Tsarist Russia — Russia from the era of Ivan the Terrible, proclaimed the first Russian tsar, until the February Revolution of 1917, which abolished the Autocracy.
Brief Economic Overview
The peak of Tsarist Russia's economic development is considered to be 1913, after which came the First World War — known at the time simply as the Great War.
In 1908–1913, the total revenues received by the budget amounted to 14,987 million rubles, including: revenue from the vodka monopoly — 3,993 million rubles (26.64%); direct taxes — 1,115 million rubles (7.44%); indirect taxes — 3,111 million rubles (20.76%); duties — 943 million rubles (6.29%).
Unemployment in Nizhny Novgorod during the Tsarist Era
Today, when the topic of economic crisis is on everyone's lips — even a small child's — unemployment has become the scourge of modern society. It is written about in newspapers, discussed on television, and debated at the highest levels. Yet few stop to think that in our age of job websites and newspaper classifieds, finding work is far simpler and, more often than not, no longer a matter of life and death — unlike one hundred to one hundred and fifty years ago.
In Nizhny Novgorod, as in other Russian cities, unemployment surfaced periodically, especially in years of poor harvest. How did nineteenth-century Nizhny Novgorod residents cope with the situation? Everyone was saved by the Mytny Dvor (Mytny Market, near Bolshaya Pokrovka). It was there that a prototype of the modern labour exchange emerged — the "Mytny Exchange" — a canopy in front of the entrance to one of the market stalls. Every day from eight o'clock in the morning, a crowd of people of various trades would gather there seeking work. The most varied positions were snapped up eagerly: from expeditions to fight locust swarms in the districts to clearing up after snowstorms, cave-ins, floods, and spring freshets. Forest fires and similar disasters were greeted with particular joy — at least for a short time, they provided earnings to as many people as possible, allowing them to stave off starvation.
Group hiring of labor was practiced only until two o'clock in the afternoon. After that, only small, one-off services for visitors remained. Carrying a bag of provisions to someone's home, chopping firewood, packing a cellar with snow, and the like — these were the main ways to earn a little extra in the second half of the day.
The problem of unemployment always weighed heavily not only on the uneducated segments of the population but also on much of the lower intelligentsia. These were the two groups in society most vulnerable in social terms. Those who had failed to find work in their field turned to commission sales of houses and timber estates, advertising, subscription distribution for all manner of publications, and so on.
Intelligentsia members who did work in their field frequently encountered considerable difficulties as well. The professions of engineer or lawyer offered a tolerable income, but the many Nizhny Novgorod doctors, midwives, and the like were, due to fierce competition, mostly unable to build up a large clientele and could barely make ends meet. Yet even they did not lose hope — they remained active, constantly keeping themselves in the public eye through newspaper advertisements.
Thus, as we can see, unemployment confronted our ancestors in a far more menacing guise than it does us. Moreover, it did not simply arise as a consequence of some crisis; it was a natural, permanent condition of society. And it was treated accordingly. Life went on: people worked, had children, wrote songs — and even made a revolution.
Tsar's Days
In Russia, "Tsar's Days" was the name given to the annual celebrations held in honor of members of the imperial house. They were divided into "high solemn" and "solemn" occasions.
The former category included:
- the day of the reigning monarch's accession to the throne;
- the day of coronation;
- the day of the emperor's name day;
- the emperor's birthday;
- the name days of the reigning and dowager empresses;
- the birthdays of the reigning and dowager empresses;
- the birthdays and name days of the tsesarevich and tsesarevna.
The "solemn" Tsar's Days comprised the birthdays and name days of all other members of the imperial family. All these occasions were observed as the most important state celebrations from the eighteenth century through the early twentieth century.
The tradition of celebrating Tsar's Days was inherited from the Old Russian state, which marked the tsar's name day (but not the tsarina's!) as a national holiday. Birth in the flesh was considered secondary to baptism, and so the monarch's birthday began to be celebrated only later — during the reign of Fyodor Alekseyevich. In the same logical sequence, annual celebrations were established for the coronation and for the accession to the throne. Coronation-day celebrations were instituted on 16 May 1721 by a decree of Peter I and the Holy Synod. The decree commanded that the anointment to the throne be celebrated "with a prayer service to our All-Good God, in the same manner as the day of His Majesty's birthday and the day of His Majesty's name day are celebrated." The accession to the throne has been observed as a holiday since the reign of Peter II.
Peter I's recognition of the primacy of Divine grace over the mere fact of a ruler's natural succession reflects traditions of medieval thought. Because the Tsar's Days were understood in religious terms, they inevitably left their mark on the ecclesiastical culture of St. Petersburg. The founding of many churches is thus linked to Tsar's Days. The custom of building churches to commemorate the imperial family's celebrations was by no means a novelty of the "St. Petersburg" period of Russian history; numerous examples can be found in the history of ancient Rus. Boris Godunov, to mark his coronation, built a church of Simeon the Stylite, on whose feast day the coronation rite was performed; the Verkhopassky Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, originally named after John of Belgrade to match the name day of Tsarevich Ioann Mikhailovich, was subsequently rededicated in the name of John the Baptist — the patron saint of Tsar Ivan V. Reconsecrating a church in honor of the saint who shared the name of the reigning sovereign was common practice even in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Very often the memory of reigning persons was also perpetuated by placing images of their patron saints in the iconostasis.
No less important and effective was the custom of charitable giving on the occasion of a Romanov family celebration. This practice, too, has ancient roots. The benefactor was often not only the person being honored but also those close to him. For instance, on 30 August 1814 — on the name day of Alexander I — Empress Maria Fyodorovna opened a pharmacy for the poor at the Foundling Home, funded at her own expense, where the most up-to-date medicines were sold at a twenty-five percent discount. The tradition of promoting the public good on holidays continued to develop and acquired particular importance at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.
The first and obligatory part of any Tsar's Day celebration was a church service. On coronation days a special prayer service was held; on name days, a service to the saint whose name the royal personage bore; on birthdays, a general prayer for health.
If these occasions did not fall on days of mourning or during Lent, they were accompanied by various secular entertainments. If the court was in mourning, mourning was always lifted for Tsar's Days, though in such cases the celebrations were more restrained. When Tsar's Days coincided with the first week of Great Lent, the celebrations were postponed to the Sunday of Orthodoxy; if they fell on Holy Week or on the first day of Easter, they were moved to the Monday of Bright Week.
City officials and the nobility who were not invited to court attended the liturgy at Kazan Cathedral on Tsar's Days, where commoners were also admitted. A memoir account of just such a service, held in honor of Emperor Alexander I's birthday, has been preserved by S. M. Zhikharev: "There was such a crush and stuffiness that many people fainted, and some had to be led or carried out. The Metropolitan read the prayer so clearly and distinctly that it could be heard in every corner of the church — perhaps also because, together with the prostration, a profound and extraordinarily solemn silence suddenly fell: everyone hung on every word of the prayer, which contained a petition for the health of the sovereign and for the granting of victory to him..."
The emperor's name day (30 August) was a special holiday combining several important occasions. It was, first of all, the feast of the heavenly patron of St. Petersburg, whose relics rest in the Lavra that bears his name. It was also the name day of the emperor, who had been baptized in honor of Alexander Nevsky. The 30th of August was, moreover, the day of solemn celebration of the Order of Alexander Nevsky. For all these reasons the holiday was observed with particular solemnity and in a rather unusual manner. Every year a religious procession made its way to the main monastery of the capital, involving up to 150 clergy, one of the senators with several officials, and the junior knights of the Order of Alexander Nevsky. On this day the imperial family did not hear mass in the palace church as usual, but traveled to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra for the service. After the liturgy the Romanovs visited the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and only then departed for the palace, where the secular part of the celebration took place.
The words of Feofylakt were particularly apt in 1812. Despite the war, Tsar's Days continued to be observed. In 1812 Alexander I celebrated his name day still in St. Petersburg. By the end of summer the dramatic tension in society seemed to have reached its limit. In this atmosphere, on 30 August, the traditional procession and liturgy took place at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. At the conclusion of the service, Archimandrite Innokenty delivered a brief address. The essential difference between a wartime sermon and texts of the same kind from peacetime was that this one was devoted almost entirely to the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky, rather than to the virtues of the reigning monarch. As another priest, Fr. Emelyan Leontyev, wrote, "the present time is not a time for praise: now is the season of trial." The archimandrite chose as his theme the words of the Apocalypse: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." The sermon was devoted to the necessity of defeating the godless enemy, a victory Innokenty called "the outer victory." The path to it lay through "the inner victory" — spiritual perfection — to which the archimandrite called his listeners. In his interpretation, Alexander Nevsky is the model of triumph over "the enemies of the spirit" and over earthly enemies alike, and it is to his relics that prayer was addressed for "the peace of our Fatherland and the glory of the Monarch." In Innokenty's "Word" there is not only an absence of the customary praise of the emperor, but no particular emphasis on the military valor of the army either. The reason for this was undoubtedly the situation that had developed in Russia by that time.
Innokenty's sermon is by no means an exception; it is a typical example of wartime preaching, whose most common theme is the theological interpretation of events. Tragedies and wars are understood as "the loud utterances of the Most High, by which [He] calls us to Himself, and turns us from crooked and ruinous paths onto the path of eternal salvation." The clergy saw the causes of misfortune in Christians' forgetting God, in their lack of gratitude to the Lord, who had already on numerous occasions delivered the Fatherland from "the sea of calamities and upheavals." Yet having obtained prosperity, ungrateful Christians, like the sinners of the Old Testament, quickly forgot the One who had granted them peace. They fell back into sin and thereby forfeited God's gifts. The only way to recover what had been lost was repentance: "If we turn wholeheartedly to God, forsaking the paths of iniquity, then God too... will turn to us with all His mercies." Thus, the meaning of calamities is that each person should examine his own conscience and not neglect the prayer of thanksgiving.
According to Countess R. S. Edling, it was precisely in the tragic days of the summer and early autumn of 1812 — when Alexander I had experienced the alienation of the people and the incomprehension and condemnation of the nobility — that he turned seriously to the Bible for the first time and gradually transformed from a man of divided faith into a Christian mystic.
Christian ideas also permeate the writings dedicated to the emperor's coronation. The monarchical idea is inconceivable without its religious foundation. One of the typical themes of sermons is Christ's injunction to render unto God what is God's and unto Caesar what is Caesar's, interpreted as Divine sanction for monarchy: "The power and rights of Caesar are God's." Sermons frequently contain elaborate reflections on the meaning of monarchy. One such example is found in the "Word on the Coronation" by Bishop Augustin of Dmitrov. He writes that man was created by the Creator for society, but people, divided by opinions, desires, passions, the confusion of tongues, living in a world "where no one hears the voice of his neighbor," without a single ruler "would cease to build the city and would scatter across the face of the whole earth." Alas, "this truth has been attested by the experience of all ages." Therefore necessity itself compelled men to submit their will to the will of one man, whose vocation is to care for the common welfare. Thus, "in order to live in heaven, man must submit to God — in order to live also on earth, he must without fail submit to the Tsar and obey His laws completely." A people that rejects monarchy treads an extremely dangerous path: "Mounds of bones cover the land of those who philosophized without faith in God and without reverence before the sacred Autocracy... The desire to be free in one's passions, like a whirlwind, sweeps along a whole depraved people, and casts it down before whoever has managed to flatter its passions..."
In this context, coronation acquires special significance and takes on a mystical meaning: "It is folly to think that the royal insignia are a vain invention of human vanity — they are the symbol of the bond between the Tsar and God."
The victory over Napoleon provides a splendid occasion for developing ideas of this kind. In postwar addresses and sermons, Alexander I appears as a pious tsar who has defeated an impious one: "Alexander fights for Faith against unbelief, for virtue against vice,... for sincerity against treachery..., for holiness against impiety." According to the anonymous author in Son Otechestva, the Russian emperor "has earned the title of the solace of the human race." "In him God has risen and His enemies have been scattered," the journalist concludes without hesitation. He does not scruple to apply to a mortal man the words of the prayer "Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered." Panegyrics of this kind already seemed immodest to the emperor, who was inclined toward mysticism. It was precisely they that prompted the Decree of 17 October 1817 "On the clergy's refraining from rendering praise to the Emperor in their addresses." As a result of this Decree, praise of Alexander became more restrained in the final years of his reign.
The coronation days of monarchs were not marked by the building of churches, but, like other Tsar's Days, they were frequently associated with important events in the life of the capital. Thus, on 15 September 1811, Kazan Cathedral was consecrated and the members of the commission overseeing its construction were rewarded.
In nineteenth-century Russia, holidays were not only days of awards but also occasions for mercy — and so they were frequently marked by "clemency toward the fallen." One example is the decree of amnesty for Lithuanians who had crossed over to Napoleon's side during the war, signed by Alexander I on 12 December 1812 in Vilna, directly at the ball celebrating his birthday.
Donations to churches on Alexander I's birthday were also not uncommon. On 12 December 1815 the emperor presented Kazan Cathedral with liturgical gold vessels he had ordered in Paris as a "memorial to faith that conquers the world."
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, several churches dedicated to Bishop Spyridon of Trimythous appeared in St. Petersburg — a saint deeply venerated in ancient Rus (especially in Novgorod) but little known in eighteenth-century Russia. The consecration of churches in his honor belongs exclusively to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. This is explained by the fact that the emperor's birthday coincided with the church's commemoration of St. Spyridon. The construction of churches of St. Spyridon is also linked to Alexander I in the same way that the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral is linked to Peter I. Several churches bore the name of this holy bishop. They were dedicated to him as follows:
- a house church at the Department of Appanages (consecrated in 1808, architect A. N. Voronikhin);
- a house church at the Elizabethan School (corner of the 13th Line of Vasilyevsky Island and Bolshoy Prospekt V.O., 36), established in 1816 at the school, which was under the patronage of Empress Elizaveta Alekseyevna. The creation of the church to mark the emperor's birthday was evidently a gift from the empress to her husband;
- a church at the infirmary of the Life-Guard Finnish Regiment (Bolshoy Prospekt V.O., 65, architect A. E. Shtaubert), built in 1820;
- a church (from 1858, a cathedral) at the Admiralty (architect O. R. de Montferrand), founded by command of Alexander I on 7 June 1821 as a temporary church for the parishioners of the Isaakiyevsky Cathedral, then under construction.
Records survive concerning the founding of the last of the churches listed above, from which it is clear that its dedication was directly connected with Alexander I's birthday. The establishment of the church was entrusted to the commission overseeing the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, whose members (M. A. Miloradovich, Agustín de Betancourt) petitioned the emperor "to consecrate this church on that day unforgettable for Russia — the birthday of Your Imperial Majesty — and, so that the reverence for Your august person, which inspires these feelings, may be dedicated forever in the people as well, to name this church in the name of St. Spyridon..." The commission's petition was granted on 10 December 1821. The church was consecrated on 12 December.
The "high solemn days" in honor of the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna played no smaller a role in the religious life of St. Petersburg, in works of mercy and charitable giving. Perhaps no member of the imperial house in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century took the question of public assistance to the "needy" as seriously as she did. With her direct participation or under her patronage, new educational and welfare institutions were created and hospitals were opened. Naturally, Maria Fyodorovna sought to mark her own name day with acts of charity. For instance, on 22 July 1904 she donated 10,000 rubles to the Office of Public Assistance. The interest on this sum (approximately 600 rubles) was distributed annually, on the empress's name day, to six young women of modest means — three daughters of "lower military servants" and three townswomen. The significance of the name day in the empress's charitable activities is underscored by the fact that the book by G. I. Villamov devoted to her philanthropy ends with the precise date of its completion — 22 July 1829.
The charitable work of the Dowager Empress is the central theme of compositions written in honor of her "high solemn days." Maria Fyodorovna appears as a model of "piety and virtue" (Archimandrite Epifany) and, above all, of "mercy and love for mankind" (Archimandrite Irinarh). Noteworthy is the address by Metropolitan Feofylakt Rusanov, which contains reflections on charitable giving in general. The church hierarch reveals a rational approach to the problem. He heartily approves that the activities of Maria Fyodorovna are concentrated more on "kindling a love of labor" than on "giving shelter to all without distinction of age, merit, or conduct." In essence, the point is that the institutions created by the empress give those in need the opportunity to receive an education and a trade so that they may subsequently support themselves. Full maintenance is provided only to those who, owing to age or health, are unable to work. Effusive praise is almost entirely absent from Feofylakt's "Word," but he calls upon the entire Russian people always to remember works of mercy and notes that the deeds of the empress "beyond sustaining feelings of philanthropy, also teach that not only does the hand of the giver not grow poor, but even poverty itself comes to a state of being a burden and vexation to no one."
Another theme of praise for the empress on her name day is her motherhood. Often, in extolling the merits of the empress-mother, authors overstep the bounds of propriety, comparing and likening her to the Mother of God: "The Lord made her blessed among women in that from her there shone forth the heart of righteousness." K. Urusova resorts to comparisons no less questionable:
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O Tender Mother! Woman blest! Thou bearest that holy name of the wife K. Urusova
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- Not only are such texts — flattery without measure or tact — a grave disservice to their subject, but they also bear witness to the forgetting of the spirit of the Gospel, replaced by an official interpretation of faith. Strictly speaking, this is outright blasphemy, clothed in monarchical form. Yet panegyrics of this kind also have a thoroughly pragmatic basis. The meaning of the immoderate praise of Maria Fyodorovna's motherhood becomes clearer when one recalls the difficulties of succession in eighteenth-century Russia. With the birth of eight children to the family of Paul I, this problem was resolved.
- The name days of the Dowager Empress were marked by the construction of churches dedicated to her patron saint — Mary Magdalene. Many of them were consecrated in the charitable institutions under the patronage of Maria Fyodorovna. These churches were:
- the church at the Mariinsky Institute, founded by the empress in 1797. The church was built in 1817, also at Maria Fyodorovna's expense;
- the church at the almshouse for the blind at the Foundling Home beyond the Kalinka Bridge. The almshouse for the blind was established on 30 August 1813, on the name day of Alexander I. Admissions began in 1817, and the church was consecrated on 15 August 1817. In 1822 the church was relocated to the Otto house and reconsecrated on 12 December 1824, on the birthday of Emperor Alexander I;
- the church at the Hospital of Mary Magdalene, whose construction was conceived by Empress Maria Fyodorovna; it was consecrated after her death, on 14 October 1829, the day of her birthday.
Even after Maria Fyodorovna's death, her memory was honored on the day of her name day. On 22 July 1835 a solemn service was held in the Resurrection Cathedral of the Smolny Convent, completed by V. P. Stasov (the initiative to complete the cathedral had belonged to the late empress). The liturgy was attended by Nicholas I and his wife, the court, and more than five thousand pupils from the institutes and cadet corps of St. Petersburg. The cathedral became the church of all educational institutions. From that time Nicholas I established annual commemorations of the empress on her name day. In practice, the requiem was served after vespers on 21 July — at the beginning of the church day of 22 July. In memory of their patroness, the pupils of the Imperial Society of Noble Maidens, the Aleksandrovsky School, the Mariinsky Institute, and the pensioners of the Widows' Home — in all about 1,200 persons — gathered for the service. Thus, the memory of Maria Fyodorovna became forever linked with the day of her name day and with her merits in works of charity.
The "high solemn days" in honor of Empress Elizaveta Alekseyevna were observed modestly, which is easily explained by her difficult and uneven relationship with the emperor. Elizaveta Alekseyevna's financial position — her resources being significantly smaller than those of Maria Fyodorovna — left little room for large-scale charitable activity. Nevertheless, her efforts succeeded in establishing women's educational institutions: the Elizabethan School (founded in 1808) and the Patriotic Institute (founded in 1813 for "orphans of military rank"). Both institutions had house churches: the former in the name of Spyridon of Trimythous, the latter in the name of the Holy Righteous Zacharias and Elizabeth. The church in honor of the empress's patron saint was built in 1817 at the expense of Elizaveta Alekseyevna, who donated 5,506 rubles for its construction.
The moral significance of charitable donations and church-building also received a religious-monarchical interpretation. One of the important themes of addresses delivered on Tsar's Days is the feeling of gratitude owed to the reigning persons in general and to benefactors in particular. "Gratitude is a necessary duty which subjects owe to their Tsars... Let us fulfil these obligations: let us render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," writes Bishop Augustin. The authors invariably emphasize that the help provided by benefactors creates an obligation. "Remember that unlawful deeds will offend... the soul that cares for you," Archimandrite Mefody reminds his audience. Thus, the moral resonance of the "high solemn days" celebrations proves to be far deeper than the celebrations themselves. This occurs chiefly because the holidays are filled with religious meaning.
From the foregoing it is clear that the Tsar's Days exercised a substantial influence on the religious life of St. Petersburg. This influence was expressed in the founding of churches in honor of the patron saints of the highest personages, in charitable giving, and found its echo in the sermons of the church's hierarchs. Through all of this, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities alike sought to emphasize the primacy of Divine grace over all other values. The harsh realities of life and the complexities of human character often introduced very significant corrections to this "ideal" model. Yet the very fact of its existence preserved a hierarchy of values — one that might be departed from, but could not be entirely forgotten.