Russia in the 16th century is mainly the time of the final formation and strengthening of Russian statehood, as well as the end of a long era of feudal land fragmentation and the subordination of Russian principalities to the Mongol khanates, as a result of which the full formation of Russian state.
In Europe, the 16th century is considered to be the era of great geographical discoveries and the beginning of development and prosperity Western civilization. In Russia, cut off from pan-European history, this period First of all, it is associated with the expansion of the grand ducal lands and the development of Siberian and Volga territories. Thus, by the end of the 16th century, the Russian state had approximately 220 cities at its disposal.
End XV -beginning of XVI century in Russia passes under the rule of Prince John III, nicknamed “The Great”. The time of his reign is associated with the cessation of internecine wars, the end of Horde rule, as well as with the emergence of the Orthodox canonical concept: “Moscow is the Third Rome,” according to which the Moscow principality is endowed with a messianic role and declared the spiritual heir Byzantine Empire. The reign of Ivan the Great is also associated with the emergence of the double-headed eagle as a symbol of Russian statehood and the adoption of many reform laws, mainly aimed at centralizing power and strengthening Russian statehood.
The son of Ivan III, Vasily III, also worthily continued the unification of Russian lands, acting mainly according to the algorithms set by his father. But perhaps one of the most key roles in Russian history he was played by his son, Ivan IV, also known as “Ivan the Terrible.”
The reign of Ivan the Terrible was marked by a large-scale transformation and strengthening of Russian statehood. During his reign, there was an almost twofold expansion of Russian territories, as a result of which the Russian state exceeded the size of all European countries in their totality. Under him, the remnants of the Golden Horde were conquered: these were the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, and was almost completely annexed Western Siberia etc.
In the middle of the 16th century, Ivan dispersed the boyar duma and created a new government body: the “elected Rada,” essentially taking the reins of government into his own hands, endowing himself with the royal title: “Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke All Rus'", placing the country on a par with contemporary European monarchies.
Ivan IV carries out large-scale reforms of the armed forces (creation of a permanent Streltsy army, formation personal guard- reasons, etc.), monetary (creation of a unified monetary system), administrative, judicial and church reforms (the institution of the patriarchate was established), mainly strengthening their own autocracy. Ivan organized a large-scale attack on the boyar class, the opposition from which threatened his sole rule, and under him a new elite began to emerge - the nobility, that is, personally selected people loyal to the sovereign. At the same time, the country was divided into zemshchina and oprichina, between which bloody war. Ivan IV was defeated in the Livonian War and left the country vulnerable to Polish and Swedish invasion.
The end of the sixteenth century in Russia was marked by a major crisis, known in historiography as the “Time of Troubles.” The crisis was caused by the fact that after the death of Fyodor Ivanovich, the heir of Ivan the Terrible, the Rurik dynasty was virtually ended, after which a full-scale crisis of power ensued, caused by the lack of legitimate heirs to the royal crown. After this, for several years there was a fierce struggle for power in Rus'.
At the end of the 15th - 16th centuries, the formation of the Russian (Great Russian) nationality was completed. As a result of complex ethnic and linguistic processes, the Russian language emerged, which differed significantly not only from Ukrainian and Belarusian, but also from Church Slavonic, which was preserved in book writing. In colloquial and close to it the so-called order, business language The dominant influence was exerted by the Rostov-Suzdal dialect, in which there was a Moscow dialect. Many words that originally appeared in Moscow writing have become widespread throughout Russia, and among them are such as “khrestyanin” (peasant), “money,” “village,” etc. The ancient forms of past tenses have been lost, and the form of the verb has received a new development. The system of declensions and conjugations began to approach the modern one. In the colloquial language, the old “vocalistic” (Ivane, father, wife, etc.) form of nouns has died out.
Dwellings and settlements
Formation Great Russian people was also reflected in the features of life and material culture characteristic of the 16th and subsequent centuries. At this time, a type of residential building emerged, consisting of three rooms - a hut, a cage (or upper room) and a vestibule connecting them. The house was covered with a gable roof. This “three-chamber” building became dominant in Russian villages for a long time. In addition to the hut in peasant yard there was a granary for storing grain, one or two sheds (“palaces”) for livestock, a hay barn, a soap house (bathhouse), sometimes barns, barns, sheds, although the latter were most often placed outside the courtyards, on the field. In cities since the end of the 15th century. Stone dwellings of boyars, high clergy, and large merchants began to appear.
Villages of the 16th century usually consisted of 10 - 15 households; the larger settlements were villages. Cities developed according to a traditional radial-ring system: radii were formed along roads leading to other cities, rings were formed along the lines of wood-earth and stone fortifications that covered the growing parts of the cities. By the end of the 16th century. Moscow had three rings of stone fortifications - the Kremlin, adjacent to it from the east and enclosing the shopping center of the city of Kitay-Gorod, White City (along the line of the modern boulevard ring) and one ring of wood-earth fortifications - Zemlyanoy Gorod, the fortifications of which were located along the modern Garden Ring. City estates usually opened onto the streets with fences, while residential buildings and utility rooms were hidden inside. In rare cases, streets were paved with wood; In the summer, when it rained, the streets were practically impassable. Each street had one or more churches.
Since many townspeople had their own livestock, the city had grazing areas, runs to water and pastures, as well as vegetable gardens, gardens, and sometimes even plots of arable land. In the 15th century City streets began to be locked with bars at night. “Running heads” of petty nobles appeared in the cities - the embryo of the city police service. The “blind heads” had to monitor not only the appearance of “thieves”, but also security in the city. For these purposes, it was prohibited to fire stoves in houses in the summer. Cooking took place in the courtyards. Blacksmiths and other artisans whose work involved the use of fire set up their workshops away from residential buildings, closer to the water. Despite all these precautions, cities were often destroyed by fires that brought great damage and often claimed a lot of human victims. But the cities were also restored quickly: ready-made, disassembled log houses were brought from the surrounding area, sold at auction, and city streets were rebuilt.
Clothing and food
In the 16th century A peculiar costume of peasants and townspeople developed - poneva, sundress, kokoshnik for women, blouse with a slit on the left side and felt boots (headdress) for men. They began to stand out even more significantly in their own way appearance The social elite - rich fur coats, gorlat hats in winter, elegant caftans - were seen by the people in the summer on the boyars and rich merchants.
Common foods were cabbage soup, buckwheat, oatmeal, pea porridge, baked and steamed turnips, onions, garlic, fish, oatmeal jelly; on holidays they ate pies with filling, pancakes, eggs, caviar, imported fish, drank beer and honey. In the 50s of the 16th century. The Tsar's taverns opened, selling vodka. Rich people had a different table - here and on weekdays there was always caviar and sturgeon, meat (except for fasting days), and expensive overseas wines.
Religion
Despite the active actions of the church and the secular authorities that supported it in terms of propagating Christian doctrine, the latter in the 16th century. penetrated deeply only into the environment ruling class. Sources indicate that the mass working population in the city and village, she was far from carefully and reluctantly performing church rituals, which were still very strong and widespread folk pagan festivals and rituals like those that were associated with the celebration of Kupala and which the churchmen could not in any way manage to transform into the Orthodox rite of memory of John the Baptist.
The Church tried to attract people with magnificent rites and ceremonies, especially on big days. religious holidays when solemn prayer services, religious processions, etc. were held. The clergy in every possible way spread rumors about all kinds of “miracles” at icons, relics of “saints,” and prophetic “visions.” In search of healing from illnesses or deliverance from troubles, many people flocked to venerate the “miraculous” icons and relics, crowding large monasteries on holidays.
Folk art
Folk songs, glorifying the heroes of the capture of Kazan, also reflected the contradictory personality of Ivan the Terrible, who appears either as a “fair” tsar, taking good fellows from the people under his protection and dealing with the hated boyars, or as the patron of the “Malyuta villain Skuratovich.” Theme of fighting external enemies gave rise to a peculiar reworking of the ancient Kyiv cycle of epics and new legends. Stories about the fight against the Polovtsians and Tatars merged together, Ilya Muromets turns out to be the winner of the Tatar hero, and Ermak Timofeevich helps in the capture of Kazan. Moreover, the Polish king Stefan Batory appears as a servant of the Tatar “king”. So folk art concentrated its heroes - positive and negative - around the capture of Kazan, thereby emphasizing what great value this event meant for his contemporaries. In this regard, let us recall the words of Academician B.D. Grekov that “epic stories are a story told by the people themselves. There may be inaccuracies in chronology, in terms, there may be factual errors..., but the assessment of events here is always correct and cannot be different, since the people were not a simple witness to events, but a subject of history who directly created these events.”
Literacy and writing
Education single state increased the need for literate people needed for the developing apparatus of power. At the Council of the Stoglavy in 1551, it was decided “in the reigning city of Moscow and in all cities... among priests, deacons and sextons, institute schools in the houses of the school, so that priests and deacons in each city would entrust their children to them for teaching.” In addition to clergy, there were also secular “masters” of literacy, who taught literacy for two years, and for this they were supposed to “bring porridge and a hryvnia of money to the master.” First, the students completely memorized the texts of church books, then analyzed them by syllables and letters. Then they taught writing, as well as addition and subtraction, and they memorized numbers up to a thousand with their letter designation. In the second half of the century, manuals appeared on grammar (“A conversation about teaching literacy, what literacy is and what its structure is, and why such a teaching was compiled, and what is gained from it, and what is appropriate to learn first”) and arithmetic (“Book , recoma in Greek is arithmetic, and in German is algorizma, and in Russian is digital counting wisdom").
Handwritten books were distributed and remained of great value. In 1600, one small book of 135 sheets was exchanged “for a self-propelled gun, a saber, black cloth, and a simple curtain.” Along with parchment, which began to be in short supply, imported paper appeared - from Italy, France, and the German states, with specific watermarks indicating the time and place of paper production. In government agencies, huge long ribbons were glued from paper sheets - the so-called “pillars” (the bottom sheet of each sheet was fastened to the top of the next sheet in the case, and so on until the end of the entire case).
Typography
In the middle of the 16th century. A major event took place in the history of Russian education - the founding of book printing in Moscow. The initiative in this matter belonged to Ivan I V and Metropolitan Macarius, and the initial purpose of printing was the distribution of uniform church books in order to strengthen the authority of religion and church organization in general. Book printing began in 1553, and in 1563 the former deacon of one of the Kremlin churches, Ivan Fedorov, and his assistant Pyotr Mstislavets became the head of the state printing house. In 1564 there was
The Apostle was published - an outstanding work of medieval printing in terms of its technical and artistic qualities. In 1568, printers were already working in Lithuania, where, according to some scientists, they moved on the orders of the tsar in order to promote the success of Russia's active actions in the Baltic states by distributing church books among the Orthodox population of Lithuania. However, after the Union of Lublin in 1569, the activities of Russian printers in Lithuania ceased. Ivan Fedorov moved to Lviv, where he worked until the end of his life (1583). In Lvov in 1574, he published the first Russian primer, which, along with the alphabet, contained elements of grammar and some reading materials.
In Moscow, after the departure of Fedorov and Mstislavets, book printing continued in other printing houses.
Socio-political thought
The complexity of the socio-political conditions for the formation of a unified Russian state gave rise in the spiritual life of society to an intense search for solutions to big problems - about the character state power, about law and “truth”, about the place of the church in the state, about land ownership, about the position of peasants. To this we must add further distribution heretical teachings, doubts about the validity of religious dogmas, the first glimpses of scientific knowledge.
As elsewhere in European countries during the period of their unification, Russian social thought pinned hopes on establishing an ideal government and eliminating strife and civil strife with a unified government. However, specific ideas about the ideal state were far from the same among publicists who expressed the sentiments of different groups - Peresvet’s ideal of a strong sovereign relying on the nobility was not at all like Maxim the Greek’s dreams of a wise ruler, deciding state affairs together with his advisers, and the ascetic refusal of “non-possessors” "from wealth caused furious indignation among the ideologists of a strong church - the Osiphlans. The acute political sound of social thought was characteristic of all its forms and manifestations. From their very origins, chronicles had the character of political documents, but now their purpose has increased even more. Going on a campaign against Novgorod, Ivan III specially took with him the clerk Stepan the Bearded, who “knew how to say” according to the “Russian chroniclers” “the wines of Novgorod.” In the 16th century A tremendous amount of work was undertaken to compile new chronicles, which included appropriately selected and interpreted news from the local chronicles. This is how the huge Nikon and Resurrection chronicles appeared. A notable feature was the widespread use of government materials in chronicles - discharge records, ambassadorial books, treaty and spiritual letters, article lists about embassies, etc. At the same time, there was an increase in church influence for chronicle writing. This is especially noticeable in the so-called Chronograph of 1512 - a work dedicated to the history of Orthodox countries, where the idea of the leading position of Orthodox Russia in Christendom.
One of the lists Nikon Chronicle was made in the form of a luxuriously illustrated Facial Vault, containing up to 16 thousand illustrations. This copy, apparently intended for the training and education of young members of the royal family, was subsequently subjected to repeated corrections; According to scientists, it was done by Ivan the Terrible, who retroactively introduced into history the denunciations of past “betrayals” of his opponents, executed during the years of the oprichnina.
Historical stories appeared dedicated to the events of the recent past - the Kazan “capture”, the defense of Pskov, also in the spirit of militant church ideology and exalted Ivan the Terrible.
The “Book of Degrees” became a new historical work in the form of presentation, where the material is distributed not by years, but by seventeen “degrees” - according to the periods of the reign of the great princes and metropolitans from the “beginning of Rus',” which was considered the reign of the first Christian princes Olga and Vladimir, to Ivan the Terrible. The compiler, Metropolitan Afanasy, through the selection and arrangement of material, emphasized the exceptional importance of the church in the history of the country, the close union between secular and spiritual rulers in the past.
The question of the position of the church in a single state occupied a central place in the conflicts that continued in the first half of the 16th century. disputes between the “non-possessors” and the “Osiphites.” The ideas of Nil Sorsky were developed in his works by Vassian Patrikeev, who in 1499, together with his father, Prince Yu.
he was forcibly tonsured a monk and exiled to the distant Kirillovo-Belozersky monastery, but already in 1508 he was returned from exile and even approached at one time by Vasily III. Vassian criticized contemporary monasticism, the inconsistency of his life with Christian ideals, and saw this inconsistency primarily in the fact that monks tenaciously cling to earthly goods.
The views of Vassian Patrikeev were largely shared by the well-educated translator and publicist Maxim the Greek (Mikhail Trivolis), who was invited to Russia in 1518 to translate and correct liturgical books. In his works (there are more than a hundred of them), Maxim the Greek proved the illegality of the churchmen’s references to the writings of the “holy fathers” regarding the right to own lands (the heroic texts talked about vineyards), denounced difficult situation peasants living on monastery lands. From the pages of the works of Maxim the Greek an unsightly picture of the Russian church appears. The monks quarrel, engage in long-term litigation over villages and lands, get drunk, and indulge in luxurious life, they treat the peasants living on their lands in a completely unchristian way, entangle them in heavy usurious debts, spend the wealth of the church for their own pleasure, and sanctimoniously cover up their deeply unrighteous life with magnificent rituals.
A like-minded boyar of Maxim the Greek, F.I. Karpov, also very concerned about the state of the Russian Church, even put forward the idea of the need for unification Orthodox Church with the Catholic one as a means of overcoming existing vices.
Metropolitan Daniel of Osif led an energetic struggle against all “freethinkers.” Not only heretics and non-covetous people were subjected to Daniel's severe condemnation, but also all those who indulged in secular entertainment. Playing the harp and domra, singing “demonic songs” and even playing chess and checkers were declared as vicious as foul language and drunkenness; beautiful clothes and barber shaving were condemned in the same way. At the insistence of Daniel, in 1531 another Church Council was held against Maxim the Greek and Vassian Patrikeev. The latter died in the monastery, and Maxim the Greek was released only after the death of Vasily II.
Daniel's successor, Metropolitan Macarius, organized a large literary work aimed at strengthening religious influence on the spiritual culture of the country. The largest enterprise in this regard was the creation of a grandiose set of “Lives of Saints” - “Great Chetya-Menya” for daily reading. With the creation of this book, the churchmen wanted to practically absorb all the books “in Rus'” and to give all bookishness a strictly consistent religious character. The Church, with the support of the state, continued its offensive against dissidents. In 1553, the former abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Artemy, a follower of the teachings of Nil Sorsky, was put on trial for his statements condemning the official church, its money-grubbing and intolerance towards the erring. The following year, 1554, another church trial took place over the nobleman Matvey Bashkin, who rejected the veneration of icons, was critical of the writings of the “holy fathers,” and was indignant at the fact that the transformation of people into slaves had become widespread among Christians. In the same year, the Belozersk monk Theodosius Kosoy was arrested and brought to Moscow for a church trial. A former slave, Theodosius Kosoy was one of the most radical heretics of the 16th century. He did not recognize the trinity of the deity (a similar trend of the so-called anti-Trinitarians was also widespread in Western European countries in connection with the then developing reformation movement), saw in Christ not God, but an ordinary human preacher, rejected a significant part of dogmatic literature, considered it contradictory common sense, did not recognize rituals, icon veneration, or the priesthood. Theodosius did not believe in “miracles” and “prophecies”, condemned the persecution of dissenters, and opposed the acquisitiveness of the church. In a positive sense, Theodosius’ dreams did not go further than vague ideals early Christianity, from the standpoint of which Theodosius spoke about the equality of all people before God, the inadmissibility, therefore, of the dependence of some people on others, and even the necessity equal treatment to all peoples and faiths. Theodosius' opponents called his preaching "slave teaching." There is some information that allows us to judge the presence of communities of followers of Theodosius the Kosy. The trial of Theodosius Kosy did not take place because he managed to escape to Lithuania, but the persecution of heretics continued.
The beginnings of scientific knowledge and the church’s struggle with them
With the activities of heretics at the end of the 15th - 16th centuries. were associated, albeit in a very narrow circle, with the first attempts to go beyond the canonical ideas about the world around us. Contrary to the widespread idea, included even in church “Easters” (indicators of Easter days in future years), that in 7000 (according to the then calendar “from the creation of the world”, according to modern - 1492) the “end of the world” will come ", heretics did not believe in the coming of the "end of the world." They did a lot of astronomy and had conversion tables to calculate lunar phases and eclipses.
The clergy were hostile to all these activities, considering them “witchcraft” and “witchcraft.” The monk Philotheus, who wrote to Vasily III about Moscow - the “third Rome,” admitted that it is possible, of course, to calculate the time of a future eclipse, but this is of no use, “the effort is much, but the feat is small,” “It is not appropriate for the Orthodox to experience this.” Hostility towards secular, non-religious knowledge and towards ancient culture was especially openly manifested in the arrogant confession of Philotheus that he is “a rural man and ignorant in wisdom, was not born in Athens, studied neither with wise philosophers, nor in conversation with wise philosophers I haven’t been.” This was the attitude of Russian clergy toward ancient culture just at the time when Western European culture was rising during the Renaissance, marked by a lively and strong interest in the ancient heritage. It was these clergymen who developed political theory Russian state, they prepared for it a path of isolation from advanced culture, ossification in ancient orders and customs - for the glory of “true” Orthodox Christianity. The bold thought of Russian heretics and other “freethinkers” of the late 15th-16th centuries looks all the brighter. Heretics of the late 15th century. were familiar with the works of medieval and ancient philosophy, they knew the basic concepts of logic and some issues of theoretical mathematics (the concepts of plane, line, indivisible numbers, infinity). The head of the Moscow heretics, Fyodor Kuritsyn, thought about the question: is man’s will free or are his actions predetermined by God? He came to the conclusion that free will (“autonomy of the soul”) exists, and that the more literate and educated a person is, the greater it is.
Rudiments scientific knowledge existed in the 16th century. in the form of purely practical information on various everyday matters. The centuries-old practice of peasant farmers long ago developed criteria for assessing soils - now they were applied to assess the solvency of “good”, “average”, “poor” lands. Government needs have necessitated measurement land areas. In 1556, a manual was compiled for scribes who described the allocated lands, with the appendix of land surveyors. In the second half of the century, a manual “On laying out the earth, how to lay out the earth” appeared, which explained how to calculate the area of a square, rectangle, trapezoid, parallelogram, and the corresponding drawings were attached.
Development of trade and money circulation led to the development of practical knowledge in the field of arithmetic. It is no coincidence that terminology connects arithmetic operations with trading operations: the term was called in the 16th century. “list”, reduced - “business list”. In the 16th century knew how to perform operations on numbers with fractions, used the signs + and -. However, mathematical and other specific knowledge in the Middle Ages was very often clothed in a mystical-religious shell. The triangular figure, for example, was interpreted as a symbolic embodiment of the movement of the “holy spirit”, following within the “holy trinity” from the “god the father” located at the apex of the triangle.
Fantastic ideas about the Earth were quite widespread. In the popular translated book “Christian Topography” by an Alexandrian merchant of the 6th century. Kosma Indikoplov said that the sky is round, the Earth is quadrangular, stands on endless water, beyond the ocean there is an earth with paradise, in the ocean there is a pillar reaching to heaven and the devil himself is tied to this pillar, who is angry, and from this all sorts of disasters occur.
The mystical interpretation of natural phenomena was very widespread, there were special books - “astrologies”, “lunars”, “lightnings”, “tremblers”, “spatulas”, which contained countless signs and fortune-telling. Although the church formally condemned everything that went beyond the framework of religious worldviews, nevertheless, it was rare that a secular feudal lord did not maintain household “soothsayers” and “healers” at his court. Ivan the Terrible was not without superstitious feelings, who often feverishly sought reassurance for his anxieties in various fortune-telling.
But along with this, specific practical knowledge.
In 1534 with German language“Vertograd” was translated, containing a lot of medical information. During the translation, “Vertograd” was supplemented with some Russian information. In this, very common in the 16th century. The handwritten book contained the rules of personal hygiene, caring for the sick (particular attention was paid to avoiding drafts, as well as “so as not to get burned, and the brain would not dry out”), numerous information about medicinal plants, their properties and places of distribution. There are special instructions about treating a beaten person “from the whip,” and precisely “from the Moscow whip, and not the rural one” - serfdom reality was reflected here in all its cruelty. In 1581, the first pharmacy in Moscow was established to serve the royal family, in which the Englishman James French, invited by Ivan the Terrible, worked.
The expansion of the territory of the Russian state and the growth of its connections with foreign countries advanced the development of geographical knowledge. Along with naive ideas about the “quadrangular Earth”, specific information about the location of various parts of the Earth began to appear.
Moscow ambassador Grigory Istomin in 1496 traveled on sailing ships from the mouth of the Northern Dvina to Bergen and Copenhagen, opening up the possibility of relations between Russia and Western Europe Northern Sea Route. In 1525, one of the most educated people of that time, diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov, went abroad. He expressed the idea that India, which attracted Europeans with its riches, as well as China could be reached through the Arctic Ocean. In accordance with this assumption, the English expedition of Willoughby and Chancellor was later equipped, which in the 50s of the 16th century. arrived in Kholmogory and opened Northern route sea communication with England.
The Trade Book, compiled in the second half of the 16th century, contained information about other countries necessary for foreign trade. In the 16th century Pomors made voyages to New Earth and Grumant (Svalbard).
Architecture
The rise of Russian culture manifested itself in many ways. Significant changes have occurred in construction technology and the art of architecture closely related to it.
Strengthening Russian statehood already at the end of the 15th century. stimulated the restoration of ancient and construction of new buildings of the Moscow Kremlin, cathedral beginning of XIII V. in Yuryev Polsky and some others. Stone construction, although still to a small extent, began to be used for the construction of residential buildings. The use of brick opened up new technical and artistic opportunities for architects: During the unification of Russian lands, a pan-Russian architectural style began to take shape. The leading role in it belonged to Moscow, but with the active influence local schools and traditions. Thus, the Spiritual Church of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, built in 1476, combined techniques of Moscow and Pskov architecture.
The reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin was of great importance for the development of Russian architecture. In 1471, after the victory over Novgorod, Ivan III and Metropolitan Philip decided to build a new Assumption Cathedral, which was supposed to surpass the ancient Novgorod Sophia in its grandeur and reflect the power of the Russian state united by Moscow. At first, the cathedral was built by Russian craftsmen, but the building collapsed. The craftsmen had no experience in constructing large buildings for a long time. Then Ivan I I I ordered to find a master in Italy. In 1475, the famous engineer and architect Aristotle Fioravanti came to Moscow. The Italian master became acquainted with the traditions and techniques of Russian architecture and by 1479 he built the new Assumption Cathedral - an outstanding work of Russian architecture, enriched with elements of Italian construction technology and Renaissance architecture. Solemnly majestic, embodying in its forms the power of the young Russian state, the cathedral building became the main religious and political building of Grand Ducal Moscow, a classic example of monumental church architecture of the 15th century.
To rebuild the Kremlin, masters Pietro Antonio Sola-ri, Marco Rufsro, Aleviz Milanets and others were invited from Italy. In 1485-1516. under their leadership, new walls and towers (preserved to this day) of the Kremlin were erected, expanding its territory to 26.5 hectares. At the same time, its internal layout took shape. In the center was Cathedral Square with the monumental building of the Assumption Cathedral and the high bell tower of Ivan the Great (architect Bon Fryazin, 1505 - 1508), completed in early XVII V. On the southwestern side of the square, the Annunciation Cathedral appeared, which was part of the grand-ducal palace ensemble. This cathedral was built by Pskov masters in 1484-1489. The techniques of its external decoration were borrowed from Vladimir-Moscow traditions (arcature belts) and from Pskov (patterns of the upper part of the domes). In 1487 - 1491 Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari built the Faceted Chamber for the reception foreign ambassadors. It was the largest hall of that time. The vaults of the hall rest on a massive pillar in the middle - no other methods of constructing large interiors were known at that time. The chamber received its name from the “edges” of the external treatment of the facade. In 1505-1509. Aleviz built the tomb of the great princes and members of their families - the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, which combines the traditions of Moscow architecture (a cube topped with a five-domed dome) with elegant Italian decor. The zakomar (“shells”) finishing technique used by the architect later became a favorite in Moscow architecture.
The ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin appeared a unique work architecture of the turn of the XV-XVI centuries, which embodied the greatness, beauty, strength of a people freed from foreign yoke, who entered on a common path of political and cultural progress.
In the 16th century stone churches with a hipped roof were already being built - “for wooden work,” as one of the chronicles says, i.e., following the example of numerous wooden hipped-roofed buildings. The material itself - wood - dictated this form of completion of the buildings in the form of a tent extending upward with even edges. In contrast to the Byzantine examples of cross-domed churches with domes, not only wooden, but also stone tented churches without domes, without pillars inside, with a single, albeit small, internal space appeared in Russia.
In 1532, in the palace village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, to commemorate the birth of the long-awaited heir of Vasily III - Ivan Vasilyevich, the future Terrible, the tented Church of the Ascension was erected, which is a true masterpiece of Russian and European medieval architecture. Soaring up to the sky on a coastal hill near the Moscow River, a temple with amazing power embodied the idea of moving upward.
The crown of Russian architectural culture of the 16th century. became the famous Intercession Cathedral - St. Basil's Cathedral - on Red Square in Moscow, erected in memory of the capture of Kazan in 1555 - 1560. The nine-domed cathedral is crowned with a large tent, around which are crowded the bright, uniquely shaped domes of the chapels, connected by a gallery and located on one platform. The diversity and individuality of the cathedral's forms gave it a fabulous look and made it a real pearl of Moscow architecture. This great monument of Russian architecture of the 16th century. reflected the wealth of people's talent, the great spiritual upsurge that the country was then experiencing, which had gotten rid of the threat of attacks from a most dangerous enemy and was experiencing a period of significant reforms that strengthened the state.
Things were more complicated in the second half of the 16th century. Strict regulation of architecture by the Osiflan churchmen and Ivan the Terrible, who was under their influence in this regard, led partly to a reduction in new construction, partly to the construction of heavy imitations of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, such as, for example, the cathedrals built in the late 60s - 80s in Trinity-Sergius Monastery and Vologda. Only at the very end of the century did the festive decorative principle in Russian architecture revive and begin to develop, which found its manifestation in the church in Vyazemy near Moscow, the Nativity Cathedral of the Pafnutiev Borovsky Monastery, and the so-called “small” cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.
Painting
The process of development of painting in Russia at the end of the 15th-16th centuries was approximately similar. The beginning of this period was marked by the flourishing of painting, associated primarily with the activities of the famous master Dionysius. With his assistants, he painted the walls and vaults of the cathedrals of the Pafnutev and Ferapontov monasteries. Fulfilling the orders of the Metropolitan and the Grand Duke, Dionysius managed to make his painting very elegant, beautiful, and festive, despite the static nature of the figures, the repetition of compositional techniques, complete absence prospects.
Dionysius’s workshop produced so-called “hagiography” icons, which, in addition to the image of the “saint,” also contained small “stamps” on the sides with images of individual episodes strictly according to the text of the “life” of this saint. The icons were dedicated to Moscow “saints” who played a significant role in the rise of Moscow.
The more the dominance of the Osiphlian church strengthened in the spiritual life of the country in the first half and middle of the 16th century, the more constrained the creativity of painters was. They began to be subject to increasingly stringent demands regarding exact and unconditional adherence to the texts of the “Holy Scriptures,” “lives,” and other church literature. Although the cathedral of 1551 indicated the icon painting of Andrei Rublev as a model, the simple repetition of even brilliant works doomed the art of painting to the impoverishment of creativity.
Painting increasingly turned into a simple illustration of one text or another. By means of painting on the walls of the temple, they tried to “retell” the content of the “Holy Scripture” and “lives” as accurately as possible. Therefore, the images became overloaded with details, the compositions became fractional, and the laconicism of artistic means, so characteristic of artists of the previous time and which created a tremendous effect on the viewer, was lost. Special elders appointed by the church ensured that the painters did not deviate from the models and rules. The slightest independence in the artistic design of images caused severe persecution.
The frescoes of the Annunciation Cathedral reflected the official idea of the origin and continuity of power of the Moscow Grand Dukes from Byzantium. On the walls and pillars of the cathedral, Byzantine emperors and Moscow princes are depicted in magnificent clothes. There are also images of ancient thinkers - Aristotle, Homer, Virgil, Plutarch and others, but, firstly, they are drawn not in ancient, but in Byzantine and even Russian attire, and secondly, scrolls with sayings are placed in their hands, as if they predicted the appearance of Christ. Thus, the church tried to counteract its influence by falsifying ancient culture and even use it in its own interests.
Official church ideas were embodied in the large beautiful icon “Church Militant,” painted in the middle of the 16th century. to commemorate the capture of Kazan. The success of the Russian state was shown here as the victory of “true Christianity” over the “infidels,” “infidels.” The warriors are led by “saints” and are overshadowed by the Mother of God and angels. Among those depicted on the icon is the young Tsar Ivan the Terrible. There is an allegorical image - the river symbolizes the source of life, which is Christianity, and the empty reservoir represents other religions and deviations from Christianity. 
In conditions of strict regulation of the art of painting, by the end of the century, a special direction had developed among artists, concentrating efforts on the painting technique itself. This was the so-called “Stroganov school” - named after the wealthy merchants and industrialists Stroganovs, who patronized this direction with their orders. The Stroganov school valued writing technique, the ability to convey details in a very limited area, external picturesqueness, beauty, and careful execution. It is not for nothing that artists’ works began to be signed for the first time, so we know the names of major masters of the Stroganov school - Procopius Chirin, Nikifor, Istoma, Nazarius, Fyodor Savina. The Stroganov school satisfied aesthetic needs relatively narrow circle fine connoisseurs of art. The works of the Stroganov school distracted viewers from the religious theme itself and focused their attention on the purely aesthetic side of the work of art. And in Nikifor Savin, the viewer also encountered a subtly poeticized Russian landscape.
Democratic tendencies were evident among painters associated with the townspeople circles of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod. On the icons they painted, sometimes instead of “biblical” ones, objects and characters appeared that were well known to the viewer and the artist from surrounding life. Here you can find an image of the Mother of God, similar to a Russian peasant woman, a rather real image of the log walls and towers of Russian monasteries.
The accuracy in conveying the details of the texts of the chronicles and the various stories and legends included in them determined the development of the art of book miniatures. Facial chronicle vaults, numbering thousands of miniatures on their pages, conveyed in great detail real pictures historical events. The art of book design, inherited from ancient Russian scribes, continued to develop successfully in the 16th century. Artistic sewing achieved great development, especially in the workshop of the Staritsky princes. Skillfully created compositions, color selection, and fine workmanship made the works of these masters outstanding monuments. artistic creativity XVI century At the end of the century, sewing began to be decorated with precious stones.
Music and theater
Church singing of the 16th century. was characterized by the approval of the “znamenny” - one-voice choral singing. But at the same time, the church could not ignore the people's musical culture. Therefore, in the 16th century. and polyphonic singing with its brightness and richness of shades began to spread in the church.
Polyphonic singing apparently came from Novgorod. Novgorod resident Ivan Shai-durov came up with special “banners” - signs for recording melody with “chants”, “divorces” and “translations”.
Due to the church's stubborn opposition to instrumental music, Western European organs, harpsichords and clavichords, which appeared at the end of the 15th century, did not become widespread. Only among the people, despite all the obstacles, they played wind instruments everywhere - bagpipes, nozzles, horns, flutes, pipes; strings - beeps, gusli, domra, balalaika; drums - tambourines and rattles. The army also used trumpets and surnas to transmit combat signals.
In the folk environment, rich traditions of theatrical art were widespread. The Church tried to contrast them with some elements of theatrical “action” in divine services, when individual scenes from the so-called “sacred history” were presented, such as the “cave action” - the martyrdom of three youths at the hands of the unrighteous “Chaldean king”.
B.A. Rybakov - “History of the USSR from ancient times to late XVIII century." - M., “ graduate School", 1975.
The 16th century is the very period in which the territory of Muscovite Rus', which turned into the Muscovite kingdom, expanded to unprecedented boundaries. In 1505, Vasily 3 came to power, whose reign lasted until 1533. This ruler set about seizing the remaining territories of the former Kievan Rus, which had not yet been divided between Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Pskov, Ryazan, Kaluga and other cities were captured, and all resistance in them was brutally broken. During his reign, several conflicts with Lithuania were unleashed and resolved - in 1507-08 short war. The “eternal peace” concluded after her was violated by Moscow just 5 years later. A new war of conquest allowed Moscow to capture Smolensk. However, it lasted ten years and caused enormous damage to the economy of the Muscovite kingdom, with which several European states stopped trading. The situation was aggravated by constant Tatar raids from the Crimea, the most serious of which occurred in 1521.
At the same time, Moscow tried to capture Kazan in 1506, 1524 and 1530, but each time these campaigns were unsuccessful. In the foreign policy arena, Ivan 3 tried to maneuver while simultaneously establishing friendly relations with the Ottoman Empire, no less aggressive than Moscow, and conducting diplomatic relations with the Holy Roman Empire. The latter wanted to involve the Muscovite kingdom in the joint struggle against the Turks, but Ivan 3 never gave a clear answer on this issue.
After the death of Ivan 3, a struggle for power began, the rulers of Rus' were constantly changing, and only on January 16, 1547, Prince Ivan 4, supported by the church and the Boyar Duma, was installed in power. In the same year there was a fire that destroyed almost all of Moscow. New king carried out tax, military, land and church reform, and also reformed the state apparatus.
Ivan 4, later nicknamed the Terrible, continued the aggressive policy of his ancestors. He managed to capture the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms, under him the territory of the Moscow kingdom expanded to Siberia - its development began. Some khans themselves decided to become part of a powerful state, others were broken. In 1598, Ermak and his army finally defeated the steppe inhabitants and captured Western Siberia.
Rus' in the 16th century, in short, was an extremely aggressive state. In the west, Moscow again showed aggression towards Lithuania. During the Livonian War it was destroyed Livonian Order, however, four states joined the war at once - Poland, Lithuania, Denmark and Sweden. The aggression was stopped, and for Moscow this defeat turned into a grave crisis.
16th century The history of Russia is rich in events. The territories of the former Kievan Rus, which were actively divided throughout the 14th-16th centuries, were now completely divided, and there were no free lands left in Russia. All territories are completely dependent on Muscovite Rus' or Lithuania; the princes of the appanages were members of the Moscow grand ducal family.
Russia at the beginning of the 16th century.
Culture
In the 16th century. The culture of Rus' developed especially brightly in such areas as painting, architecture, and literature. Painting was represented by iconography. In architecture, in addition to wood, it continued. Churches and temples were erected. The tent style is common. Various fortifications were built. In the literature, the most relevant topics were related to changes in political life(with the emergence of autocracy). A 12-volume edition of Macarius appeared - a collection of popular works for home reading. “Domostroy” was written - a collection of tips and rules. They were printed (“Apostle” is the first precisely dated one), which marked the beginning of book printing in Russia.
Which developed along with world civilization. This was the time of the Great Geographical Discoveries (America was discovered in 1493), the beginning of the era of capitalism in European countries (the first in Europe began in the Netherlands bourgeois revolution 1566-1609). But the development of the Russian state took place under rather unique conditions. There was a process of development of new territories of Siberia, the Volga region, the Wild Field (on the rivers Dnieper, Don, Middle and Lower Volga, Yaika), the country did not have access to the seas, the economy was in the nature of a subsistence economy, based on the dominance of the feudal order of the boyar estate. In the second half of the 16th century, Cossacks (from runaway peasants) began to appear on the southern outskirts of Russia.
By the end of the 16th century there were approximately 220. The largest of them was Moscow, and the most important and developed were and, Kazan and, and Tula, Astrakhan and. Production was closely related to the availability of local raw materials and was of a natural-geographical nature, for example, in Yaroslavl and Kazan it developed leather production, Vologda produced a large amount of salt, Tula and Novgorod specialized in metal production. Stone construction was carried out in Moscow, the Cannon Yard, the Cloth Yard, and the Armory Chamber were built.
An outstanding event in the history of Russia in the 16th century was the emergence of Russian printing (the book “Apostle” was published in 1564). The church had a great influence on the spiritual life of society. In painting, the model was creativity; the architecture of that time was characterized by the construction of tented churches (without pillars, supported only by the foundation) - St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye, the Church of John the Baptist in the village of Dyakovo.
The 16th century in the history of Russia is the century of the reign of the “talented villain” Ivan the Terrible.
At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, his great-grandson ruled (1462-1505). He called himself "Sovereign of All Rus'" or "Caesar". Accepted for a double-headed eagle. The two heads of the eagle indicated that Russia was turned to the East and to the West, and with one mighty paw the eagle stood in Europe, and the other in Asia.
believed that Moscow should become the third Rome, and all the Russian lands that were previously part of Moscow should unite around it.
In 1497, he published the first Russian Sudebnik, a set of fundamental laws. The Sudebnik fixed the position of the peasantry (peasants had the right to change their place of residence on St. George’s Day (November 26), but in fact the peasants were attached to the land. For leaving the landowner, they had to pay “elderly” - payment for the years lived. It amounted to about a ruble, but Since for a ruble in the 15-16th century you could buy 14 pounds of honey, it was not easy to collect it.The code of law established how a peasant becomes a serf (having borrowed money, the debtor had to work off the interest until the death of the master), i.e. in the 16th century, almost all peasants became serfs.
Ivan III overthrew Mongol-Tatar rule (1480) and did it as an experienced politician. He stopped civil strife and created a professional army. So, a forged infantry army appears, dressed in metal armor; artillery (Russian Unicorn guns were the best for three hundred years); squeakers (squeakers are firearms, but they hit close, at a maximum of 100 m).
Ivan III overcame feudal fragmentation. Novgorod Republic remained together with the Moscow Principality independent education, but in 1478 its independence was liquidated, in 1485 it was annexed to the Russian state, and in 1489 Vyatka.
In 1510, during the reign of the son of Ivan III, (1505-1533), the republic ceased to exist, and in 1521, the Ryazan principality. The unification of Russian lands was basically completed. According to German Ambassador, none of the Western European monarchs could compare with the Moscow sovereign in the completeness of power over his subjects. Well, the grandson of Ivan III, more than anyone else in the grand ducal family, deserved his nickname - the Terrible.
When Ivan was three years old, his father, Grand Duke Vasily III, died in 1533. Mother, Elena Glinskaya, the second wife of Vasily III, did not pay attention to her son. She decided to eliminate all applicants for Russian throne: brothers Vasily III - Prince Yuri Ivanovich and Andrei Ivanovich, his uncle Mikhail Glinsky. Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky became Elena’s support. When Ivan was 8 years old, his mother was poisoned (April 3, 1538). Over the next eight years, the boyars (Shuisky, Glinsky, Belsky) ruled in his place; they fought for influence over Ivan, but did not particularly burden themselves with caring for the child. As a result, Ivan becomes paranoid; from the age of 12 he takes part in torture, and at the age of 16 he becomes the best master of torture. 
In 1546, Ivan, not satisfied with the grand ducal title, wished to become king. In Rus', the emperors of Byzantium and Germany, as well as khans, were called tsars Great Horde. Therefore, having become a king, Ivan rose above numerous princes; showed the independence of Rus' from the Horde; stood on the same level as the German emperor.
At the age of 16, they decide to marry Ivan. For this purpose, up to one and a half thousand girls were gathered in the tower. 12 beds were placed in each room, where they lived for about a month, and their lives were reported to the king. After a month, the king went around the chambers with gifts and chose Anastasia Romanova as his wife, who smiled at him.
In January 1547, Ivan was crowned king, and in March 1547 he was married to Anastasia. His wife replaced his parents, and he changed in better side.
In 1549, the tsar brought closer to him Alexei Fedorovich Adashev, Sylvester, archpriest of the Annunciation Cathedral, who entered the so-called. They helped initiate reforms.
In 1556, Ivan IV abolished the feeding of the boyars at the expense of funds from land management, which came to their personal disposal after paying taxes to the treasury. Ivan introduces local government, the entire state was divided into provinces (districts), at the head of the province was the headman. The governor could be elected from among the peasants and nobles, and he could be influenced.
replaces (duplicates) the boyar duma, orders are submitted to it. An “instruction” order turns into an institution order. Military affairs were managed by the Razryadny, Pushkarsky, Streletsky orders, and the Armory Chamber. Foreign Affairs was in charge of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, state finances - the Grand Parish Prikaz, state lands - the Local Prikaz, and slaves - the Serf Prikaz.
Ivan begins an attack on the boyars, limits localism (he himself seated the boyars on benches around him), creates a new army of noble cavalry and archers (nobles serve for pay). This is almost 100 thousand people - the force on which Ivan IV relied.
In 1550, Ivan IV introduced a new Code of Laws. The nobles received equal rights with the boyars; it confirmed the right of peasants to change their place of residence on St. George’s Day, but the payment for the “elderly” increased. For the first time, the Code of Law established punishment for bribery.
In 1560, Anastasia dies, the tsar becomes insanity and begins a reign of terror against his recent advisers - Adashev and Sylvester, because it is them that the king blames sudden death Anastasia. Sylvester was tonsured and exiled to. Alexei Adashev was sent as a governor (1558-1583), where he died. Repression also fell on other supporters of Adashev. And Ivan IV introduces.
The period is the second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Oprichnina terror was declared unexpectedly for both supporters and enemies of Ivan the Terrible.
In 1564, at night, the tsar disappeared from the Kremlin with his retinue, children and treasury. He went to and declared that he did not want to rule anymore. A month after his disappearance from Moscow, the Tsar sent two letters:
One Boyar Duma, the Metropolitan, in which he accuses them of betrayal and unwillingness to serve him;
- the second to the townspeople, in which he announced that the boyars were offending him, but ordinary people he has no grudges, and the boyars are to blame for everything.
Thus, he wants to show the people who is to blame for all their troubles.
With his sudden departure, he ensured that his opponents were afraid of the uncertainty, and the people went crying to ask the king to return. Ivan the Terrible agreed, but with conditions:
1) division of the country into two parts - zemshchina and oprichnina;
2) at the head of the zemshchina is Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and at the head of the oprichnina is Grand Duke Ivan the Terrible.
He allocated the most developed areas and boyar lands as oprichnina lands. Those nobles who were part of the oprichnina army settled on these lands. The population of the zemshchina had to support this army. armed the army and for 7 years destroyed the boyars with this army.
The meaning of the oprichnina was as follows:
- establishment of autocracy through the destruction of the opposition (boyars);
- liquidation of balances feudal fragmentation(finally conquers Novgorod);
- forms a new social base of autocracy - the nobility, i.e. these were people who were completely dependent on the king.
The destruction of the boyars was a means to achieve all these goals of Ivan the Terrible.
As a result of the oprichnina, Moscow weakened; the Crimean Khan burned the Moscow settlement in 1571, which showed the inability of the oprichnina army to fight external enemies. As a result, the tsar abolished the oprichnina, forbade even mentioning this word, and in 1572 transformed it into the “Sovereign Court.” Before his death, he tried to reintroduce the oprichnina, but his oprichniki were dissatisfied with the tsar’s policies and wanted stability. Ivan the Terrible exterminates his army and dies at the age of 54, in 1584.
During the reign of Ivan IV there were also merits. So, the red brick Kremlin was built, but the builders were killed so that they could not build such anywhere else beautiful buildings and temples.
Results.
1. During the reign of Ivan IV, the country was destroyed, he actually started a civil war. Central regions depopulated, because people died (about 7 million people died unnatural deaths).
2. Russia's loss of foreign policy influence has made it vulnerable. Ivan IV lost Livonian War, and Poland and Sweden launched extensive activities to seize Russian territories.
3. Ivan the Terrible condemned not only six wives to death, but also destroyed his children. He killed the heir, Ivan's son, in a fit of rage in 1581. After the death of the prince, Ivan the Terrible was thinking of giving up the throne and entering a monastery. He had a lot to worry about. The heir to the throne was the feeble-minded Fyodor, the son of Anastasia Romanova, the Tsar's first wife. Besides him, there was also Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of his last, sixth wife, Maria Nagoya, who turned two years old in 1584.
Thus, after half a century of rule by a tyrant, albeit a talented one, but still a villain, power, unlimited by anyone or anything, had to pass to pathetic person, unable to govern the state. After Ivan IV, a frightened, tormented, devastated country was left. Activities have brought the country to the edge of an abyss whose name is...