Tsarist Russia — Russia from the era of Ivan the Terrible, proclaimed the first Russian tsar, until the February Revolution of 1917, which abolished the autocracy.

Brief Economic Overview

The peak of economic development in Tsarist Russia is considered to be 1913, which was followed by the First World War, or, as it was then called, the Great War. In 1909, Actual State Councillor Nikolay Pavlovich Polyansky began his service in Nizhny Novgorod as the first manager of the Nizhny Novgorod office of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. Under his leadership, the office building was erected on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street: construction took two and a half years and cost 965,000 rubles — one-third of the projected estimate, with the funds earned by the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the bank itself without drawing on state funds. On May 17, 1913, the building was officially opened in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II, and by his supreme authorization the Nizhny Novgorod branch received a higher status and was reorganized into an office of the State Bank.[1]

In 1908–1913, total budget revenues amounted to: 14,987 million rubles, including revenues from the vodka monopoly: 3,993 million rubles (26.64%), direct taxes: 1,115 million rubles (7.44%), indirect taxes: 3,111 million rubles (20.76%), duties: 943 million rubles (6.29%).

Unemployment in Nizhny Novgorod Under the Tsars

Today, when the topic of the crisis is on the lips of even small children, unemployment has become a scourge of modern society. It is written about in newspapers, talked about on television, and argued over at the very highest levels. Yet few people stop to think that in our age of job websites and newspaper classifieds, the search for work is far simpler, and often not a matter of life and death, than it was some one hundred to one hundred and fifty years ago.

In Nizhny Novgorod, as in other Russian cities, unemployment surfaced periodically, especially in years of poor harvests. How did the Nizhny Novgorod residents of the nineteenth century get out of this predicament? Everyone was rescued by the Mytny Dvor (the Mytny Market next to Bolshaya Pokrovskaya). It was there that a kind of prototype of the modern labor exchange arose, the "Mytny Exchange" — a canopy in front of the entrance to one of the shops. Every day from eight in the morning a crowd of people of various craft skills gathered here, looking for work. The most diverse vacancies were snapped up with enthusiasm: from trips to fight locusts in the districts to clearing away the aftermath of snowfalls, landslides, floods, and high water. Forest fires and similar situations were a particular cause for joy. At least for a short time they provided earnings for as many people as possible, allowing them not to starve to death.

Group hiring of labor was practiced only until two o'clock in the afternoon. After that, only small one-off services for visitors' needs remained. Carrying a bag of provisions to someone's home, chopping firewood, packing a cellar with snow, and the like — these were the main ways of earning extra money in the second half of the day.

The problem of unemployment was always acute not only for the uneducated classes but also for most of the lower intelligentsia. These were the two groups of society most vulnerable in social terms. Those who could not find a job in their field worked as commission agents selling houses and forest estates, did advertising, solicited subscriptions to all sorts of publications, and so on.

The intelligentsia working in their own field often also faced considerable difficulties. The profession of engineer or lawyer provided a tolerable income, but the numerous Nizhny Novgorod doctors, midwives, and the like, because of fierce competition, were for the most part unable to build up a large clientele and barely made ends meet. But even they did not lose hope and remained active, constantly reminding people of themselves in newspaper advertisements.

Thus, as we see, unemployment confronted our ancestors in a far more menacing guise than it does us. Moreover, it did not simply arise as a consequence of some crisis, but was a natural, permanent condition of society. And attitudes toward it were corresponding. Life went on as usual: people worked, bore children, composed songs, and even made a revolution.

Tsar's Days

"Tsar's Days" was the name given in Russia to the annual holidays in honor of members of the imperial house. They were divided into high solemn days and solemn days.

The first category included:

  • the day of the reigning monarch's accession to the throne;
  • the day of the coronation;
  • the emperor's name day;
  • the emperor's birthday;
  • the name days of the reigning and dowager empresses;
  • the birthdays of the reigning and dowager empresses;
  • the birthdays and name days of the tsesarevich and the tsesarevna.

The birthdays and name days of all other members of the imperial family were considered solemn "Tsar's Days." In the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries all these events were observed as the most important state celebrations.

The tradition of celebrating "Tsar's Days" was inherited from the Old Russian state, which marked the tsar's name day (but not the tsaritsa's!) as a national holiday. Birth in the flesh was considered secondary to baptism, so the monarch's birthday began to be celebrated later, in the reign of Fyodor Alekseyevich. In the same order of meaning, annual celebrations were established in honor of the coronation and the accession to the throne. Celebrations of coronation days were established on May 16, 1721, by decree of Peter I and the Synod. The decree ordered that the anointing to the kingdom be celebrated with "a prayer service to our All-Good God, just as His Majesty's birthday and His Majesty's name day are celebrated." The accession to the throne has been celebrated since the reign of Peter II.

In Peter I's recognition of the primacy of divine grace over the fact of the natural succession of rulers, the traditions of medieval thinking can be traced. As a result of the religious understanding of the meaning of "Tsar's Days," they could not fail to be reflected in the church culture of Saint Petersburg. Thus the building of many churches is connected with "Tsar's Days." The custom of building churches in honor of holidays of the imperial family was not a novelty of the "Petersburg" period of Russian history. Many examples can be found in the history of Old Rus. Boris Godunov, in honor of his coronation, erected the Church of Simeon the Stylite, on whose feast day the coronation rite had taken place; the Verkhospassky Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, originally named for John of Belgrade after the name day of Tsarevich Ivan Mikhailovich, was later reconsecrated in honor of John the Forerunner, the holy patron of Tsar Ivan V. Reconsecrating a church in honor of a saint sharing the name of the reigning person was common practice even in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Very often the memory of reigning persons was also perpetuated by adding images of their patron saints to the iconostasis.

No less important and effective was the custom of charity on the occasion of a Romanov house holiday. It, too, has ancient roots. Often the benefactor was not only the person being celebrated but also his relatives. For example, on August 30, 1814, the name day of Alexander I, a pharmacy for the poor was opened at the Foundling Home with funds from Empress Maria Fyodorovna, selling the most modern medicines at a 25% discount. The tradition of caring for the public good on holidays developed further and acquired special significance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The first and obligatory part of the celebration of any of the "Tsar's Days" was a church service. On coronation days a special prayer service was held; on name days, a prayer service to the saint of the day whose name the royal person bore; on birthdays, a general prayer service for good health was offered.

If these events did not fall on days of mourning or Lent, they were accompanied by various secular entertainments. If the court was in mourning, it was always lifted on "Tsar's Days." In that case, however, the celebrations were more modest. When "Tsar's Days" fell on the first week of Great Lent, their celebration was postponed until the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and when they coincided with Holy Week or the first day of Easter, until the Monday of Bright Week.

The city administration and the nobility, not invited to court, attended the liturgy at Kazan Cathedral on "Tsar's Days." Commoners were also admitted here. Memoirs of such a service on the birthday of Emperor Alexander I have been preserved by S. M. Zhikharev: "The crush and stuffiness were such that many felt faint, and some were led out or carried out. The Metropolitan read the prayer so clearly and distinctly that it could be heard in every corner of the church, perhaps also because, together with the genuflection, a deep, unusually solemn silence suddenly settled: everyone caught every word of the prayer, which contained a petition for the sovereign's health and the granting of victory to him..."

The emperor's name day (August 30) was a special holiday that combined several important events. It is, first of all, the day of the heavenly patron of Saint Petersburg, whose relics rest in the Lavra that bears his name. It is also the name day of the emperor, who was named at baptism in honor of Alexander Nevsky. August 30 was also the day of the solemn celebration of the Order of Alexander Nevsky. Therefore this holiday was observed with particular solemnity and in a somewhat unusual way. Every year a religious procession went to the capital's main monastery, in which up to 150 clergymen took part, along with one of the senators with several officials and the junior knights of the Order of Alexander Nevsky. On this day the imperial family heard the liturgy not in the palace church, as usual, but traveled to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra for the service. After the liturgy the Romanovs visited the Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg and only then departed for the palace, where the secular part of the holiday took place.

Feofilakt's words were especially true in 1812. Despite the war, the "tsar's days" continued to be observed. Alexander I still celebrated his name day in 1812 in St. Petersburg. By the end of summer, the dramatic tension in society seemed to have reached its limit. In these circumstances, on August 30, the traditional religious procession and liturgy took place at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. At the end of the liturgy, Archimandrite Innokenty delivered a short speech. The fundamental difference between the sermon of that time and similar texts of peacetime was that it was devoted almost entirely to the Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky, and not to the virtues of the reigning monarch. As another priest, Father Emelyan Leontyev, wrote, "the present time is not a time for praise: now is the hour of temptation." Archbishop Innokenty took as the theme of his speech the words of the Apocalypse: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne."

It was devoted to the necessity of victory over the godless enemy, which Innokenty called "outward victory." The path to it lies through "inward victory," spiritual perfection, to which the archimandrite called his listeners. In his interpretation, Alexander Nevsky is the model of victory over both the "enemies of the spirit" and earthly enemies; a prayer for intercession "for the peace of our Fatherland and for the glory of the Monarch" was addressed to his relics. 3 In Innokenty's "Sermon," not only are the traditional praises of the emperor absent, but no attention is given to the martial valor of the army either. The reason for this, undoubtedly, is the situation that had developed in Russia by that time.

Innokenty's speech is by no means an exception but a typical example of a wartime sermon, the most common theme of which becomes the theological interpretation of the meaning of events. Tragedies and wars were understood as "the loud words of the Most High, by which [He] calls us to Himself, and turns us from crooked and ruinous paths to the path of eternal salvation." The clergy saw the causes of misfortune in Christians' forgetting God and lacking gratitude to the Lord, who had already saved the Fatherland many times from a "sea of woes and disturbances." But once they had regained prosperity, ungrateful Christians, like the sinners of the Old Testament, quickly forgot the one who had granted them peace.

They again stepped onto the path of sin and afterward lost the Divine gifts. The only way to regain what was lost was repentance: "If we turn completely to God, leaving the paths of impiety, then God too... will turn to us with all His mercies." Thus the meaning of calamities is that each person should turn to his conscience and not forget the prayer of thanksgiving.

According to the testimony of Countess R. S. Edling, it was precisely in the tragic days of summer and early autumn 1812 that Alexander I, who had experienced the alienation of the people and the incomprehension and condemnation of the nobility, turned in earnest to the Bible for the first time and gradually, from a "double-believer," became a Christian mystic.

Works devoted to the emperor's coronation are also imbued with Christian ideas. The monarchic idea is not conceived without a religious foundation. One of the typical themes of sermons is Christ's words about rendering unto God what is God's and unto Caesar what is Caesar's, which are taken as a Divine justification of monarchy: "The power and rights of Caesar are God's." Sermons often contain extended reflections on the meaning of monarchy. One of them is in the "Sermon on the Coronation" by Augustine, Bishop of Dmitrov. He writes that man was created by the Creator for society, but that people, divided by opinions, desires, passions, and the confusion of tongues, living in a world "where no one hears the voice of his neighbor," without a single ruler "will cease building the city and will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Alas, "the experience of all ages has borne witness to this truth." Therefore necessity itself compelled people to submit their will to the will of one man, whose purpose is to care for the common welfare.

Thus, "in order to live in heaven, man must submit to God; in order to be able to live on earth as well, he must necessarily submit to the Tsar and obey His laws completely." A people that rejects monarchy sets foot on an extremely dangerous path: "Mounds of bones cover the earth of those who philosophized without faith in God and reverence for sacred Autocracy... The desire to be free in one's passions, like a whirlwind, spins the whole depraved people around and casts it down before whoever has managed to caress its passions..."

In this context the coronation acquires special significance and has a mystical meaning: "It is madness to think that the Tsar's insignia are a vain invention of human vanity; they are a symbol of the Tsar's bond with God."

The victory over Napoleon became an excellent occasion for developing ideas of this kind. In postwar speeches and sermons, Alexander I appears as a pious tsar who defeated an impious one: "Alexander fights for the Faith against unbelief, for virtue against vice,... for sincerity against treachery,... for holiness against impiety." 10 According to the anonymous author in the "Son of the Fatherland," the Russian emperor "earned the name of the delight of the human race." "In him God has risen, and His enemies are scattered," the journalist concludes unequivocally. 11 He does not hesitate to apply to an earthly man the words of the prayer that runs: "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered." Panegyrics of this kind already seemed immodest to the emperor, who was inclined to mysticism. They were the reason for the issuing of the Decree of October 17, 1817, "On Not Rendering Praise to the Emperor in the Speeches of the Clergy." As a result of this Decree, in the last years of his reign the praises of Alexander became more moderate.

The days of monarchs' coronations were not marked by the construction of churches, but like other "tsar's days," they were often linked with important events in the life of the capital. Thus on September 15, 1811, the Kazan Cathedral was consecrated and the members of the commission for its construction were rewarded.

In nineteenth-century Russia, holidays were not only days of awards but also a time of mercy, and so they were often marked by "mercy to the fallen." An example is the Decree of amnesty for Lithuanians who had gone over to Napoleon's side during the war, signed by Alexander I on December 12, 1812, in Vilna, right at the ball in honor of his birthday.

Donations to churches by Alexander I on his birthday were also not uncommon. On December 12, 1815, the emperor gave the Kazan Cathedral liturgical gold vessels that he had ordered in Paris as a "monument of the faith that conquers the world."

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century several churches dedicated to Bishop Spyridon of Trimythous appeared in St. Petersburg. He was a saint deeply venerated in Ancient Rus (especially in Novgorod) but little known in eighteenth-century Russia. The consecration of churches in his honor dates exclusively to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. This is explained by the fact that the emperor's birthday coincided with the day of the church commemoration of St. Spyridon. The construction of churches of St. Spyridon is also connected with Alexander I, just as the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral is connected with Peter I. There were several churches bearing the name of the holy bishop. Dedicated to him were:

  • the house church at the Department of Appanages (consecrated in 1808, architect A. N. Voronikhin);
  • the house church at the Elizabeth School (corner of 13th Line of Vasilievsky Island and Bolshoy Prospect of Vasilievsky Island, 36), established in 1816 at the school, which was under the patronage of Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna. The creation of a church in honor of the emperor's birthday was apparently a kind of gift from the empress to her husband;
  • the church at the infirmary of the Life Guards Finland Regiment (Bolshoy Prospect of Vasilievsky Island, 65, architect A. E. Staubert), built in 1820;
  • the church (a cathedral from 1858) at the Admiralty (architect O. R. de Montferrand), founded by order of Alexander I of June 7, 1821, as a temporary church for the parishioners of the St. Isaac's Cathedral then under construction.

Information has survived about the founding of the last of the churches listed, from which it is clear that its naming is directly connected with the birthday of Alexander I. The arrangement of the church was entrusted to the commission for the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, whose members (M. A. Miloradovich, A. Betancourt) petitioned the emperor to "consecrate this church on the day of Your Imperial Majesty's birth, unforgettable for Russia, and, in order to dedicate forever among the people the reverence for Your August person that inspires these feelings, to name this temple in the name of St. Spyridon..." 12 The commission's petition was granted on December 10, 1821. On December 12 the church was consecrated.

No less a role in the religious life of St. Petersburg, in works of mercy and charity, was played by the "high solemn days" in honor of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Perhaps none of the reigning figures of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries treated the problem of public assistance to the "needy" with such seriousness. With the direct participation of the empress or under her patronage, new educational and teaching institutions were created and hospitals opened. Naturally, Maria Feodorovna sought to mark her name day with acts of charity. For example, on July 22, 1904, she granted 10,000 rubles to the Board of Public Charity. The interest on this sum (about 600 rubles) was received annually on the empress's name day by six poor girls: three daughters of "lower military servicemen" and three townswomen. The importance of the name day in the empress's works of mercy is underscored by the fact that G. I. Villamov's book devoted to her charitable activity ends with the exact date of the work's completion: July 22, 1829.

The charity of the Dowager Empress is the main theme of the works written in honor of her "high solemn days." Maria Feodorovna appears as a model of "piety and virtue" (Archimandrite Epiphany), and above all "of mercy and love for mankind" (Archimandrite Irinarkh). Notable is the speech of Archbishop Feofilakt Rusanov, containing reflections on charity in general. The prelate of the Church displays a rational approach to the problem. He strongly approves that Maria Feodorovna's activity is concentrated more on "arousing love for labor" than on "caring for everyone without distinction of age, merit, or conduct." In essence, the point is that the institutions created by the empress give the needy person the opportunity to obtain an education and a trade so that afterward he can support himself.

Only those persons who, because of age or health, are unable to work are taken in on full support. Rapturous praise is almost absent from Feofilakt's "Sermon," but he calls on the whole Russian people always to remember the works of mercy, and notes that the deeds of the empress, "besides sustaining feelings of humaneness, also teach that not only does the hand of the giver not grow poor, but poverty itself comes to a state in which it is a nuisance and burden to no one."

Another theme of praise for the celebrant is her motherhood. Often, in extolling the merits of the empress-mother, writers overstep the bounds of propriety, comparing her to the Mother of God and likening her to Her: "The Lord made her blessed among women in that from her shone forth the heart of righteousness." K. Urusova resorts to equally dubious comparisons:


In Sormovo, a working-class district of Nizhny Novgorod, the fire station on Kultury Street was founded back in tsarist Russia and operated throughout the whole twentieth century. The pavilion of the Hotel "France," presented at the 1896 All-Russian Trade, Industrial, and Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, was bought after its close by the director of the Sormovo Plant and moved to Sormovo, where on its basis they opened the "People's Canteen" with a free izba-reading room (a reading room set up in the style of a traditional wooden house), technical courses, and an amateur theater — one of the few publicly accessible cultural centers for workers in tsarist Russia.[2]

« O Tender Mother! Blessed woman!

You bear the holy name of that woman,
From whom was born the King of heaven and Creator:

Born also of You in Russia is the King of hearts.
K. Urusova
 »


  • Not only are such texts immoderate and tactless flattery — a very poor service to the person addressed — but they also testify to a forgetting of the spirit of the Gospel, replaced by an official interpretation of faith. Strictly speaking, this is outright blasphemy dressed in monarchical forms. However, panegyrics of this kind also have a thoroughly pragmatic basis. The point of the extravagant praise of Maria Feodorovna's motherhood becomes clearer if one recalls the difficulties surrounding the succession to the throne in eighteenth-century Russia. With the birth of eight children in the family of Paul I, this problem was resolved.
  • The name days of the dowager empress were marked by the building of churches dedicated to her saint, Mary Magdalene. Many of them were consecrated in charitable institutions that Maria Feodorovna patronized. These were the churches:
  • at the Mariinsky Institute, founded by the empress in 1797. The church was built in 1817, also with funds from Maria Feodorovna;
  • at the almshouse for the blind of the Foundling Home beyond the Kalinkin Bridge. The almshouse for the blind was established on August 30, 1813, the name day of Alexander I. Admissions began in 1817, and the church was consecrated on August 15, 1817. In 1822 the church was moved to the house of Otto and consecrated on December 12, 1824, the birthday of Emperor Alexander I;
  • at the Mary Magdalene Hospital, whose construction was conceived by Empress Maria Feodorovna; it was consecrated after her death, on October 14, 1829, her birthday.

After Maria Feodorovna's death as well, her memory was honored on her name day. On July 22, 1835, a solemn service was held in the Resurrection Cathedral of the Smolny, completed by V. P. Stasov (the initiative to complete the church belonged to the late empress). The liturgy was attended by Nicholas I and his wife, the court, and more than five thousand pupils of the institutes and cadet corps of Petersburg. The cathedral became the church of all educational institutions. From that time Nicholas I established annual commemorations of the empress on her name day. In practice, the memorial service was held after the all-night vigil on July 21, with the start of the church day of July 22.

In memory of their patroness, pupils of the Imperial Society of Noble Maidens, the Alexander School, and the Mariinsky Institute, as well as the pensioners of the Widows' Home, gathered for the service — about 1,200 people in all. Thus the memory of Maria Feodorovna became forever bound to the day of her name day and to her merits in works of mercy.

The "Most Solemn Days" in honor of Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna were celebrated modestly, which is easily explained by her difficult and uneven relations with the emperor. Elizabeth Alexeyevna's financial position — her means were considerably smaller than Maria Feodorovna's — did not allow great opportunities for charitable work. Nevertheless, through her efforts she did manage to create institutions for the education of women: the Elizabeth School (founded in 1808) and the Patriotic Institute (founded in 1813 for "orphans of military rank"). Both institutions had house churches, the first in the name of Spyridon of Trimythous, the second in the name of the Holy Righteous Zacharias and Elizabeth. A church in honor of the empress's patron saint was built in 1817 with funds from Elizabeth Alexeyevna, who donated 5,506 rubles toward its construction.

The moral meaning of donations to charity and church building also received a religious-monarchical interpretation. One of the important themes of the speeches delivered in honor of the "royal days" was gratitude to reigning persons in general and to benefactors in particular. "Gratitude is a necessary duty that subjects owe to Tsars... Let us fulfill these duties: let us render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," 17 writes Bishop Augustine. The authors invariably stress that the help given by benefactors imposes obligations. "Remember that unlawful deeds will offend... the soul that cares for you," 18 Archimandrite Methodius reminds his listeners. Thus the moral resonance of celebrating the "most solemn days" becomes far deeper than the celebrations themselves. This happens chiefly because the festivals were filled with religious meaning.

From what has been said it is clear that the "royal days" had a substantial influence on the religious life of Petersburg. It was expressed in the building of churches in honor of the patron saints of the highest persons, in charity, and found a response in the sermons of church hierarchs. By all this the authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, sought to emphasize the primacy of Divine grace over all other values. Often the harsh realities of life and the complicated features of human character introduced quite substantial corrections into this "ideal" model. But the very fact of its existence preserved a hierarchy of values that one may depart from but cannot finally forget.

Interesting Sites

See Also

Links

  • Wikidata (Q34266 — entry in the free knowledge base)
  • VIAF (247149066396265601002 — Virtual International Authority File)
  • GND (1086796756 — catalog of the German National Library)

Sources

  1. nn.aif.ru — Life Is Part of History. How the Nobility Served Imperial Russia — In 1909, the service of Nikolay Pavlovich Polyansky, Actual State Councillor, began in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  2. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — From Sands and the "People's Canteen" to Asphalt and an "Anthill" Building: How Kultury Street Has Changed Over 100 Years (archive)