Threads of Empire

Loyalty and Tsarist Authority in Bashkiria, 1552–1917

Charles Steinwedel

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780253019264
• eBook ISBN:
  9780253019332
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A history and analysis of Bashkiria and its transformation into a Russian imperial region of the course of three and a half centuries.
Threads of Empire examines how Russia's imperial officials and intellectual elites made and maintained their authority among the changing intellectual and political currents in Eurasia from the mid-sixteenth century to the revolution of 1917. The book focuses on a region 750 miles east of Moscow known as Bashkiria. The region was split nearly evenly between Russian and Turkic language speakers, both nomads and farmers. Ufa province at Bashkiria's core had the largest Muslim population of any province in the empire. The empire's leading Muslim official, the mufti, was based there, but the region also hosted a Russian Orthodox bishop. Bashkirs and peasants had different legal status, and powerful Russian Orthodox and Muslim nobles dominated the peasant estate. By the twentieth century, industrial mining and rail commerce gave rise to a class structure of workers and managers. Bashkiria thus presents a fascinating case study of empire in all its complexities and of how the tsarist empire's ideology and categories of rule changed over time.
"An original and well-researched study of the incorporation of the Bashkir lands and their transformation into a Russian imperial region over the course of three and a half centuries. Steinwedel argues that the history of Bashkiria exposes a number of the empire's achievements as a multiethnic society. . . . He draws out both important shifts and abiding continuities in the history of the region [and] by employing a multi-dimensional approach, covering a range of intersecting topics, provides a fuller appreciation for the region. He also does a nice job pointing out the useful commonalities and differences between the Bashkir lands and other parts of the empire, making a compelling case for Bashkiria's importance for understanding larger processes." —Willard Sunderland, author of Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe
"With its solid grounding in Russian archival and printed sources and its sophisticated comparative approach, Steinwedel's work will serve as a point of departure for historians of the Russian Empire, and will become a book of reference for any future study of empires in global history." — American Historical Review
"[Steinwedel's] book is both a skilful exercise in local and regional history, and an important contribution to the history of Imperial Russia as a whole." — Slavonic and East European Review

1

STEPPE EMPIRE

1552–1730

THE CONQUEST OF Bashkiria marked Moscow’s emergence as a steppe empire, one that governed steppe nomads as previous empires and its Eurasian rivals did, by developing different systems of administration for sedentary and nomadic peoples. The contrast in systems became clear after 1552, when Ivan IV’s army conquered the Kazan Khanate. The 1550s were a difficult time in Bashkiria according to many Bashkir chronicles.¹ Harsh winters and floods cut the size of herds and harvests, leaving many people hungry.² Even before Moscow conquered Kazan, conflict strained Bashkir relations with the Nogai Horde, a larger tribal confederation that had dominated Bashkiria’s south since the mid-fifteenth century. Disagreements with the khan of Kazan provoked violence and caused some Bashkir clans to support Moscow instead of Kazan.³ With Ivan IV’s triumph, the Nogai Horde splintered. Many Nogais who had supported Kazan fled to the southwest and left their lands empty.⁴ Parts of the Bashkir elite, seeking to take Nogai land and prevent the Nogais’ return, turned to Ivan IV as a new “khan” who had assumed the title “Tsar of Kazan.”⁵ In return, the tsar’s men promised Bashkir clans that they would interfere little in Bashkir life if the clans submitted to Muscovy. According to the Karagai-Kypchak chronicle, Ivan declared: “Let no one run away as the Nogai ran away, having abandoned their iurts (tents) and having left their land behind. Let everyone preserve his faith [and] observe his customs.”⁶ Russian sources generally echo Bashkir chronicles. In 1553, according to the Nikon chronicle, Ivan IV sent to every district (ulus) surrounding Kazan documents stating that there was nothing to fear. The new sovereign wanted all to pay iasak, a tax or tribute, just as they had paid it to the “former tsar of Kazan.”⁷

Although many scholars have emphasized Bashkirs’ “voluntary joining” with the Muscovite state, most Bashkirs did not feel that they had much of a choice.⁸ According to the Iurmat chronicle, Tatigach, the clan’s bei, went to Kazan to swear allegiance because he was “unable to think of anything else” when faced with pressure from Moscow and the Nogais.⁹ Bashkir leaders apparently believed that neither custom nor their own military forces would allow them to take over the land of the departed Nogais.¹⁰ So, beginning in the mid-1550s, first Bashkir clan elders in Bashkiria’s northwest and then those in Bashkiria’s south and east journeyed to Kazan, where they “bowed their heads” to the tsar, now called the Ak Bii, the “White Bei,” and became his “slaves.”¹¹ Ivan IV became padishakh, the Persian word for “king” or “shah.” Bashkirs agreed to pay iasak.¹² Some Bashkir chronicles specifically mention that their clans received charters registering their land with Muscovite authorities. The Nikon chronicle states simply that Bashkirs, “having bowed,” paid iasak.¹³ Muscovite rule moved beyond defensive lines and Kazan’s settled population onto the open steppe.

By contrast, Moscow’s conquest of Kazan, which preceded events in Bashkiria, was much more dramatic and bloody. Moscow and Kazan had long been rivals who often negotiated and sometimes fought. In the fall of 1552, Ivan IV led a massive army that attacked and lay siege to the city of Kazan. After a stand-off lasting several weeks, Muscovite forces undermined and destroyed Kazan’s main tower on September 4; they demolished its other fortifications a month later.¹⁴ After the siege, much of Kazan’s male population was put to death, and the khanate’s elite was forced to convert to Russian Orthodoxy and exiled to the empire’s interior. Mosques were destroyed and replaced by churches. Muslim Tatars were pushed out of the city’s core to a low-lying space outside the city walls or exiled to the countryside. Moscow Metropolitan Makarii led the Russian Orthodox Church’s effort to present the conquest as a victory for church and dynasty, overseen by God.¹⁵ Ivan IV commissioned the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat, also known as St. Basil’s Cathedral, on Red Square in 1555 to commemorate his victory.¹⁶ The conquest also produced one of the most revered icons in the Russian Orthodox tradition, the Kazan Mother of God, which appeared in 1579.¹⁷ The Church created a new archbishopric in Kazan, which became one of the most influential in Muscovy.

The harshest treatment of the city was relatively short-lived. Forced conversions largely ceased by about 1555. As Matthew Romaniello has shown, the dramatic defeat of the khan did not restructure life for most of his former subjects, and Muscovite control of the territory took over a century to realize.¹⁸ Many Muslims converted and entered the tsar’s service. Many others, however, served but did not convert while still holding high positions at court and in the military and receiving land and Christian serfs.¹⁹ Nonetheless, the elimination of the khan, the destruction of much of the city and its elite, and the construction of churches instead of mosques at the city center marked a major change in the political landscape. Kazan’s conquest has come to be seen as the beginning of the Russian Empire.

Conquest of Bashkiria’s primarily nomadic populations had different meanings for Moscow than did the conquest of Kazan’s sedentary population. No cathedrals commemorated Bashkirs’ oaths of allegiance to Moscow. When Bashkir elders transferred their loyalty to the “White Bei,” Ivan IV inserted himself into a set of relationships in a manner quite consistent with previous practices. Muscovite rule of Bashkiria greatly resembled that of its predecessors in nomenclature of administration, in taxation, and in military service.²⁰ From a Bashkir perspective, Muscovite rule may well have been preferred to that of the Nogais, who were not Chinggisid, did not have legitimacy as such, and had shown little respect for the governing practices of the Kypchak Khanate that preceded the Nogais. Muscovite forces even occupied many of the same spaces as Kazan and Nogai administrations. With the passage of time, however, Muscovite administrative practices gradually and often unintentionally changed the region and Bashkirs’ status within the empire. Muscovite promises of land for payment of iasak became codified as votchina rights, what I will refer to as “hereditary landholding,” and prevented Bashkirs from being enserfed—a process much of Russia’s peasant population experienced in the seventeenth century.²¹ Bashkiria continued to be organized in dorogas (Turkic daruġa); native elites were appointed tarkhans and served the Muscovite military in lieu of tax payments. The practice of Islam was not hindered. A combination of land rights and reduced taxation gave Bashkirs privileged status within the empire, drew people to Bashkiria, and created an increasingly diverse population there. The extension of the tsar’s sovereignty to Bashkiria represents a variant of “bargained incorporation” that Karen Barkey analyzes in the Ottoman case.²² Rather than using force first as in Kazan, Moscow negotiated Bashkir subordination. Bashkirs sought to work with Moscow in order to gain land from and protection against the Nogais, and Moscow was happy to gain authority in Bashkiria with little commitment of men and material. The swearing of allegiance reflected the interests of Bashkirs and of Moscow’s rulers, even if some Bashkir elites felt they had little choice. Certainly, the two sides were not equal. Playing a relatively weaker hand, Bashkirs took to arms when they thought the empire was reneging on its side of the bargain. The case of Bashkiria did not become paradigmatic; instead, it indicates the flexible and varied nature of Muscovite expansion, which was persistent but lacked system and consistency.

BOWING TO THE WHITE BEI

The residents of Bashkiria had long been subjects of one power on the steppe or another and often several at once. Taking an oath to the tsar meant that Bashkirs were shifting allegiances as they had done before. Even before 1552, as Edward Keenan and others have pointed out, Muscovy was “an integral part” of the world of the steppe, both economically and politically.²³ A complex diplomacy characterized Muscovy’s relations with three political entities to its east and south: the Khanates of Kazan and Crimea, the leaders of which claimed descent from Chinggis Khan, and the Nogai Horde, centered in what is now northern Kazakhstan. All three emerged from the ruins of the Kypchak Khanate in the late fourteenth century. The struggle for position among these steppe powers motivated Ivan IV to lead his armies against Kazan in 1552. Bashkir clans of the Volga-Urals region played only a supporting role in the conflicts among the larger political entities. Regardless of whether Bashkirs lived closer to Kazan and paid tribute to that khan, lived in the south and paid tribute to the Nogai Horde, or lived in or east of the Ural Mountains and paid tribute to the Siberian khan, they had to pay someone. The collection of iasak was the key to asserting sovereignty.²⁴ In exchange for iasak and supporting their suzerain militarily, Bashkirs received the right to use land, which was considered under the control of the respective khan or ruler, and, in principle, protection from others who might threaten their land, lives, or possessions.²⁵ Clans living in the west and northwest of Bashkiria had paid tribute to the khan of Kazan, so their swearing of allegiance to Ivan IV followed fairly quickly after Ivan’s triumph. Clans located farther from Kazan in the central, southern, or southeastern parts of Bashkiria had paid tribute to the Nogai Horde. Their oaths to Ivan IV followed in the years 1555–1557. Bashkir clans farther east and further from Moscow’s influence turned to Muscovite authority after Moscow decisively defeated the Siberian khan in 1598. Notably, Bashkir leaders swore allegiance to the tsar as individual representatives of a clan, not collectively. The clan leader typically received tarkhan status, and sometimes another clan leader became an elder (starosta).²⁶

The new relationship between Bashkirs and Ivan IV demonstrated substantial continuity in terminology and practices. The vocabulary of administration remained mostly the same. The Kypchak Khanate had appointed officials, called daruġas, who seem to have been heads of administrative units and whose primary responsibility was tax collection. Under the Kazan Khanate, the word seems to have shifted in meaning from a person to the territory he administered.²⁷ In the second half of the sixteenth century, tsarist officials divided Bashkiria into four dorogas: the central and southern portions of Bashkiria lay in Nogai Doroga, the east and northeast lay in Siberian Doroga; the north-central portion lay in Osinsk Doroga, and the west and northwest lay in Kazan Doroga.²⁸ This nomenclature remained until the late eighteenth century. Russians took the word “volost” that identified the administrative unit below the doroga from the Turkic word ulus, which meant the same thing. As we might expect from a semi-nomadic population often on the move, the primary attachment of Bashkirs was to a particular leader of the volost, rather than to a territory.²⁹

MAP 1.1. Bashkiria in the seventeenth century.

Similarities in language reflected similarities in practice. As Bulat Aznabaev indicates, Bashkirs accepted Ivan IV’s sovereignty in the same manner that they swore loyalty to the Kypchak Khanate or its successor khans. Bashkirs travelled to the capital of their sovereign, and their emissaries brought gifts for the new ruler. The ruler’s representatives conferred privileged status, here tarkhan status, on the heads of Bashkir clans just as the Kypchak Khans had; and the tsar’s men conferred particular lands on Bashkirs, as the Kypchak Khanate’s rulers had. The payment of tribute and the provision of military servitors protected Bashkirs’ use of the land. Those who paid and served became hereditary landowners.³⁰ Land was not the private property of individual Bashkirs, and the state could limit the alienation of the land. Collectively, however, Bashkirs could use their land as they desired. Religious differences played very little role in Russian-Bashkir relations. This, too, had precedents on the steppe. The Mongols, in the words of one scholar, were “situationally tolerant.” As long as local religious institutions did not lead resistance to Mongol rule, the Mongols accepted these religious institutions and in some cases granted them privileges.³¹ For the most part, the Muscovite government continued this practice in Bashkiria. Not even those attacks on Islam characteristic of Kazan reached the region.³²

Continuities between Bashkir sovereigns before and after the 1550s extended to physical space, too. Until the early eighteenth century, tsarist authority remained largely within the spatial bounds established by previous sovereigns. Bashkir interests and landholding conditioned the introduction of a Muscovite military-administrative presence. In 1573, Bashkirs petitioned the tsar for a fortress in Bashkiria itself. They argued that paying iasak in the city of Kazan, two hundred miles to Bashkiria’s west, was burdensome. They also sought to bring Muscovite military forces closer to their lands so that Moscow could better protect them against the Nogais, who refused to accept Bashkirs’ defection to Moscow. Shortly thereafter, in 1586, work began on a new garrison town named Ufa well beyond Moscow’s fortified line at the Kama River. The tsar’s men literally followed in the footsteps of their Nogai predecessors—the tsar’s military governor (voevoda) in Ufa took the place of the Nogai governor. Ufa itself was located near the intersection of the Belaia and Dema Rivers, where a Nogai fortress had stood as a tax collection point.³³ The Russian administration remained reluctant to infringe on Bashkir land ownership well after Ufa’s founding. The tsar largely limited the distribution of service lands (pomest’e) in Bashkiri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Steppe Empire, 1552–1730
• 2 Absolutism and Empire, 1730–1775
• 3 Empire of Reason, 1773–1855
• 4 Participatory Empire, 1855–1881
• 5 The Empire and the Nation, 1881–1904
• 6 Empire in Crisis, 1905–1907
• 7 Empire, Nations, and Multinational Visions, 1907–1917
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index