Abstract
Is Russia Europe? The question divided the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia, and has returned to haunt the post-1991 society of the New Russians. Westerners who visited the Muscovite Russian state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries described a fascinating but alien place. By the late eighteenth century, however, Russian aristocrats living in the empire shaped by Peter the Great (1682–1725) and Catherine the Great (1762–96) inhabited a world increasingly like that of their European counterparts. Muscovite “horse culture” both contributed to this process of convergence and reflected its progress.
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Notes
Jacques Mulliez, Les Chevaux Au royaume: Histoire de l’élevage du cheval et de la création des haras (Paris: Montalba, 1983), 8.
Luigi Gianoli, Horses and Horsemanship through the Ages trans. Iris Brooks (New York: Crown Publishers, 1969), 95.
Quoted in S. Bökönyi, History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadö, 1974), 267–68. For the comments of foreign observers in Muscovy, see
Sigmund von Herberstein, Description of Moscow and Muscovy ed. Bertold Picard, trans. J. B. C. Grundy (London: Dent, 1969), 76
Jacques Margeret, The Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy: A 17th-Century French Account trans. and ed. Chester S. L. Dunning (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983), 47–48
Adam Olearius, The Travels of Olearius in 17th-Century Russia trans. and ed. Samuel H. Baron (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), 330.
G. F. Odintsov, Iz istorii gippologicheskoi leksiki v russkom iazyke (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 31
D. Ia. Gurevich and G. T. Rogalev, Slovar’-spravochnik po konevodstvu i konnomu sportu (Moscow: Rosagropromizdat, 1991), 12; see the illustration of “an argamak from the Tsar’s Stables,” in Nikolai Kutepov, Velikokniazheskaia i tsarskaia okhota na Rusi s X po XVI vek 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsiia zagotovelniia gos. bumag 1896), after 174. “Argamak,” a Tatar word, was used in old Russian as a collective term for purebred Eastern horses (as distinct from “nemetskii” or “German,” which referred to horses from Western Europe; the term originally meant “dumb” or “mute” and so may refer to any and all non-Russian speakers). By the 1400s argamaki were being treated as a distinct breed. References to Tatar, Polish, and Turkish argamaki suggest that they were also being bred elsewhere, and traded back into Russia.
N. Zeziulinskii, Istoricheskoe izsledovanie o konnozavodskom dele v Rossii I (St. Petersburg: Tipo-lit. Iu. Ia. Rimana, 1889), appendices to ch. III, no. 1.
Isaac Massa, A Short History of the Beginnings and Origins of These Present Wars in Moscow under the Reign of Various Sovereigns down to the Year 1610 trans. and ed. G. Edward Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 128–29
Miklós Jankovich, They Rode into Europe: The Fruitful Exchange in the Arts of Horsemanship between East and West trans. Anthony Dent (London: Harrap, 1971), 94–97, 158. Seventeenth-century engravings of Polish hussar officers with wings attached to their saddles are reproduced in
Jan K. Ostrowski, Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann, and the Walters Art Gallery, Land of the Winged Horsemen: Art in Poland, 1572–1764 (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, in association with Yale University Press, 1999), 72–73. The False Dmitri appeared after the death of the “real” Dmitri, youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, and Fedor, Dmitri’s half-brother, to challenge the rule of Boris Godunov; he was killed in a coup in May 1606.
For illustrations, see the striking icons of Novgorod masters from the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The portrayal of horses in later icons reflects the growing popularity among the elite of larger, heavier West European breeds. On the cult of the horse guardians, see Ann M. Kleimola, “Visions of Horses: The Evolution of the Russian Cult of Florus and Laurus,” Mesto Rossii v Evrazii/The Place of Russia in Eurasia Ruszisztikai Könyvek vol. IX (Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University, 2001), 86–95. Although there are no written records to confirm that the horses depicted in the icons are argamaki I believe they most likely are: the icons clearly show a difference between the saints’ steeds and the more common tabun horses.
Daphne Machin Goodall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hale, 1977), 204.
There are 100 kopeks to the ruble. On horse prices in the seventeenth century, see Richard Hellie, The Economy and Material Culture of Russia 1600–1725 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 40–45, 574–78.
L. N. Vdovina, “Zemledelie i skotovodstvo,” in Ocherki russkoi kul’tury XVII veka pt. I (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1979), 54.
cf. A. A. Zimin, “O slozhenii prikaznoi sistemy na Rusi,” Doklady i soobshcheniia instituta istorii AN SSSR 3 (1954): 166–67
Grigorii Kotoshikhin, O Rossii v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovicha 4th edn. (St. Petersburg: Izd. Imp. Arkheograficheskoi kommissii, 1906), ch. VI; Zeziulinskii, Istoricheskoe izsledovanie I, 64–68
M. M. Denisova, “Koniushennaia kazna,” in Gosudarstvennaia oruzheinaia palata moskovskogo kremlia (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1954), 250–51; Gosudarstvennaia oruzheinaia palata (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1988), 373–74. By 1666 the Saddle Treasury maintained a separate branch at the Argamak Stables to handle the sovereign’s excursions and campaign transport; Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnykh Aktov, f. 396, op. 1, d. 10504, l. 2.
I. Merder, Istoricheskii ocherk russkago konevodstva i konnozavodstva (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia E. Metsiga, 1868), 22
E. V. Kozhevnikov and D. Ia. Gurevich, Otechestvennoe konevodstvo (Moscow: Agropromizdat, 1990), 14.
Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii Drevnei Rossii s derzhavami inostrannymi II (St. Petersburg: v Tip. II-go Otdeleniia Sobstvennoi E. I. V. Kantseliarii, 1852), 518; N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago (St. Petersburg: v. Tip. Imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1842), XI, 79; Massa, Short History 49; Zeziulinskii, Istoricheskoe izsledovanie I, 37 (n. 2) and appendices to ch. V, no. 5.
Zeziulinskii, Istoricheskoe izsledovanie I, 31 (and n. 2), 32–45; M. E. Lobashev, Ocherki po istorii russkogo zhivotnovodstva (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1954), 28.
Vdovina, “Zemledelie i skotovodstvo,” 54; A. I. Zaozerskii, Tsarskaia votchina XVII v. (Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1937), 114.
E. I. Indova, “Dvortsovoe zhivotnovodstvo v pervoi polovine XVIII v.,” Materialy po istorii sel’skogo khoziaistva i krest’ianstva SSSR V (Moscow: Nauka, 1962), 105.
M. N. Tikhomirov, “Monastyr’-votchinnik XVI v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski 3 (1938), 139–41.
N. A. Gorskaia, “Zemledelie i skotovodstvo,” in Ocherki russkoi kul’tury XVI veka pt. I (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1977), 92 n. 267; Materialy po istorii krest’ian v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka ed. A. G. Man’kov (Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1955), nos. 3, 5, and 8.
Nikolai Nikol’skii, Kirillo-Belozerskii monastyr’ i ego ustroistvo do vtoroi chetverti XVII veka (1397–1625) vol. I, pt. 1 (St. Petersburg: Sinodal’naia tip., 1897), 265–68, appendix 6 (pp. LXXXV–XC), and pt. 2 (St. Petersburg: Sinodal’naia tip., 1910), 107 and n. 1.
A. S. Prokof’eva, Votchinnoe khoziaistvo v XVII veke (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1959), 9, 25–28.
K. A. Filimonov, “Iz istorii koniushennogo khoziaistva Troitse-Sergievoi lavry XV–XIX vv.,” Trudy po istorii Troitse-Sergievoi lavry (Sergiev-Posad: Izdatel’skii dom “Podkova,” 1998), 113.
E. N. Klitina, T. N. Manushina, and T. V. Nikolaeva (eds.), Vkladnaia kniga Troitse-Sergieva monastyria (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), 59, 68, 88, 110, 139.
V. I. Kuznetsov, “Dvorianskaia usad’ba v strukture sel’skikh poselenii rossiiskogo gosudarstva XVI–XVII vv.” Vestnik moskovskogo universiteta Seriia 8, Istoriia, no. 6 (1989), 53.
V. D. Nazarov and Iu. A. Tikhonov, “Pomeshchich’e imenie v Rossii v pervoi polovine XVII v. (Osnovnye demograficheskie i khoziaistvennye cherty),” Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii vostochnoi Evropy 1971 g. (Vilnius: Izdatel’stvo Mintic, 1974), 72.
Iu. A. Tikhonov, “Podmoskovnye imeniia russkoi aristokratii vo vtoroi polovine XVII–nachale XVIII v.,” in Dvorianstvo i krepostnoi stroi Rossii XVI–XVIII vv. (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), 140–41, 146–47, 149–51, 154–55; Rozysknyia dela o Fedore Shaklovitom i ego soobshchnikakh IV (St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi kommissii, 1893), col. 347.
See, for example, A. A. Vvedenskii, Torgovyi dom XVI–XVII vekov (Leningrad: kn-vo “Put’ k znaniiu,” 1924), 30–31, 45, 47–48, 50; Nazarov and Tikhonov, “Pomeshchich’e imenie,” 76 and n. 36; Akty khoziaistva boiarina B. I. Morozova ed. A. I. Iakovlev, pt. I (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1940), no. 74, and pt. II (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1945), nos. 331, 421, 536.
D. I. Petrikeev, “Zemel’nye vladeniia boiarina B. I. Morozova,” Istoricheskie zapiski 21 (1947), 65; Akty khoziaistva B. I. Morozova pt. II, nos. 230, 254, 286, 306, 331.
On estate culture see Priscilla Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).
Heinrich von Staden, The Land and Government of Muscovy trans. and ed. Thomas Esper (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), 115.
D. S. Likhachev, Poeziia sadov: K semantike sadovo-parkovykh stilei— Sad kak teksst 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1991), 110–26.
A. A. Stepanov, “Kniaz’ V. V. Golitsyn kak khoziain-votchinnik,” Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR (1926), 45–48; Lindsey A. J. Hughes, Russia and the West, the Life of a Seventeenth-Century Westernizer, Prince Vasily Vasil’evich Golitsyn (1643–1714) (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1984), 5, 12; Tikhonov, “Podmoskovnye imeniia,” 146–51; Rozysknyia dela o Fedore Shaklovitom i ego soobshchnikakh III (St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi kommissii, 1888), nos. 24, 29. The text (no. 24) refers to tsesarskii and imeretinskii both of which indicate “imperial”—in Europe the “Emperor’s” breed referred to horses from the stud of the Holy Roman Emperor at Lipizza, established in 1580; see
R. H. C. Davis, The Medieval Warhorse: Origin, Developmentand Redevelopment (London: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1989), 121.
Herberstein, Description of Moscow and Muscovy 76, 78; Lloyd E. Berry and Robert O. Crummey (eds.), Rude and Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth-Century English Voyagers (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1968), 71, 76, 82.
Denisova, “Koniushennaia kazna,” 259, 290–91; Jankovich, They Rode into Europe 97–100; Nyeregbe! In the Saddle! Exhibition at the Museum of Ethnography 22 March-10 September 2002 (Budapest: Néprajzi Múzeum, 2002), 84–85; Ostrowski et al., Land of the Winged Horsemen plates 71–74. On the origins of the hussars, see Gyula Ràzsó, “The Mercenary Army of King Matthias Corvinus,” in From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary ed. János M. Bak and Béla K. Kiràly (Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn College Press, 1982), 125–40.
Gift horses from abroad usually came well-dressed in expensive saddles, jeweled headstalls, and the like. Both horses and tack, after their “presentation” to the ruler, were immediately appraised and handed over to the Stables Chancellery; Denisova, “Koniushennaia kazna,” 276. An early eighteenth-century inventory of the Stables Chancellery treasury provides detailed descriptions of tack and equipment, noting the date and origin of items as well as an appraised value; see A. Viktorov, Opisanie zapisnykh knig i bumag starinnykh dvortsovykh prikazov 1613–1725 g. (Moscow: S. P. Arkhipov, 1883), II, 495–504. For examples of Polish horse gear, see Ostrowski et al., Land of the Winged Horsemen plates 70–72; for Russian and Turkish examples, see Treasures of the Czars from the State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin, Presented by Kansas International Museum (London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1995), 100–2, 104–9, and Paradnoe oruzhie i konskoe ubranstvo XVII–XVIII vv./Ornamental weapons and horse accoutrements of the 17th and 18th centuries ed. O. I. Mironova and E. V. Tikhomirova (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo,” 1986).
See, for example, Massa, Short History 127–29; Olearius, Travels of Olearius 57–58, 70–74; Guy Miege A Relation of Three Embassies from his Sacred Majestie Charles II to the Great Duke of Muscovie, the King of Sweden, and the King of Denmark. Performed by the … Earle of Carlisle in the years 1663 and 1664 (London: Printed for John Starkey, 1669), 127–32
Lindsey Hughes, Sophia, Regent of Russia, 1657–1704 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1990), 42.
Joan Thirsk, Horses in Early Modern England: For Service, for Pleasure, for Power Stanton Lecture 1977 (Reading, UK: University of Reading, 1978), 7.
Peter Edwards, The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 12, 20, 38–51.
Rozysknyia dela o Fedore Shaklovitom i ego soobshchnikakh (St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi kommissii, 1888), IV, col. 56; S. P. Luppov, Kniga v Rossii v XVII veke (Leningrad: Nauka, 1970), 107–10; Hughes, Sophia, Regent of Russia 48, 161.
N. N. Nazarenko, “Nekotorye rukopisnye istochniki po zootekhnii XVII–XVIII vekov,” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki 1 (1956): 236–41
A. I. Sobolevskii, Perevodnaia literatura moskovskoi Rusi XIV–XVII vekov (St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. Akademii nauk, 1903–8), 112–15.
Nikolai Kutepov, Velikokniazheskaia i tsarskaia okhota na Rusi s X po XVI vek 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Ékspeditsiia zagotovleniia gos. bumag, 1896) and Tsarskaia okhota na Rusi tsarei Mikhaila Feodorovicha i Alekseia Mikhailovicha XVII vek (St. Petersburg: Ékspeditsiia zagotovleniia gos. bumag, 1898).
Oleg Ivanov, Graf Aleksei Grigor’evich Orlov-Chesmenskii v Moskve (Moscow: Svarog i K, 2002); Goodall, History of Horse Breeding 208–9; Merder, Istoricheskii ocherk 150–57
Vladimir Plugin, Alekhan, ili Chelovek so shramom: Zhizneopisanie grafa Alekseia Orlova-Chesmenskogo (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1996), 352–56; Kozhevnikov and Gurevich, Otechestvennoe konevod-stvo 29–41; Gurevich and Rogalev, Slovar’-spravochnik po konevod-stvu 131–34. In 1867 Beduin, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of Bars I, broke the world speed record for trotters at the Paris Exhibition.?63-90
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Kleimola, A.M. (2005). Cultural Convergence: The Equine Connection between Muscovy and Europe. In: Raber, K., Tucker, T.J. (eds) The Culture of the Horse. Early Modern Cultural Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09725-5_2
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