In 1478 the duchy of Moscow conquered Novgorod and established the tsardom of Russia in 1547. During the middle ages however, there were a lot of states to Novgorod's south. Including but not limited too: Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Volhynia, Halych, Polotsk, Smolensk, and Ryazan. Was there any possibility for any of these states to found Russia instead or was Moscow just too powerful to overcome?
PC: Alternate Russian Unifiers
- Thread starter Kaiser Tito
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- rus russia tsar tsardom of russia
Vladimir was OTL unifier: the princes of Moscow had been the Great Princes of Vladimir (top rank in the Russian hierarchy) since mid-XIV. 😉
Who are the best candidates for a Ukraine based Russia (probably Kiev but still checking)?
Also with the exception of Novgorod was Russia inevitably going to freeze social mobility for the serfs or was that tyranny unique to Moscow?
Also with the exception of Novgorod was Russia inevitably going to freeze social mobility for the serfs or was that tyranny unique to Moscow?
I think that Kiev is the only realistic candidate from the Ukraine, othe cities like Presmysel were too much to the west to affectively rule Russia.
And the treatment of the serfs was more to do with a unique combination of soil type and technology that made serfdom just more economical in eastren Europe then in the west.
Another unifier that many times pops in these threads is Lithuania, which was at least half slavic at that time.
So does the soil/tech make the serfdom policy inevitable or was there anyone who could go "Maybe we shouldn't be treating the poor as livestock"?
Also how much of a chance did specifically Smolensk have?
Tver. The princes of Tver fought for a long time with those of Moscow for supreme power.
Moscow's victory was not determined. So we could see not Muscovy, but Tveria.
Another real opportunity was with the Grand Duchy of Lithuanians and Russians. However, the Lithuanians eventually chose a course of rapprochement with the Poles, not the Russians.
Novgorod was too sparsely populated and too decentralized to defeat the despotic Muscovy. In this regard, the defeat of Novgorod is determined.
Moscow's victory was not determined. So we could see not Muscovy, but Tveria.
Another real opportunity was with the Grand Duchy of Lithuanians and Russians. However, the Lithuanians eventually chose a course of rapprochement with the Poles, not the Russians.
Novgorod was too sparsely populated and too decentralized to defeat the despotic Muscovy. In this regard, the defeat of Novgorod is determined.
100 %. This is the late Middle Ages. Almost all countries used quitrent and serfdom, the feudal system was based on this.
Unfortunately, Novgorod had no chance of winning (small population + it was a merchant city, it did not have a developed army system like Muscovy). His defeat was predetermined.
Well they could do that, but it's not in human nature not to maximize profits.. maybe if the tech (I think it was a new kind of plow or something) was delayed so the serf system is abolished before it becomes really profitable.
Rusia dominated by non-Russian Lithuanian elite would become incredible instable at least when nationalism begin to rise.
Lithiuanian elite would Russify the way they Polonized otl several centuries before that became an issue. The break with the Cossacks would also probably not happen.
I'd say it was fortunate for Russia than Novogorod lost, Poland had "republican" system and did it benefit Poles? Not at all, it wasted one of the few chances Poles had to become European great power.
I don't know how Novgorodian administrative system worked but one of biggesxt problems of Polish administrtative system was that every member of Sejm had veto right meaning that one member could effectively stop any legistature even if other members of Sejm would had agreed. This effectively paralysed Poland-Lithuania.
Servitude lasted into the 19th century in parts of Central and Western Europe, too. What made Russia's special was, beyond the difference of a few decades, which in already fast transformative times like the 19th century meant a lot, the omnipresence of it. And that was due to the continent-wide division of labour between West and East in Europe which predated the industrial revolution (but of course made the latter's occurrence in the West a lot more likely): while the West produced and exported technologically advanced stuff, the East produced and exported agricultural goods. Not exclusively, of course, but the tendencies were clear. And THIS division of labour, in turn, was the result of higher urbanity in the West than in the East. Higher urbanity in the West, in turn, had many reasons and deep historical roots, but one major historical turning point which threw back the East by centuries in terms of urbanity was the Mongol wars which affected the East but not the West.
So, if you want fewer peasants in the East who enjoy greater rights and become citizens of modern republican states earlier than IOTL, your best bet is No Mongol Invasions. Now, geographically Eastern Europe consists of and borders the wide open steppe, so some sort of steppe invasion is inevitable. But that's not the same - there had been incursions from the steppe before the Mongols, lots of them, but none of them brought forth consequences comparable to the Mongols. (Well, maybe the Huns, but that's difficult to judge, and anyway almost a millennium earlier.)
Avoiding Muscovite tsarist autocracy doesn't do the trick. Serfdom wasn't any better in the PLC, for example. And, on the other hand, absolutist France liberated its peasants from servitude at least on the "domaine royale" already ten years before the Revolution.
Serfdom is pretty much a post-unification phenomena which had little to do with a quality of soil and a lot with the military system introduced by Ivan III. Being an “unifier”, he switched from the old system based upon the military bands of the vassal princes to a new one in which all nobility was serving directly to the government in exchange for the land grants (with the peasants). From the received incomes the owners had to raise the armed band of a prescribed size. The peasants still had certain rights including the right to leave to another land owner, which was giving the big land owners advantages because they could give the better terms. Which was negatively impacting the minor nobility, the main military force of the Muscovite state so this right was revoked by Tsar Boris. The screw had been gradually tightened with the system pretty much finalized by Peter I who forced all nobility to serve in the army all the time (full control of the peasants was a bonus) and reaching its strongest point during the reign of CII who was doing everything possible to guarantee nobility’s support.
Too close to the border.