Economic situation of the State Scientific and Practical Center named after m in Khrunichev. Problems of the State Scientific and Practical Center named after. m.v. Khrunicheva: defective managers are finishing off Russia. And the Light version
If the Poles want to remain a great people, they need military-economic integration with the Russians
A frenzied crowd, as if electrified by demonic energy, faces distorted with anger. No, this is not the Middle East with the eternal confrontation between Israelis and Arabs, Egypt is not blazing with the fire of street clashes and Iraq and Libya are not drowning in the maelstrom of civil wars - “thanks” to American “democracy”. This is the center of Eastern Europe and outwardly respectable Warsaw. And the genie of hatred that has broken out is aimed at Russia, which once liberated Poland from fascism. And sometimes it seems that our Slavic brothers are diligently trying to forget about it.
However, the penultimate sentence will cause malicious comments: how, how, who liberated... Only five years earlier, the Red Army plunged a knife into the back of the heroically - without irony - Polish Army that fought the Wehrmacht. And in 1944, she allegedly deliberately did not provide assistance to the anti-Hitler uprising in Warsaw; finally, the liberators did not want to leave the country after the end of the war, essentially occupying it, destroying the underground Home Army.
Yes, I don’t argue, that happened. It is also difficult to disagree with the fact that the centuries-old pages of Russian-Polish relations, darkened with blood, are perhaps the most bitter in the two Slavic peoples. Fraternal. There's no getting around this either.
And what’s amazing: the Poles also had a difficult time with Germany, to put it mildly, but they don’t burn trash cans near the fence of its embassy. And they don’t feel the same hatred for the Germans as they do for us - at least they don’t express it in such wild forms as they did on November 11 of last year in front of the Russian embassy. Why? Let's try to figure it out.
Where did the hostility come from?
The origins of the antipathy of some Poles towards the Russians can be found in two specific dates: July 15, 1410 and June 28, 1569.
The first of them is associated with the victory of the Polish-Lithuanian troops with the direct help of Russian regiments and Tatar detachments over the army of the Teutonic Order. The second went down in history with the Union of Lublin, which laid the foundation for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the united Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Why these two dates? Because Grunwald gave impetus to the birth of the imperial idea among the Polish knighthood (gentry), and the Union of Lublin formalized it, one might say, legally. And with the birth of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the gentry felt themselves to be a great, in Hegel’s language, a historical people, however, the philosopher himself did not classify the Poles, as well as the Slavs in general, as such. But this is true, by the way.
Thus, the formation of Polish imperial consciousness began with the Grunwald victory. What did this mean? In the so-called ideology of Sarmatism. Its founder was the outstanding Polish chronicler and diplomat Jan Dlogusz, who lived in the 15th century. His younger compatriot, Maciej Miechowski, consolidated this idea, or rather, the mythology in the treatise “On Two Sarmatias”.
On its pages, he affirmed the flattering pride of the gentry, the origin of the Poles from the Sarmatians, who roamed in the 6th–4th centuries BC. e. in the Black Sea steppes. Moreover, from the point of view of the gentry, they were the only truly Polish people, descendants of the Sarmatians; the local peasantry was perceived as nothing other than cattle and had nothing to do with the once powerful tribes. So... Slavic commoners...
What we have before us is a bizarre interweaving in the minds of the gentry of a sense of their own superiority over the same “Asian-Russians” and at the same time an internal feeling of inferiority - otherwise how can one explain the distancing from one’s own Slavic origin? It is interesting that in external forms the ideology formulated by Mekhovsky, which dominated among the gentry in the 16th-17th centuries, found expression in the Sarmatian armor of the winged hussars - once the best and most beautifully equipped cavalry in the world.
To be fair, I note that such a sense of self was characteristic not only of our Western Slavic brothers, but also of the Russian elite - how can one not recall Ivan the Terrible’s statement about the origin of the Rurikids from the Roman Augustus Caesar, which he set out in a letter to the Swedish king Johan III.
So, imagining themselves to be descendants of the Sarmatians, the gentry took upon themselves the historical mission of bringing civilization to the barbarian peoples, that is, the Russians. The descendants, as the Poles believed, of the “wild” and “ignorant” Scythians. On top of that, in the eyes of the gentry, the Russians were schismatics - schismatics who had once broken away from the Catholic Church. Let me remind you that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth saw itself as an outpost of Catholicism in Eastern Europe. That is, in relation to the “Muscovites” the gentry experienced a feeling of both ethnic and religious superiority, which they tried to prove through expansionist foreign policy, expressed in the desire to conquer the original Russian lands - the siege of Pskov by the Polish king Stefan Batory in 1581–1582. And that was just the beginning. During the Time of Troubles, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa wished to annex Russia, which was plunging into chaos, into the possessions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
It is noteworthy that at the same time he laid claim to the Swedish throne, a little later the nobles took part in Thirty Years' War, and Polish magnates fought with the Turks and Austrians for dominance in Moldova. Before us is an example of an active expansionist policy characteristic of any empire, and a demonstration at the level of military-political will of imperial consciousness.
After the Time of Troubles, throughout the 17th century, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth crossed swords more than once: first, the Smolensk War of 1632–1634, and then the Russian-Polish War of 1654–1667. Moreover, given that the gentry saw us as wild Asians, the methods of fighting the “Scythians” were also often appropriate. Suffice it to recall the looting Orthodox monasteries and temples by the Poles and Lithuanians during the Time of Troubles, the scorched earth tactics used by Prince Jeremiah Vishnevetsky against Russian villages during the Smolensk War.
In general, Polish expansionism failed, but did not affect the mental attitudes of the gentry. But even then, in the first half of the 17th century, our Western Slavic brothers showed a trait that ultimately led to the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the tragic pages of Polish history, namely the incommensurability of the country’s military potential with its geopolitical claims.
Territorially large on a European scale, throughout its history the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth remained essentially a fragmented state with weak royal power and the arbitrariness of the gentry. The magnates who lived in Ukraine, the same Vishnevetskys, were actually independent rulers who had their own armed forces. And at the end of the 18th century, this led to the collapse of the country and its subsequent division between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy.
And most importantly, the loss of independence led to the moral humiliation of the gentry. How - “wild Russian barbarians” rule over “civilized European-Sarmatian Poland”. This hurt the pride of the Polish elite. After all, the imperial consciousness became her flesh and blood. But no empire can be subordinate to anyone. Perish - yes, as the Roman Empire fell under the blows of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But never be dependent on anyone.
As an example, I will give an episode from national history, namely standing on the Ugra River in 1480. By that time, the Golden Horde had practically collapsed, but the energetic Khan Akhmat managed to reunite under his rule a significant part of the once powerful state. Akhmat demanded that Muscovite Rus' resume payment of tribute, backing up his arguments with a military campaign. Ivan III came out to meet the Tatars, but on the Ugra he began to hesitate and was ready to admit dependence on Sarai. However, by that time the Russian elite already felt like the heir of the Romans, which was expressed in the ideology of “Moscow – New Jerusalem” and a little later – “Moscow – Third Rome”.
Imperial mentality
As I have already noted, any imperial idea is born first in the mind, and only then finds its embodiment in state building. And it was the “Message to the Ugra” of the Rostov Archbishop John Rylo that changed the mood of Ivan III. In this document, the khan is conceived not as the legitimate ruler of Rus' - the tsar, as it was before, but as a wicked atheist. In turn, Vassian for the first time called Ivan III Tsar.
So Russia became a kingdom at the level of the mental attitudes of the ruling elite, and only then, in 1547, the formal proclamation of the monarchy took place. The same thing happened in Poland: first Grunwald, then the Union of Lublin.
But when discussing the imperial mentality of the Polish elite, one should not forget the bitter truth - the Europeans themselves, who lived west of the Oder, did not and do not consider either the Poles or the Slavs to be their own. Let us remember the story of the election of Henry Valois, the future French monarch Henry III, to the Polish throne in 1574. Less than a year had passed before the king fled from his subjects at the first opportunity. There were, of course, many reasons, but not the least of them was the mental incompatibility of the Poles and the French: for Henry, the Poles of the same faith turned out to be strangers.
A similar situation has developed in Russia: I mean the unsuccessful attempts of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to marry his daughter Irina to the Danish prince Voldemar, the son of King Christian IV.
Perhaps the Polish elite itself in the 19th century was aware of a certain mental incompatibility with the West, but it did not intend to part with its imperial identity. But its vectors were shifted towards the pagan roots of Polish culture, but no longer Sarmatian, but Slavic, and with a sharply negative attitude towards Catholicism. The origins of such views were the outstanding Polish scientist of the early 19th century, Zorian Dolenga Khodakovsky.
But in general, a significant part of the Polish intellectual elite felt and feels itself to be part of European Christian culture. For example, the outstanding Polish essayist Czeslaw Milosz in the mid-50s of the last century published a book with the expressive title “Native Europe”.
Actually, in the above lines the answer to the question about the reasons for the calmer attitude of the Poles towards the Germans than towards the Russians. The first ones for the “descendants” of the Sarmatians are their own, native Europeans. Russians are strangers. Moreover, the “despicable Muscovites” became the masters of Poland for more than a century. This humiliated the gentry and made them hate Russians and at the same time experience a feeling of inferiority towards them, as the famous Polish journalist Jerzy Urban wrote: “The contemptuous attitude of Poles towards Russians stems from the Polish inferiority complex.”
Nevertheless, the imperial idea in the minds of the gentry was never eradicated, because throughout the 19th century the Poles sought not only to gain independence, but also to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the previous borders in which it existed in the 17th century. I mean the foreign policy of the Kingdom of Poland, formed in 1812, Napoleon’s most loyal ally, as well as the anti-Russian uprisings in the Kingdom of Poland in 1830–1831 and 1863. Let me emphasize once again that these uprisings are not just a struggle for independence, but an attempt to restore the empire - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the non-Polish population.
An interesting detail: precisely being dependent on Napoleonic France and being part of Russian Empire, the gentry under Alexander I managed to create a regular, well-trained and, most importantly, disciplined army, which the independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with its Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (militia), troops of magnates, etc., could not boast of.
Path of Conquest
Finally, in 1918, the age-old dream of the Poles came true - their homeland gained freedom. But the country’s leaders did not start organizing internal life on their land, shocked by the First World War, but... embarked on the path of conquest, wanting to revive the empire - the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from “sea to sea.” What did the Poles want? A lot. Namely, to annex Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine to the Dnieper.
The attitude towards the recent masters of Poland, the Russians, has also not changed: “savage barbarians”, unworthy of leniency. This is me about prisoners of war of the Red Army who ended up in Polish concentration camps after the unsuccessful campaign of the troops of the Bolshevik punisher Tukhachevsky against Warsaw. By the way, if the Reds had been led by a truly intelligent military leader, and not an upstart amateur, the history of independent Poland would have ended before it even began. However, Tukhachevsky’s incompetent command allowed the Poles, with the help of French generals, to defeat and capture part of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. To be fair, I note that neither the Belarusians nor the Ukrainians, who became Polish citizens, particularly protested, especially when they learned about the creation of collective farms in the USSR. I will add that in 1920 the Poles occupied part of Lithuania with Vilnius.
Considered by the Western powers to be nothing more than a cordon sanitaire on the path of Bolshevism to Europe, Warsaw sought to put its imperial ambitions into practice in the interwar period. Suffice it to recall the occupation of the Cieszyn region, which was part of Czechoslovakia, by the Poles in 1938 and the ultimatum presented to Lithuania demanding the restoration of diplomatic relations broken off in 1920. What's wrong with restoring diplomatic relations? Nothing, except that their conditions should have been de jure recognition of Poland’s occupation of Vilnius. If the Lithuanians were intractable, Warsaw promised to use military force. Well, it’s logical in its own way - any empire is created with iron and blood and does not particularly take into account the sovereignty of weaker countries.
Another example of the imperial consciousness of the Polish elite. On the eve of World War II, Hitler made territorial claims to Czechoslovakia and made certain proposals to Poland, which in the early 30s he called “the last barrier to civilization in the East” - namely, proposals, not claims. The reaction of both countries is known.
In 1938, Prague meekly accepted the terms of the Munich Treaty and allowed the country to be occupied without firing a shot. Although the superiority of the Czechoslovak army over the Wehrmacht was unconditionally recognized by the German generals. Warsaw refused any compromises with the Germans on the issue of the so-called Danzig Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. And as I already noted, Hitler’s initial demands to his eastern neighbor were very moderate: to include Danzig, the majority of whose population was already German, into Germany, to give the Third Reich the right to build an extraterritorial railway and highway that would connect Germany proper with East Prussia. In addition, knowing about the hatred of the Polish ruling elite towards Soviet Union, Berlin invited Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact directed against the USSR.
Warsaw refused on all counts for a very simple reason: the Polish leadership understood perfectly well that in Berlin they were destined for the role of junior partners. And this contradicted the Polish imperial consciousness. And the Poles were not afraid of the Germans. They reasoned something like this: “Possible aggression from Germany? No problem: Berlin is a hundred kilometers away. We’ll get there if anything happens.” And this was not empty boasting, for the imperial policy of the leadership of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was supported by fairly successful military construction.
It is a myth that the Poles had a technically weak army. By 1939, the Polish Army was armed with medium 7TR - one of the best in Europe, superior in tactical and technical data to Wehrmacht combat vehicles. The Polish Air Force had the latest P-37 Losi bombers for its time.
Such a quick victory of the Nazis in September 1939 is explained by the superiority of German military thought over Polish, and over Franco-English and, finally, over Soviet. Suffice it to recall the battles of 1941 - the first half of 1942.
Second World War once again confirmed that the Poles are strangers to Europe. This is evidenced by their losses in the war and the inhumane regime established by the Reich in the conquered Slavic countries, which was very different from that which existed, say, in Denmark, Norway or France. At one time, Hitler directly stated: “Any manifestation of tolerance towards the Poles is inappropriate. Otherwise, we will again have to face the same phenomena that are already known to history and that have always occurred after the partitions of Poland. The Poles survived because they could not help but take the Russians seriously as their overlords... It is necessary, first of all, to ensure that there are no cases of copulation between Germans and Poles, because otherwise fresh German blood will constantly flow into the veins of the Polish ruling layer... ."
Against the background of these inhumane statements of the Fuhrer, attention is drawn to his maxim regarding the Poles’ non-perception of the Russians as their overlords. It's hard to disagree with this.
The fate of post-war Poland was not easy. On the one hand, it did not have freedom in the field of foreign policy, being dependent on the Kremlin, on the other, it achieved certain successes in socio-economic terms, without copying Soviet model socialism. There were no repressions against the Church in Poland, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla long years became Roman Pontiff John Paul II. Finally, with the help of the USSR, the Poles created a combat-ready army equipped with Soviet equipment. This is the undoubted merit of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, former minister defense of the People's Republic of Poland from 1949 to 1955.
The role of cannon fodder
With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, as is known, Poland hastened to join NATO, where it was expected with open arms, because the United States and its Western allies urgently needed cannon fodder for the Gulf War in 1991 and for the conquest of Iraq in 2003, and fighters were also needed for the occupation army in Afghanistan. Well-trained Polish soldiers were the best fit here and died heroically on the inhospitable banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and in the harsh mountains of Afghanistan, so far from Poland. However, with accession to NATO, the level of combat training of Polish military personnel cannot be called corresponding to the standards of the North Atlantic Alliance due to lack of funding.
As is known, Warsaw actively supports the desire of pro-Western political circles in Ukraine to “drag” it into the European Union. However, it is obvious to any sane person that neither Poland nor Ukraine will ever become full members of the European community. I do not mean the declarative statements of certain politicians, but rather the mental attitudes of Western society. For for him, the countries of the former socialist camp, including Poland, are nothing more than a source of raw materials and cheap labor, as well as cannon fodder in modern and future wars.
Poland can avoid such a humiliating position only through military-economic integration with Russia, forgetting old grievances. There is no other way for her. If the Poles, of course, want to remain a great people.
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Unlike other Western and Eastern European countries, Poland in the 16th-17th centuries. did not turn into a centralized absolutist state, but remained a Diet monarchy with a weak royal power at its head, the prerogatives of which were increasingly limited to please the magnates and gentry. The reasons for this direction of evolution of the Polish state were hidden in the peculiarities of the socio-economic development of Poland, in which the weak beginnings of capitalist forms of production were suppressed by the omnipotence of the magnates and gentry, who monopolized the land and turned to their own benefit all the benefits of the development of the commodity-money economy.
Cities. Development of crafts and trade. At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Polish cities experienced significant growth. The urban population increased. In Warsaw it reached its end XVI V. 20 thousand, in Gdansk - 40 thousand people. This largest port city in Europe had significant economic power and enjoyed great trade and political privileges - it had complete self-government, subject only to the formal supremacy of the king. His income was not inferior to that of the royal treasury.
The main form of organization of handicraft production was guilds. But in some of its branches, for example in mining, the embryos of capitalist relations appeared in the form of centralized or dispersed manufacture created by trading capital.
Domestic and foreign trade developed, and the internal market took shape. Annual fairs were held in Lublin. IN 60- x years XVI V. Measures and weights were unified, which contributed to the development of internal trade. Foreign trade with Western countries was carried out mainly along the Vistula through Gdansk. Agricultural products were exported from Poland, and industrial products were imported - cloth, linen, paper, metal products, iron and steel. Lively trade took place with Russian lands, from where furs, leathers, and wax came in exchange for imported goods from the West.
Transition to the folk-corvee system. IN agriculture to the middle XVII V. there was also a significant increase. Internal colonization continued, sown areas expanded, land cultivation improved, and productivity increased. At the end XVI V. she reached sam-5.
Land in Poland was the monopoly property of the feudal lords; the townspeople were prohibited from purchasing land as their own.
In the Polish regions, gentry land ownership predominated, the proportion of which, however, from the end XVI V. began to decline in favor of large magnate land ownership. In lands with a non-Polish population, magnate land ownership occupied a dominant position. The largest of the magnates owned entire regions. In the possessions of Prince Ostrozhsky, for example, at the beginning XVII V. there were about 100 cities andcastles and around 1300 villages His annual income was over 1 million zlotys.
In agriculture in the XV-XVI centuries. There was a transition to the folk-corvee system, which was due to the growth of the capacity of the urban market and the increased demand for Polish agricultural products on the foreign market, which was associated with the development of capitalist relations in the advanced countries of Western Europe. From the second half XV V. The main items of Polish export to the West were grain, furs, and livestock. From the end XV V. exports exceeded imports in value. Towards the middle XVI V. the importance of the foreign market has increased even more. The feudal lords appropriated communal lands, seized peasant plots, creating large farms (farms) based on corvee labor. This led to peasant land shortage; The number of peasants who had tiny plots of land or no land at all increased significantly - zagorodniks, khalupniks, komorniks.
The main form of rent was labor rent, which gave the landowner the opportunity to sharply increase the exploitation of peasants. The landowner economy was closely connected with the market. Peasant same could only barely maintain its existence and was almost completely pushed out of the city market. Development of commodity production in agriculture in Poland in the 15th-16th centuries. contributed to the strengthening of the feudal-corvee system of economy. This was due to the political and economic weakness and small number of Polish cities compared to the advanced countries of Western Europe and to the favorable balance of social forces in the country for magnates and gentry, which ensured them undivided political dominance.
Political strengthening of the gentry. Formation of the class monarchy. Before XVI V. The political development of Poland went in approximately the same direction as in other European countries - from fragmentation to centralization. At the end XV V. royal power achieved significant strengthening. She fully controlled the central and provincial administration, held foreign policy and the army in her hands, and dominated the Polish episcopate. The king, at his own will, convened the Sejms and established the order of their meetings, and had legislative initiative. While fighting the magnates, the royal power tried to win over the middle-class gentry, whose political weight steadily increased with the transition to the folk-corvee system. The king, trying to weaken the magnates, granted the nobility more and more privileges. But in reality, this did not so much weaken the position of the magnates as undermine the basis of state centralization.
Formed at the beginning XVI V. the class monarchy in Poland did not in any way contribute to political unityunderstanding of the state, but, on the contrary, strengthened the centrifugal tendencies in it. IN 1505 The gentry achieved the publication of the Radom Constitution, which began with the words: “No innovations” (Nihil novi). Now new laws could be issued only with the consent of both chambers of the Val (general) Sejm, the highest legislative body in the state, which limited royal power in favor of the feudal lords. The lower house of the Val Sejm - the embassy hut - consisted of representatives of the gentry (zemstvo ambassadors) elected at the sejmiks. The upper house was the Senate. Over time, the embassy hut began to play an increasingly important role in solving state affairs. The peasantry and cities were not represented at all in the Sejms. The process of centralization of the country was incomplete. He did not go further than creating a single legislative body.
Polish feudal lords acted together against peasants and townspeople. IN 1543 the transfer of peasants was prohibited, who were placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of their owners and turned into serfs. Townspeople were prohibited from owning zemstvo (gentry) estates. IN 1496 The gentry achieved the granting of the right of propination (distillation) and the exemption of goods imported and exported by it from duties. Income from foreign trade began to play a very significant role in the budget of the lords and gentry. With these measures, the elite magnates undermined the economic foundations of the Polish city.
Reformation movement in Poland in the 30-70s. XVI century
The clash of magnates and gentry with Catholic Church on the issue of tithes and the limitation of church land ownership created favorable soil for the spread of humanistic and reformation teachings among secular feudal lords. Reformation teachings also penetrated into Polish cities. However, the movement for the Reformation did not acquire wide national scope in Poland: the ideas of the gentry Reformation were alien to the masses, and the gentry were hostile to radical trends in the reform movement.
Already in 20- x years XVI V. Lutheranism spread among the German population of Gdansk and other cities. In the middle XVI V. Calvinism appeared in the gentry circles of Lesser Poland. The teachings of the “Czech brothers” also penetrated into Poland, and Zwinglianism and Arianism appeared in some cities.
The gentry opposed church tithes and demanded the secularization of church property and the introduction of worship in their native language.
The weakness of the reformation movement in Poland was the presence of many movements and the lack of unity between Protestants of different directions. Attempts were made to unite Protestant churches. To this end, at the insistence of the Calvinist figure Yana Lasky in 1570 a congress was convenedin Sandomierz. However, representatives of the reformed churches did not come to lasting unity.
By the end XVI V. The gentry began to move away from the Reformation. One of the reasons for her return to the fold of Catholicism was the fear of the spread among the people of radical reformation teachings that opposed serfdom.
Along with the reform movement, a struggle for political reforms unfolded among the Polish gentry. The gentry sought to strengthen state finances and create a permanent army through reduction - the return to the king of the estates pledged by him from the magnates. A small group of progressively minded nobility insisted on carrying out radical reforms that were supposed to strengthen the Polish state: to make the Val (general) Sejm a body of state unity, eliminating the dependence of its deputies (ambassadors) on local sejmiks, to strengthen the position of the king through the prerogatives of the Senate. But these demands were rejected by the majority of the Polish gentry, who valued their petty privileges.
Transformation of Poland into a gentry “republic” (Rzeczpospolita). The peculiarity of the political development of Poland was that the class monarchy did not become a step towards the establishment of absolutism. Neither the magnates nor the gentry were interested in centralizing the feudal state and strengthening royal power. A conflict was brewing between the magnates and the gentry. The gentry supported King Sigismund I(1506-1548), who demanded the reduction (return) of crown estates, most of which were in the possession of large feudal lords. The reduction (the so-called “execution of rights”) met with decisive resistance from the magnates. However, at the Diet of 1562-1563. the magnates were forced to agree to the return of the crown estates they received after 1504 g., which was a significant victory for the gentry. At the same time, the gentry sought to subordinate royal power to their control. She stubbornly refused the king money to form a standing army. The struggle between magnates, gentry and spiritual feudal lords that took place within the ruling class ended in a compromise, which later turned out to be more beneficial to the large feudal lords. The compromise that took shape in 1569-1573 had a compromise character. constitution of the Polish state.
One of the basic principles of the gentry's constitution was the principle of the election of kings by the entire gentry. When in 1572 the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund, died II August, the gentry achieved the right to participate in the elections of the new king and acted as a decisive force during the election struggle. The French prince Henry of Valois (1573-1574), who was elected king of Poland, accepted the so-called Henry's Articles - the most important component gentry constitution, -Poland in the XVI-XVII centuries.
confirming the principle of free election (election) of kings by the entire gentry. Without the consent of the Senate, the king could not declare war and make peace, and without the consent of the Sejm, convene a pospolitan destruction (a general feudal militia). The Senate Rada (council) was to sit under the king. The king's refusal to fulfill these obligations freed the magnates and gentry from obedience to him. According to the rules established later, the Sejm made decisions only if there was unanimity of its “ambassadors”. Frequent disruptions of the Sejms due to lack of unanimity over time led to the fact that real power in certain parts of the state was assigned to the local Sejmiks, where magnates were in charge of all affairs. In addition to the usual diets, in the 16th-17th centuries. congresses of the armed gentry - a confederation - were convened, where the principle of unanimity was not applied. Often confederations were formed against the king. Such performances were called ro-kosh. The principles of pan-gentry “unanimity” and confederation, used by individual magnates and gentrygroups fighting for dominance in the country led to feudal anarchy.
Formation of the multinational Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Union of Lublin 1569 G. The formalization of the gentry's constitution coincided with the completion of the formation of the multinational Polish state.
In the second half XV- beginning XVI V. Polish feudal lords did not use the weakening of the Teutonic Order to liquidate it and reunite its western lands with Poland. IN 1525 Mr. King Sigismund I and the Polish magnates allowed the master of the Teutonic Order, Albrecht of Brandenburg, to secularize the order’s possessions and become a hereditary duke, although continuing to remain a vassal of Poland for some time. Subsequently, the right of the Brandenburg margraves to inherit the Prussian throne was recognized in the event of the termination of the Albrecht line. A real threat was created of the unification in the hands of one dynasty of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia, which engulfed the Polish possessions in the Baltic on both sides.
Polish feudal lords sought to strengthen the Polish-Lithuanian union and to incorporate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland. The Lithuanian gentry also sought to strengthen the union, hoping to acquire the privileges that the Polish gentry had. Opponents of incorporation (merger, literally “incorporation”) were Lithuanian magnates who wanted to maintain only a dynastic union with Poland.
Taking advantage of the difficult situation of Lithuania during the Livonian War, the Polish gentry at the Diet in Lublin in 1569 g. imposed an agreement on the Lithuanian lords (Union of Lublin), according to which Poland and Lithuania united into one state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a common central body - the Sejm. The head of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was simultaneously the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania and was subject to election at the General Sejm. Each of the united states - Lithuania (principality) and Poland (crown) - retained its internal autonomy, separate administration, court, budget and army. Even before the conclusion of the Union of Lublin in the same 1569 In 2010, Polish feudal lords included the Ukrainian lands of Lithuania into the crown. Formed in 1569 The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth pursued an aggressive policy in the east.
The beginning of Poland's economic decline at the end XVI- first half XVII V. As a result of the sharp increase in feudal exploitation in XVI V. The serf owners managed to increase the overall productivity of the feudal economy. However, such a rise could not last long. The rapid growth of farms and feudal exploitation was accompanied by the decline of the peasant economy, as the farmer was crushed by heavy corvee duties. Signs of regression and crossYansky and landowner farming appeared already at the end XVI- beginning XVII V.
The rise of crafts and trade in the city was short-lived. The economic stagnation of the Polish city became noticeable from the end XVI V.
The transition to the folk-corvee system interrupted for a long time the process of the formation of the Polish national market. The peasant almost ceased to act in the city market as a seller and buyer.
The surplus of Poland's foreign trade brought little benefit to the country, since the profit partly ended up in the pockets of Gdansk merchants-intermediaries, partly was spent by the feudal lords on the purchase of foreign goods and was almost not invested in the development of the country's economy.
Livonian War. Failure of Poland's eastern expansion. Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords sought to cut off Russian state from the Baltic Sea and prevent its further strengthening. Ivan the Terrible had to enter into a long and fierce struggle, first with Lithuania, and then with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Livonian War). It ended with the truce in Yam Zapolski (1582), according to which the Russian state was actually cut off from the Baltic Sea, and most of Livonia was captured by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In an effort to turn the Russian state into a dependent country, as well as to find use for the mass of impoverished gentry, the Polish government tried to use the crisis that Russia was experiencing at the end XVI- beginning XVII V. It supported False Dmitry, and in 1609 Mr. King Sigismund III began direct intervention in Russia. But as a result of the people's liberation war 1612 The interventionists were defeated and expelled. Truce of Deulin 1618 g. meant the recognition by the Poles of the failure of an attempt at widespread expansion to the east, which was confirmed by the Polyanovsky Treaty 1634 G.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multinational state. The Polishization of the feudal elite in Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, the penetration of Polish feudal lords into Ukraine and Belarus led to the fact that class contradictions in the eastern regions of the state were complicated by national and religious ones. At the church council in Brest in 1596 A union was adopted, with the goal of subordinating the Orthodox Church in Belarus and Ukraine to the Pope. The union led to a sharp aggravation of national and class contradictions here.
The Ukrainian and Belarusian peasantry and urban poor responded to the strengthening of feudal and national oppression with a fierce struggle, which increasingly took on a people's liberation character. Large peasant-Cossack uprisings took place in Ukraine in 1591-1596. and especially on a large scale in 30- x years XVII V.
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Significant anti-feudal movements took place in the first half XVII V. and in Belarus. In Poland itself, the struggle of the peasant masses against the oppression of the serf owners was expressed mainly in mass flight from their landowners, in attacks on the landowners' estates.
Liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. National, religious and feudal-serf oppression, as well as the inability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect Ukrainian lands from devastating Tatar raids and Turkish aggression, threatened the very existence of the Ukrainian people. The widest strata of Ukrainian society were vitally interested in eliminating the domination of Polish and Polonized Ukrainian feudal lords. IN 1648 The Ukrainian people, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, rose up in a war of liberation against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The peasantry, Cossacks, townspeople, clergy and a significant part of the small and medium Ukrainian Orthodox gentry took part in this struggle. The main driving force of the liberation war was the serf peasantry. The rebels sought the abolition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Ukraine and the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Ukrainian troops inflicted a number of crushing defeats on the Poles.
The Belarusian people also rose up against oppression by Polish and Polonized Lithuanian and Belarusian feudal lords.
Peasant uprisings in Poland. The liberation war of the Ukrainian people found a wide response among the Polish peasantry and urban lower classes. IN 1648 about 3,000 peasant rebels were active in the vicinity of Warsaw, and in the capital itself an uprising of the urban poor was being prepared. IN 1651 The peasant-plebeian movement covered a significant part of Polish lands. Peasant uprisings took place in Masovia and the Sieradz Voivodeship. The peasant movement assumed great scope in Greater Poland. It was led by a group of Poles - participants in the liberation war of the Ukrainian people. The Polish feudal lords were especially frightened by the peasant uprising in the south of the Krakow Voivodeship (in Lesser Poland). The leader of the uprising in Podhale was Kostka Napierski, who was apparently associated with Bohdan Chmielnicki.
The struggle of the Polish people against the Swedish occupation. An-Drusovo truce. Sweden took advantage of the failures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, opposing it in 1655 d. Taking advantage of the betrayal of a significant part of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, who hoped to find an ally against the Russian state in the Swedish feudal lords, the Swedish aggressors wanted to subjugate the entire country. But Sweden's intervention received a decisive rebuff from the Polish people.
The peasant masses of Podgorye were the first to rise up to fight the Swedish armies, then the townspeople andgentry The Russian state came out against the Swedes, concluding a pact 1656 Vilna Truce with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, the Polish magnates and gentry did not want to come to terms with the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. In an effort to free its hands to continue the war with Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1660 made peace with Sweden in Oliva.
Military actions against Russia developed in the context of a severe crisis in Polish finances and the increasing decomposition of the army. Campaign of King John Casimir to Left Bank Ukraine in 1664 failed. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the struggle between individual magnate groups intensified. IN 1667 Poland agreed to the Andrusovo truce with the Russian state, recognizing the transfer of Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv to Russia (for two years) and returning Smolensk to it.
Decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the second half XVII V. The negative consequences of the development of the folk-cooking-corvee system were fully revealed. They were greatly intensified by the detrimental impact that almost continuous wars had on the national economy of the country (especially in 50- x years XVII c.), which led to the massive ruin of the peasantry and cities. The peasant economy was in decline. The productivity of the gentry-magnate farms decreased. Moreover, from the second half XVII V. demand for agricultural products has decreased Western Europe. The feudal lords intensified the exploitation of the peasantry. The main means remained the increase in farms and a significant increase in corvée. In addition to the usual weekly corvee, peasants had a number of other duties. The monopolies (banalities) of the feudal lords had a very difficult impact on the position of the peasantry.
Deep economic and political decline in the second half XVII- first quarter XVIII V. experienced Polish cities. Urban crafts degraded, the volume of urban production declined. The city could not withstand the competition of foreign goods. Non-guild and patrimonial craft, supported by the feudal lords, undermined guild production, although in the future these forms of craft became the basis for future growth in a number of industries.
Busy economic life continued only in cities associated with international transit trade. However, imports grew significantly faster than exports, from the second half XVII V. The country's trade balance was negative.
The dominance of tycoons, which political system the gentry republic opened up wide scope, which had a detrimental effect on the economic, cultural and political development of the country. Feudal anarchy, internecine struggle between large magnate families, and armed clashes between the gentry brought ruin to peasants and townspeople. Violence and robberies of feudal lords on roads, in cities and on fairs torus molested the development of trade. Surrounded by a large armed retinue, the magnates directed the activities of the sejmiks in their own interests, interfered with the normal work of the sejm, and ignored the decisions of the king. The country was increasingly losing political stability.
The foreign policy situation of the Polish state has worsened. While Poland's military power weakened, the power of centralized neighboring states - Sweden and Russia - increased, in clashes with which it invariably suffered defeat.
The unification of Brandenburg and Prussia under the rule of the Gauguin-Zollerns 1618 led to a sharp weakening of Polish positions in the west. The war for the Baltics with Sweden, which broke out at the beginning, ended extremely unsuccessfully XVII V. According to the Shtumdor truce 1635 The Swedes retained almost all of Livonia.
Polish culture in the XV-XVI centuries. Already in XV V. There was a significant rise in the development of Polish culture. IN 1474 Printing began in Poland. This contributed to the spread of education and scientific knowledge, and the flourishing of literature. Many poetic works appeared in Polish, and national Polish literature was formed.
The 16th century was the heyday of Polish humanism. Particularly great successes were achieved in mathematics and astronomy. The brilliant Polish thinker Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) in his work “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” gave a scientific basis for the heliocentric system (see Chapter 40). Polish historians Maciej from Miechow, Martin Bielski, Maciej Streczkowski wrote a number of works on the history of Poland and general history. The famous Polish publicist Andrzej Modrzewski (1503-1572), in his work “On the Correction of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” boldly criticized the feudal-serf system that existed in Poland.
Polish humanistic literature in XVI V. characterized by realism and a critical orientation. The largest representative of Polish humanism, Nicholas Rey (1505-1569), denounced the papacy and the Catholic hierarchy. His essay “The Life of an Honest Man” provides a sharp critique of the serfdom system. The outstanding Polish poet Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) widely used folk motifs in his work. His works are imbued with the spirit of the people.
National self-awareness increased not only among the gentry, but also among townspeople and peasants. Local linguistic differences were erased and a single Polish language, which ousted Latin from socio-political and cultural life. From the end XV V. education in the native language has become common. Secular city schools - gymnasiums - were opened. The center of culture and education was the University of Krakow,the presenters of which stood mainly in the forefront of humanistic positions.
Great achievements were observed in architecture and sculpture. Masterpieces of Polish architecture are the Royal Palace in Krakow and the Sigismund Chapel (16th century).
In the first half XVII V. There was a decline in the development of Polish culture, which was associated with the general economic and political decline of the feudal Polish state.
The beginning of the war with Poland. The war was caused by a positive decision on the issue of reunification of Ukraine with Russia at the Zemsky Sobor in October 1653. It was declared on October 23, 1653, began in May of the following year, 1654, and lasted a total of 13 years (1654-1667).
The war began very successfully for the Russian army. Already in the campaign of 1654, 33 cities were taken, including Nevel (June), Polotsk (July), Smolensk (September), Vitebsk (November), Gomel, etc. By the end of 1654, Russian troops occupied a large territory in the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Western Dvina.
In the campaign of 1655, the successes were consolidated. Almost all of Belarus was cleared of Polish-Lithuanian troops. Minsk (July), Vilna (the tsar made a ceremonial entry into the city on July 30), Kovno (August), Grodno (August), and others were occupied. The troops approached Lvov. The Polish king John II Casimir fled to Silesia and was ready to give up the throne.
The defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was used by the Swedish king Charles X Gustav. He invaded Poland and captured a significant part of its territory, including Warsaw (September 1655), Poznan, Krakow. Poland already by the autumn of 1655 began to seek peace with the Russian government. Alexei Mikhailovich returned victorious in November 1655 to Moscow.
Negotiations with the Polish government dragged on until the fall of 1656, when the Vilna Agreement was signed on October 24. The parties agreed that all controversial issues between the two states remain open, and they begin joint actions against Sweden.
On May 17, 1656 (even before the signing of the Vilna Agreement), Russia declared war on Sweden, and on July 15, the tsar, at the head of the army, set out on a campaign to Livonia.
Russian-Swedish War 1656-1658 The blow was made in three directions: to Riga, to Dorpat and to Karelia (Izhora land). From the very first weeks, great successes of the Russian army were determined. Nyenschantz (at the mouth of the Neva), Noteburg (at the source of the Neva), Dinaburg (the middle reaches of the Western Dvina, July 31), Dorpat (Yuryev, October 12), Marienburg (the center of Livonia), Kokenhausen (Kokies, August 14) and etc. At the end of August, Russian troops besieged Riga, but were unable to capture it due to the lack of a fleet (the siege was lifted in October 1656). After occupying Dorpat (October 12), the tsar retreated to Polotsk and here he waited for the formalization of the truce concluded with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on October 24, 1656 (Vilna Agreement).
Further successes were prevented by unstable relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poland did not want to give up Ukrainian and Belarusian lands.
The Russian government faced an acute question about the direction of foreign policy. A.L. Ordin-Nashchokin continued to consider access to the Baltic Sea a priority task (for this he was even ready to abandon Ukraine). But they didn’t agree with him.
The complicated situation in Ukraine also prevented the continuation of the war with Sweden. On July 27, 1657, Bohdan Khmelnytsky died. The new hetman Ivan Evstafievich Vygovsky (1657-1659) in September 1658 concluded an agreement with Poland on the renunciation of Russian citizenship (Treaty of Gadyach).
The Truce of Valiesar was signed with Sweden in 1658 (in the village of Valiesar near Narva) for three years. According to the terms of this document, the territory occupied by Russian troops remains with Russia.
Two and a half years later, on June 21, 1661, the Russian-Swedish Peace of Kardis was signed on the terms of restoring pre-war borders (that is, the return of all acquisitions in Livonia to Sweden). The reason for such a difficult and unprofitable peace was the difficult domestic and foreign political situation, in which by the beginning of the 60s. turned out to be Russia.
Continuation of the war with Poland. Military operations with Poland were resumed in October 1658. During the first winter campaign of 1658-1659. The Polish-Lithuanian army was completely defeated near Vilna. In August 1659, the Russian army defeated the army of Hetman Ivan Vygovsky. The Pereyaslav Articles of 1659 again confirmed the agreement with Russia of March 1654. Vygovsky himself was forced to resign as hetman. The son of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Yuri Khmelnytsky, was proclaimed hetman.
But the international situation was not in Russia's favor. In the spring of 1660, Poland concluded a peace treaty with Sweden (Treaty of Oliva). Yuri Khmelnitsky came under the influence of a pro-Polish Cossack elder; as a result, the Slobodishchensky Treaty was adopted (1660), which again tore Ukraine away from Russia and again subordinated it to Poland. At the same time, Russian troops began to suffer defeats (in particular, near Chudnov in 1660, the Russian army of governor Sheremetev surrendered).
Poland at the end of 1663 resumed military operations against Russia. Their pretext was the refusal of the Polish king John Casimir to recognize Alexei Mikhailovich as the legal heir to the Russian throne. However, the difficult situations that developed at this time in Poland and Russia lead to the fact that military actions acquire a positional character, and the war itself takes a protracted form. As a result, both sides are looking for ways to reach a truce. Long and difficult negotiations began (1664-1667), which ended with the signing of the Truce of Andrusovo in August 1667 (in the village of Andrusovo near Smolensk).
The truce was concluded for 13 and a half years (until June 1680) on the following conditions: the Smolensk region, Seversk land (with Chernigov), Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv (the latter for only two years); the border between the two states is established along the Dnieper; both sides declare mutual (joint) actions against Turkish aggression.
Thus, the most important result of the long Russian-Polish war was the official recognition of the division of Ukraine into two parts and the transfer of its Left Bank to Russia. In general, the results of the war determined Russia's dominant position in Eastern Europe. This war practically marked the beginning of the political decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which ended 128 years later with its collapse.
« Eternal Peace" with Poland. After the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1677-1681. hostilities resumed between Poland and Turkey (1781-1683). By 1683, the Poles regained Right Bank Ukraine. But Polish-Turkish relations were very unstable, and the Polish government sought to strengthen the alliance with Russia. As a result, Russia's relations with Poland are increasingly strengthened.
Even during the Russian-Turkish war of 1677-1681. An agreement was concluded with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in 1678) to extend the Truce of Andrusovo for another 13 years (its term expired in mid-1680). In addition, Poland handed over Kyiv to Russia. As compensation for it, Russia ceded to Poland the cities of Nevel, Sebezh, Velizh with counties and paid 300 thousand rubles.
In 1684, ambassadorial negotiations began on concluding peace between Russia and Poland, which were very difficult. Only in May 1686 the so-called “Eternal Peace” (Moscow Peace Treaty) was signed in Moscow. Its conditions: Poland finally renounces Kyiv; Zaporozhye is declared a possession of Russia; Russia enters into an alliance against Turkey (Austria, Venice, Poland). This leads to the Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689.
Development of Siberia in the 17th century.
The 17th century was a time of rapid expansion of Russia's borders to the east due to the development of Siberia. The advance into Siberia began in the 16th century. from Ermak's campaign. In the 80-90s, the first cities were created: Tyumen (1586), Tobolsk (1587), Tara (1594), Surgut (1594), Narym (1596), Verkhotursk (1598), etc. As a result, by the beginning of the 17th century V. A significant part of Western Siberia was developed.
From the first years of the 17th century. advancement began in Eastern Siberia, and then in the Amur region. In 1604, Tomsk was founded in the upper reaches of the Ob River, in 1619 in the upper reaches of the Yenisei River - Yeniseisk, in 1628 - Krasnoyarsk. At the same time, the development of the circumpolar regions was underway: in 1600, the city of Mangazeya was founded on the Taz River, and in 1607, Turukhansk was founded on the Yenisei River.
In the 30-40s. The lake area was actively developed. Baikal: Bratsk fort (1630), Verkholensk (1642), Verkhneudinsk (1647), Verkhneangarsk (1647), Barguzin (1648), Irkutsk (1652). At the same time, detachments of servicemen and industrialists (“eager people”) moved in a northeast direction. Russian settlements arose on the Lena River and its tributaries: Yakutsk (1632), Zhigansk (1632), Vilyuysk (1634), Olekminsk (1635).
This process especially intensified in the 30-40s of the 17th century. The initiators of the further development of Siberia were industrialists and fur hunters. Most of these people came from the Russian North. Following the first explorers, as the people who explored the Siberian expanses began to be called, detachments of servicemen followed in their footsteps, built fortifications (fortresses), and taxed the indigenous population with yasak. Subsequently, many of these forts became small cities, from which new explorers set off to the east, north and south of the vast Siberian region.
In the 17th century There are quite clear stages in the development of this previously unprecedented territory in terms of size. The powerful Siberian rivers: Ob, Yenisei, Lena played an important role in the advancement of the Russian population. The development of the basins of these rivers with numerous tributaries made it possible to reach Eastern Siberia and the Amur region. In the history of the development of Siberia, the following five stages can be distinguished: 1) development of the Ob River basin in its middle and lower reaches (mostly completed in the first decade of the 17th century); 2) development of the Yenisei river basin (10-20s); 3) development of the basins of the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, Anadyr rivers, as well as the Baikal region, the lake region. Baikal (30-40s); 4) development of the Amur region (50-80s); 5) development of Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands and Alaska (since the 90s).
The development of Eastern Siberia proceeded in two streams, one of which was directed from the Yenisei to the Lena River and further to the northeast, reaching Kamchatka by the end of the century, and the other, the “southern” one, led to the development of the Baikal and Amur regions. In general terms, the process of development of Siberia was completed by the middle of the 17th century, and by the beginning of the next, Russian settlements already existed in the northwestern part of the American continent.
By the end of the 40s, Russian servicemen and industrialists reached the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk (Okhotsk was founded in 1649) and reached Chukotka (the Anadyr fortress was built in the same 1649). From the middle of the 17th century. At the same time, first the survey began, and then the settlement of Kamchatka and Chukotka. In 1648-1650 S.I. Dezhnev made a famous voyage around Chukotka, during which a previously unknown strait was discovered connecting Asia with America, later called the Bering Strait. The first Russian settlements in North America(in Alaska). At the end of the 17th century. The expedition of V.V. Atlasov (1697-1699) began the exploration of Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.
In the middle of the century, Russian explorers walked along the northern rivers along the coast of the Arctic Ocean: the Yane River (Verkhoyansk was founded in 1638), the Indigirka River (Zashiversk was founded in 1639), the Kolyma River (Nizhnekolymsk was founded in 1644) . Many isolated and underdeveloped indigenous peoples of Siberia fell into the sphere of influence of Russian culture and the development of productive forces.
In parallel with the movement to the northeast, there was an advance of “hunting people” to the southeast: in the Baikal region and the Amur region. In 1643-1646. An expedition led by V.D. Poyarkov explored the Amur. In 1649-1653. E.P. Khabarov’s expedition explored the Amur region, and a Russian agricultural population appeared here. The development of the Amur and penetration into Primorye were stopped by the Manchus and Chinese. After their destruction (1685) of Albazin, a Russian stronghold in Primorye, built in 1665, and the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Russia until the middle of the 19th century. abandoned claims to the south of the Far East.
Siberian Tatars lived in the upper reaches of the Tobol, Ishim and Irtysh rivers, as well as the Ob and Tom rivers, on the left bank of the Tobol River there were Mansi (Voguls), and the lower reaches of the Ob River were occupied by the Khanty (Ostyaks). On the right bank of the Yenisei River (the basin of the Lower, Middle and Upper Tunguska rivers) the Evenks (Tungus) lived. The Lena River basin was occupied by the Yakuts, and the Yukaghirs (Oduls) lived along the Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma rivers. The Chukchi Peninsula (along the Anadyr River) was occupied by the Chukchi. The southern part of Eastern Siberia was inhabited by Buryats (area of Lake Baikal), Daurs (left bank of the Amur River), and others. They all had different ways of life, generally much more backward compared to European Russia.
It cannot be said that the indigenous peoples of Siberia were indifferent to the Russian settlement of their lands. The local population repeatedly rebelled against the feudal exploitation that Russian government colonization brought with it. In the period from 1590 to 1617 alone, researchers count at least 30 armed clashes between servicemen and the peoples of Western Siberia. At the same time, it should be noted that the Moscow government, in the event of controversial issues between the “Russian inhabitants” and local peoples, usually took the side of the latter.
Government (central) management of the newly annexed territories of Siberia was carried out initially through the Ambassadorial Prikaz, then (from 1599) the Siberian expanses came under the jurisdiction of the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace, within which (around 1614) a special department called the “Siberian Prikaz” was created. . In 1637, this department turned into an independent state institution - the Siberian Prikaz, which began to govern the region and carry out its further development and exploitation of natural resources. The Siberian order was central government agency before the provincial reform of Peter I in 1708. In 1710, the Siberian order was replaced by the provincial chancellery.
Tobolsk becomes the administrative center of Siberia. The highest local government of all Siberia was initially in the hands of the Tobolsk governors. In 1629, Tomsk received equal rights with Tobolsk. Each district of the region had its own governor, who was its unlimited ruler. This made it possible for great abuses, which were very difficult to monitor in Moscow. How enormous the thefts and illegal operations were is shown by the government order of 1635 on the inspection of governors and their comrades (deputies and assistants) returning from service in Siberia: property should not exceed 500 rubles for the chief governor and 300 rubles for the junior; cash should be no more than 500 rubles for the chief governor and 300 for the junior; all surpluses were subject to confiscation.
The development of Siberia led to the fact that the country's territory increased several times. True grandiose and very rich natural resources the Siberian expanses were very sparsely populated. By the 60s. XVII century the population of Siberia, according to the calculations of the researcher of Siberia P.A. Slovtsov, did not exceed 350 thousand people, of which there were about 70 thousand Russian residents (29%). By the end of the 17th century. The Russian population of Siberia increased to approximately 200 thousand people.
Siberia became a source of huge amounts of fur, and agriculture and trade developed in many of its places. At the same time, it was a very harsh region of Russia in terms of its climate, and its remoteness from the central regions of the country made economic development difficult and created great difficulties for the lives of the people inhabiting it. It is no coincidence that already in the 17th century. Siberia became a place of political exile.
