The Moscow Strel’tsy in the Dynastic Crisis of 1689

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the role of the Moscow strel’tsy (musketeer) regiments in the dynastic crisis of 1689, which led Peter I to assume real power in Russia. Contrary to the stereotypical understanding of the strel’tsy as loyal supporters of Sophia, their position was, in fact, more complicated. Fully aware of their mutiny’s futility and having just returned from the unfortunate Crimean campaigns, the strel’tsy hardly sympathized with Sophia, the initiator and culprit of repressive “purges” of the strel’tsy after the uprising of 1682, and generally sought to remain loyal to the authorities while staying within the formal framework of the law. The low level of support for Sophia amidst the strel’tsy forced F. I. Shaklovity, their commanding officer, to resort to a palace conspiracy with plans for regicide based on only 4–5 regiments (out of 26), which, if disclosed, would have made Sophia’s position illegitimate and extremely vulnerable. During the “private” crisis of 1689, assessed by Russian society as a “family quarrel” where a compromise seemed quite achievable, Duma and Moscow officials preferred to remain neutral; as such, the struggle for the capital’s strel’tsy garrison was of key importance. On New Year’s Eve (September 1, 1689), Peter’s supporters reached a turning point, having managed to bring the leadership and delegates of almost all the hesitating strel’tsy regiments to the Troitse-Sergiyev monastery and making public the evidence of a conspiracy to kill the tsar and the patriarch: this gained Peter the backing of Patriarch Joachim’s religious authority. It was the position of the Moscow strel’tsy that changed during September 1–4. They ultimately sided with Peter, which ensured his victory and the end of the neutrality of officials. However, this emphasized, for the second time in a decade, the humiliating dependence of the authorities, striving for “absolutism”, on the capital’s strel’tsy garrison: this was probably one of the most powerful motivations for their subsequent liquidation.