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Absolutism and Empire: Governance along the Early Modern Frontier

Romaniello, Matthew Paul

Abstract Details

2003, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
The conquest of the Khanate of Kazan’ was a pivotal event in the development of Muscovy. Moscow gained possession over a previously independent political entity with a multiethnic and multiconfessional populace. The Muscovite political system adapted to the unique circumstances of its expanding frontier and prepared for the continuing expansion to its east through Siberia and to the south down to the Caspian port city of Astrakhan. Muscovy’s government attempted to incorporate quickly its new land and peoples within the preexisting structures of the state. Though Muscovy had been multiethnic from its origins, the Middle Volga Region introduced a sizeable Muslim population for the first time, an event of great import following the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in the previous century. Kazan’s social composition paralleled Moscow’s; the city and its environs contained elites, peasants, and slaves. While the Muslim elite quickly converted to Russian Orthodoxy to preserve their social status, much of the local population did not, leaving Moscow’s frontier populated with animists and Muslims, who had stronger cultural connections to their nomadic neighbors than their Orthodox rulers. The state had two major goals for the Middle Volga Region. First, the region needed to be pacified and secured against internal and external threats. Second, the region needed to produce revenue for the state. This dissertation will examine the ways in which the Muscovite government attempted to achieve its goals. Rather than following the concerns of earlier studies on why the tsar conquered Kazan’, this study will explore the mechanisms of the Muscovite government in the century and a half following the conquest of Kazan’, as the structures of the state were slowly and successfully implanted. By the time Peter the Great succeeded to the Russian throne, the borders of the Muscovite empire had expanded far beyond the Middle Volga Region, but the processes employed in the region became the groundwork for later territorial expansion. Muscovite governing strategies in the Middle Volga Region were able to adapt to frontier conditions. Muscovy was developing as an absolute monarchy; Moscow was an imperial capital at the center of an ever-growing empire. Many previous historians have approached Muscovite history as unique when contrasted to its European counterparts, stressing the lack of the common experiences as in the West. However, Muscovy was an early-modern empire, and therefore the institutions and features of other early-modern empires exerted as great an influence over the process of state-building in Muscovy as in England, France, or Spain.
Eve Levin (Advisor)
280 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Romaniello, M. P. (2003). Absolutism and Empire: Governance along the Early Modern Frontier [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1050355824

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Romaniello, Matthew. Absolutism and Empire: Governance along the Early Modern Frontier. 2003. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1050355824.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Romaniello, Matthew. "Absolutism and Empire: Governance along the Early Modern Frontier." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1050355824

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)