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Y210: Russia 1645–1741

Russia 1645–1698: Feodor, Sophia’s regency and Peter’s early reign

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on mestnichestvo and Feodor III, the crisis of 1682 and the Streltsi, Sophia’s regency and Golitsyn, Peter’s upbringing and character, his seizure of power in 1689, the Azov campaigns and the Grand Embassy.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Who and when

What part did the Streltsi play in 1682?

Numbers

How did Peter come to power in 1689?

Numbers

What was Golitsyn's standing under the regency?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was mestnichestvo, and why was it abolished?

    Model answer

    It was the system by which appointments had to respect the relative precedence of noble families, producing endless disputes and preventing able men from being promoted; Feodor III abolished it in 1682 and had the precedence books burned so that office could follow merit and the tsar's choice.

  2. 2

    Summarise what Feodor III achieved in his short reign.

    Model answer

    Ruling from 1676 to 1682 despite chronic ill health, he simplified taxation into a single household levy, reorganised parts of the administration and army, patronised western learning at court, and abolished mestnichestvo.

  3. 3

    How did the crisis of 1682 begin?

    Model answer

    Feodor died childless, and the choice between his healthy half-brother Peter and his disabled full brother Ivan split the Naryshkin and Miloslavsky court factions, which then appealed to the Moscow garrison.

  4. 4

    What part did the Streltsi play in 1682?

    Model answer

    The Moscow musketeers, angry over pay and their officers and stirred up by the Miloslavskys, stormed the Kremlin and murdered leading Naryshkins, forcing the compromise by which Peter and Ivan were proclaimed joint tsars with Sophia as regent.

  5. 5

    How did Sophia govern as regent?

    Model answer

    Sophia ruled from 1682 to 1689 in the name of the two boy tsars, working through her favourite Vasily Golitsyn, keeping the Streltsi quiet after the Khovanshchina, allowing limited religious toleration for foreigners, and seeking prestige through the Eternal Peace with Poland and campaigns against the Crimea.

  6. 6

    What was Golitsyn's standing under the regency?

    Model answer

    Vasily Golitsyn was Sophia's chief minister and closest ally, a cultivated westerniser who negotiated the Eternal Peace of 1686, but whose failed Crimean expeditions destroyed the regency's reputation with the army and the Boyars.

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