The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century

4. How Was Western Europe Informed about Muscovy? The Razin Rebellion in Focus

“…These postal "entrepreneurs", as Daniel Roche has called them, hired their workers and horses from their own purses and conducted their relays as a business, on a local, regional, or even national scale. 78 This was, of course, the same general model that had been used to establish the first "foreign post" in Russia, in the midseventeenth century. 76 Yet, during his reign, Peter repudiated this model in favour of the older imperial practice of relay obligation.…”

“…What Gordon may not fully have appreciated was the degree to which the Dutch Resident in Moscow, Baron von Keller, was perhaps manipulating the news he received (quite apart from the events of 1688) and was transmitting to the Muscovite officials, in ways that worked against English interests. 78 This history opens up for us the possibility that by the 1680s, if not earlier, the acquisition and dissemination of foreign news in the elite circles in Moscow might have a significant political impact. The official acquisition of foreign news and its translation contributed to this awareness of contemporary events in Europe, but it was surely only part of the reason why there was a level of knowledge within the Foreign Suburb, and in the regular interactions between the foreigners and the arbiters of Muscovite affairs, that far exceeded what it might have been only a generation earlier.…”

“…Remember, that you won much honour together with me, and that we had ruled over not only all of the Don, but also over the whole Volga". The last twelve or thirteen lines of Koch's correspondence contain other information: a courier is said to have arrived from Count Romodanovskii 78 -one of the field commanders fighting against the rebelling Cossacks-with word that "Astrakhan and all places that had been won by Razin were now brought back to his Majesty the tsar, and they are asking for mercy". 79 The last two sentences of the letter are dedicated to other issues.…”

“…The number of people holding a counsellor rank, and so who could advise the tsar, went from around thirty before 1645, to approximately seventy in the latter part of the century. 78 In reality, the tsar's council was often rather smaller, but he could still be in discussion with perhaps fifteen people. 79 Reading the report aloud to such a group would be a rather more efficient way of conveying the information than making and circulating anything from sixteen to seventy-one manuscript copies, or alternatively circulating a 8.…”

The Muscovite State and its Personnel

“…46 Of them, 13 achieved the rank of dumnyi dvorianin; four, okol'nichii; and one, boyar. 47 Naturally, all of these men were advanced late in the century, after Aleksei Mikhailovich had 'opened the ranks to merit. '…”