Mutiny in Moscow, 1682

Three hundred years ago, in May 1682, a bloody riot in the Russian capital claimed the lives of eighteen notables and several dozen commoners. The affray was instigated by certain detachments of musketeers, or streFtsy, who with their supporters among other bodies of troops numbered about 15,000 men. The outbreak is best considered in the context of the military service which they rendered. It was a violent protest against abuses of the kind soldiers throughout Europe were exposed to at the time, which often triggered similar mutinies.1 The unusual brutality shown on this occasion (e.g., the mutilation of victims' bodies) may be explained by Muscovite Russia's cultural isolation and backwardness. The strel'tsy shared the fiercely traditionalist outlook of the common folk as a whole. Superstitious veneration of the sacrosanct person of the monarch was coupled with deep distrust of those privileged elements who stood between throne and people, particularly if they were of alien origin or faith. The strel'tsy also shared the belief in magic common in seventeenth-century Europe. All these traits need to be borne in mind if one is to explain satisfactorily why they behaved as they did during the riot and why their action brought no lasting alleviation in their lot.2 Earlier historians neglected the men's service grievances and concentrated on the mutiny's implications for court politics. It was generally considered to have been engineered by partisans of the Miloslavskii clan, which achieved predominance as a result of it and kept the rival Naryshkin faction at bay until 1689, when the regent Sofia Alekseevna was overthrown by her half-brother Peter I. This interpretation, which buttressed the legitimacy of the progeny of Aleksei's second marriage, to Natal'ia Naryshkina, was energetically promoted by Peter himself. He considered Sofia a usurper of the autocratic power, execrated the memory of Ivan M. Miloslavskii, whom he held primarily responsible for the plot, and in 1698 wrought a terrible vengeance upon the entire strel'tsy corps. There is, however, no reliable evidence of the Miloslavskiis' involvement; the case against them is circumstantial and rests on inference and gossip. Close

Ancient history · Mutiny · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought

• Canadian Publications on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for 1981

  Mary Stevens•Canadian Slavonic Papers•1982

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