of the state has always been a matter of concern. The devastating raids of the Crimean Tatars continued: for the first half alone, the Crimeans took away and sold into slavery up to 200 thousand Russians. And the government of Mikhail Fedorovich spent hundreds of thousands of rubles only on the annual "commemoration" (essentially in the form of tribute) and on the ransom of captives from captivity..php?id=59&cat=12). Therefore, in order to protect against the devastating raids of the Nogais and Crimeans, the government of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1636 in the Kursk, Voronezh and Tambov provinces began to build a new protective “line” of forest fences, fortress cities (for example, Kozlov, Tambov, Upper and Lower Lomov-Belgorod line ), which also began to be populated by service people and peasants. The war with the steppes did not stop for a single year.

But the Don Cossacks distinguished themselves. In 1637, together with a detachment of the Cossacks, after a long siege, they captured the first-class Turkish fortress of Azov, despite repeated attempts by the Turks to return the lost fortress. A huge Turkish army of 200 thousand people for 5 years could not knock them out of there and, having lost more than 2 tens of thousands of people in 24 attacks, retreated in disgrace. But the Cossacks could no longer defend the fortress on their own and turned to Moscow for help.

Gathered in 1642 on this occasion, the Zemsky Sobor spoke out against the acceptance of Azov "under the arm" of the king. Russia did not have the strength to fight the mighty Ottoman Empire then, and the Cossacks, having received a rich salary from the king, left Azov. All attempts by Western countries (including the Balkan Slavs) to draw Russia into the war against Turkey failed. The territorial losses of the Time of Troubles and failures in the war with the Commonwealth were more than compensated in the east of the country. During the reign of Mikhail, Russia rapidly began to “grow” with Siberia.

Moreover, Russian expansion in Siberia took on the character not so much of a military-state, as of a free-people's development, habitation and annexation. Many Russian people rushed there, fleeing from serfdom and the state tax. And the settlers were exempted for the first time from all taxes and duties. Therefore, new cities and prisons very quickly arose there: Yakutsk, Olekminsk, Verkhoyansk, Nizhnekolymsk, the latter almost near Kamchatka ...

And soon, expensive Siberian furs (especially sable) began to feed thousands of Russian industrialists and now constituted one of the main wealth of the royal treasury. As a result, under Mikhail Fedorovich - in Siberia, territorial increments amounted to 6.5 million square meters. km, and the country, thus, has grown to - 12.3 million square meters. km. Mikhail Fedorovich himself died on July 13 (23 according to the new style), 1645. He died at the age of 49, as is believed from abdominal dropsy. 32 years was on the throne.

Considering the results of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, one can see that they are extremely positive. The country was raised from the ruins of the Troubles. Russia dramatically expanded its territory (at the expense of the colossal expanses of Siberia), strengthened its finances, restored territorial administration, stabilized the internal political situation and did not get involved in European internecine wars. Russia during this period was pacified and concentrated ...