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Soviet Union [USSR] Expansion and Westernization
Muscovy continued its territorial growth. In the southwest, it
acquired eastern Ukraine, which had been under Polish rule. The
Ukrainian Cossacks, warriors organized into military formations,
lived in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the Tatar lands, and
Muscovy. Although they had served the Polish king as mercenary
troops, the Ukrainian Cossacks remained fiercely independent and
staged a number of uprisings against the Poles. In 1648 the
Ukrainian Cossacks revolted and were joined by most of Ukrainian
society, which had suffered political, social, religious, and
ethnic oppression under Polish rule. After the Ukrainians threw off
Polish rule, they needed military help to sustain their gains. In
1654 the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks, Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi,
offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Muscovite tsar
rather than the Polish king. After some hesitation, the tsar
accepted Khmel'nyts'kyi's offer, which led to a protracted war
between Muscovy and Poland. The war was concluded by the Treaty of
Andrusovo in 1667. Ukraine was split along the Dnepr River. The
western bank was retained by Poland, and the eastern bank remained
self-governing under the suzerainty of the tsar.
In the east, Muscovy had obtained western Siberia in the
sixteenth century. From this base, merchants, traders, and
explorers continued to push east from the Ob' River to the Yenisey
River and then from the Yenisey River to the Lena River. By the
middle of the seventeenth century, Muscovites had reached the Amur
River and the outskirts of the Chinese Empire. After a period of
conflict, Muscovy made peace with China in 1689. By the Treaty of
Nerchinsk, Muscovy gave up claims to the Amur River Valley. By the
middle of the seventeenth century, Muscovy extended eastward
through Eurasia to the Pacific Ocean.
Muscovy's southwestern expansion, particularly its
incorporation of eastern Ukraine, had unintended consequences. Most
Ukrainians were Orthodox, but, having had to compete with the
Polish Counter-Reformation, they combined Western intellectual
currents with their religion. Through Kiev, Muscovy obtained links
to Polish and central European influences and to the wider Orthodox
world. Historically, Ukrainians had been under the jurisdiction of
the patriarch of Constantinople. Although the Ukrainian link
stimulated creativity, it also undermined traditional Russian
religious practices and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church
discovered that because of its isolation from Constantinople,
variations had crept into its liturgical books and practices. The
Russian Orthodox patriarch, Nikon, was determined to correct the
texts according to the Greek originals. Nikon, however, encountered
fierce opposition because many Russians viewed the corrections as
inspired by foreigners or the devil. The Orthodox Church forced the
reforms, which resulted in a schism in 1667. Those who did not
accept the reforms, the Old Believers, were pronounced heretics and
were persecuted by the church and the state. The chief opposition
figure, Avvakum, was burned at the stake. The split subsequently
became permanent, and many merchants and prosperous peasants joined
the Old Believers.
The impact of Ukraine and the West was also felt at the tsar's
court. Kiev, through its famed scholarly academy, founded by
Metropolitan Mohila in 1631, was a major transmitter of new ideas
and introduced the Muscovite elite to a central European variant of
the Western world. Among the results of this infusion of ideas were
baroque architecture, literature, and icon painting. Other more
direct channels to the West opened as international trade increased
and more foreigners came to Muscovy. The tsar's court was
interested in the West's more advanced technology, particularly if
its applications were military in nature. By the end of the
seventeenth century, Ukrainian, Polish, and West European
penetration had undermined the Muscovite cultural synthesis--at
least among the elite--and had prepared the way for an even more
radical transformation.
Data as of May 1989
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