A Bride for the Tsar: Bride-Shows and Marriage Politics in Early Modern Russia 9781501756658

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A

Bride for the Tsar

FOR THE

TSAR

Bride-shows and Marriage Politics in Early Modern Russia

Russell E. Martin NIU PRESS DeKalb, IL

© 2012 by Northern Illinois University Press

Published by the Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois 60115

All Rights Reserved Design by Julia Fauci

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Martin, Russell, 1963A bride for the Tsar: bride-shows and marriage politics in early modem Russia / Russell E. Martin. pages;

cm

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87580-448-4 (hardcover: alkaline paper) ISBN 978-1-60909-054-8 (electronic)

1. Marriages of royalty and nobility-Russia-History-16th century. 2. Marriages

of royalty and nobility-Russia-History-17th century. 3. Marriages of royalty and nobility-Political aspects-Russia. 4. Bride shows-Russia-History-16th century. 5. Bride shows-Russia-History-17th century. 6. Marriage customs and ritesRussia-History-16th century. 7. Marriage customs and rites-Russia-History17th century. I. Title. GT2756.A2M37 2012 392.5086'210947-dc2 2011043203

Photo section images courtesy ofWikimedia Commons.

CONTENTS Charts and Tables

vu

Acknowledgments

ix

Note on Dates, Names, and Transliteration

Introduction

xu1

3

-1"lt Would Be Best to Marry the Daughter of One of His Subjects" The Origins of the Bride-Show in Muscovy 21

-2"Without Any Regard for Noble Ancestry" Picking a Bride for the Tsar 57

-3"IfYou Marry a Second Time, You Will Have an Evil Child Born to You" Bride-Shows and Muscovite Political Culture 101

-4"To Assuage the Melancholy"-The Many Wives of Ivan IV

130

-5-"Scheming to Be Rid of the Chosen Tsarevna" Conflict and Conspiracy in the Romanov Bride-Shows

167

-6"Worthy because the Tsar Adores You" The Last Bride-Shows and the Return of Foreign-Born Brides Epilogue

203

237

APPENDICES

A-Excerpts from the Chronograph of the Marriages of Tsar Ivan Vasil'evich

247

B-Candidates at the Bride-Shows for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, 16 70~ 1671

250

C-Gifts Given to Candidates in the Bride-Show for Fedor Alekseevich, 1680 D--Genealogies Abbreviations Notes

259

263

Bibliography Index

256

367

331

254

CHARTS AND TABLES

CHARTS

1.1. Five Byzantine Bride-Shows

24

2.1. Kinship Investigation ofOvdot'ia Gundorova, 1547 2.2. Kinship Ties of Seven Bridal Candidates 5.1. Kinship Ties of the Saltykovs

79

84

182

D. l. Select Genealogy of the Daniilovich Dynasty to Ivan III

256

D.2. Select Genealogy of the Daniilovich Dynasty from Ivan III D.3. Select Genealogy of the Romanov Dynasty to Paul I

257

258

TABLES

1.1. Patterns of Dynastic Marriage in Muscovy, Origins of Muscovite Spouses, Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 53 1.2. Bride-Shows in Muscovy, 1505-1689

55-56

2.1. List of Towns Visited by Courtiers to Identify Candidates for the Bride-Show for Ivan IV, December 1546 and January 1547 62-63 2.2. The Backgrounds of Muscovite Royal Consorts 2.3. Remaking the Bride's Identity

86

89

4.1. The Wives oflvan IV and His Sons

160

5.1. The Bride-Shows for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, 1669-1670

197

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The happiest, easiest, and most gratifying part of this project has been to compose these paragraphs thanking the many institutions and people that have assisted me in researching and writing this book. I have received grants from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), and Westminster College (including endowed funds from the Henderson, McCandless, and Watto families), which supported my lengthy and numerous trips to archives in Russia. I am deeply grateful to these agencies and to my employer for their financial support. My interest in Muscovite royal weddings began in the archives when I opened a folder at the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) in Moscow, which contained a jumbled collection of random phrases and bits of unedited text from the ceremonial (svadebnyi chin) for Tsar Mikhail Romanov's first wedding in 1624 (RGADA,fond 135, section IV, rubric II, number 14). The rich and untapped potential of this source was plain to me at first glance, and so I immediately set out to collect every original and early copy of royal wedding documentation I could lay my hands on. I succeeded in finding and handling what I believe is the full corpus of extant original wedding texts thanks to the help of the capable and selfless staff of RGADA, the primary repository for these materials. I acquired a deep affection for this archive-the creaking floorboards, the grooves worn into the stone staircases, the wood and glass cases full of well-worn typed or handwritten inventories, the ubiquitous cats. I found it the most convivial place to work and, just as important, to establish friendships and collaborations with Russian colleagues. I particularly thank Iurii Moiseevich Eskin, Ideia Andreevna Balakaeva, and Svetlana Romanovna Dolgova. I also acknowledge and am grateful for the assistance offered to me by RGADA's former director, the greatly missed Mikhail Petrovich

X

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lukichev, who was taken from us far too soon. I spent many months working in or obtaining materials from other manuscript repositories as well, including the Manuscript Division of the Russian State Library (RGB, Moscow), the State Historical Museum (GIM, Moscow), the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN, Moscow), the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA, St. Petersburg), the Manuscript Division of the Russian National Library (RNB, St. Petersburg), the Library of the Academy of Sciences (BAN, St. Petersburg), the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers, and Communications Forces (VIMAIViVS, St. Petersburg), and the Iaroslav' Regional Library (IaOB, Iaroslav'). I thank the professional staffs of all these institutions, who offered me assistance and advice happily, efficiently, and unstintingly. Many others-colleagues, friends, and family-also played a role in the completion of this project, and I hasten to add their names to this tabula gratiarum. I must thank first and foremost my dear friend Boris Nikolaevich Morozov (Archeographical Commission, Moscow), who lent me his time and expertise again and again over the course of many years. If there is anything new and useful in this book, it is because of his unmatched familiarity with the archives and his willingness to share, advise, encourage, and assist. Ol'ga Evgen'evna Kosheleva (RGADA) has also been for many years a dear and esteemed friend, whose sound advice, expertise with archival materials, critical eye, and sense of humor I have come to rely upon during my research on this and many other projects. Others in various ways also lent me their advice and assistance, for which I am deeply grateful: Nancy Shields Kollmann, Sergei Bogatyrev, Michael Flier, Daniel Rowland, Chester Dunning, Charles Halperin, David Goldfrank, Robert Crummey, Aleksei Ivanovich Alekseev, Vladislav Dmitreevich Nazarov, Andrei Pavlovich Pavlov, lurii Vladimirovich Ankhimiuk, Irina Aleksandrovna Voznesenskaia, Ludwig Steindorff, Jennifer Spock, Marina Swoboda, Ernest Zitser, Marshall Poe, Orysia Karapinka, A. Dwight Castro, Bryan Rennie, Connie Davis, Eric Forster, Nathan Carlin, Jillian Maniscarco, Sandra Webster, Robert Monyak, John Deegan, Brien Horan, and of blessed memory, Richard Hellie and Oscar Remick. I also thank Amy Farrauto and Susan Bean of Northern Illinois University Press, whose professionalism and skill have made the entire experience of producing this book an utter pleasure. This project plainly displays the influence of two of my intellectual mentors. The first is Edward Keenan, with whom I worked as a gradu-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

XI

ate student and whose ideas about power and political culture continue to influence my own thinking about the way Muscovy worked. Ned's provocative heresies have inspired and emboldened me to make my own venturesome claims about court politics in Muscovy; and while he may not agree with every argument advanced in the pages that follow, I hope this work meets his own high standards of erudition. The other is Donald Ostrowski. Our hours at Peet's Coffee House in Harvard Square discussing early Russian history have been among my most satisfying intellectual experiences since leaving Harvard fifteen years ago. During one of these intense sessions, Don suggested: "You've done so much on bride-shows, why don't you just write a book about them?" I had not thought to pull together the many strands of my thinking into a focused book-length work until that moment, but I was hard at work on it within hours of that meeting. I am grateful for Don's constant support and advice over the years, but mostly for his generous and warm friendship. I am hardly the only one who has benefited from his advice and encouragement, but I am among the most grateful for it. Finally, but most importantly, I thank my children, Alexandra, Peter, and Juliana, and my wife, Sarah Kellogg. They have tolerated several years of my blinkered devotion to this book, which, for practical purposes, has meant sequestering myself in my office to work at odd times of the day and night, on weekends, and during family and other holidays. Their patience has enabled every word and idea in the pages that follow. To my children, I offer my heartfelt thanks and earnest promise to emerge more often from my walled-off office. To my wife, Sarah, I dedicate this book and offer the words of the bard: "I would not wish// Any companion in the world but you" (The Tempest, 3.1.54-55).

NOTES ON DATES, NAMES, AND TRANSLITERATION

Dates cited in this book are drawn from the manuscript sources upon which this study is predominantly based, which reflect the use of the Julian calendar in Russia during the early modern period (and up until 1918). That calendar numbered years from the traditional date for the creation of the world-5508 B.C.-and ran from September 1 to August 31. These dates are in this book normally converted from anno mundi to anno domini. On occasions when the day and month were not indicated in the sources, these conversions are presented with a slash: for example, 7083 (the year Ivan IV married for the fifth time) is rendered 1574/75. The sources themselves also dictate the format of names in this book. Variant spellings of names are preserved, as are patronymics, which varied based on the social rank of the individual. The highest ranking servitors had patronymics in "-ovich" (for males) and "-ovna" (for females), as all Russians have today. Lesser servitors had patronymics in syn and eBpaJI51 B 10 .z:i;eHh ,l],yMHOro )],B0p51HMHa 3aMHTHH e.z:i;opoBMqa JleoHTbeBa )],0qb OB.[10Tb51, l1BaHa e.z:i;opoBa cbma Hall.(OKMHa .JJ,oqb Mapb51, I! (JI. 5 06.) K11p11JI0Ba .JJ,0'-lh HapbIIIIKMHa HaTaJihH, 2 AH.JJ,peeBa .JJ,0'-lh He3HaHoBa ,l],aph51. q>eBpam1 B 11 .JJ,eHb e.JJ,opoBa .JJ,oqb EponKMHa AHHa, l1BaHoBa .z:i;o'-lh MoTOBMJIOBa Mapcpa. q>eBpam1 B 27 .z:i;eHb BacttJiheBa .JJ,oqb Konb1q0Ba Mapq>a, l1JihMHa .z:i;oqb IlonoBaHoBa Maph51, l1BaHoBa .z:i;o'-lh PocTonqMHa Oq>HMh51, II

252

APPENDIX B

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APPENDIX C

255