Muscovy's northeastern expansion : The context and a cause

In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Band 24, Heft 4, S. 459-470

Abstract

Janet Martin, Muscovy's northeastern expansion: the context and a cause.
Muscovite expansion to the northeast occurred in two stages. The first, which resulted in the annexation of the Vychegda-Vym' region in the fourteenth century, was an outgrowth of Muscovy's relations with Novgorod. The second, which took place in the latter half of the fifteenth century, led to the subordination of Viatka, Perm' Velikaia, and some of the Voguly and Iugra tribes as far away as the Ob' river. The second stage was closely connected with two competing influences, Muscovy's relations with the Khanate of Kazan' and its internal relations with Ustiug.
An examination of the chronicle accounts of the measures taken to subordinate the peoples on the Viatka, upper Kama, and Ob' rivers suggests that these episodes were initiated by Ustiug. That northern trade center was evidently trying to secure a trade route that would link it via Cherdyn' to the fur-supplying northeastern tribes; that route would bypass Ustiug's rival, Kazan'. Moscow, which benefited from the ventures through the receipt of tribute payments in sable from the subordinated tribes, supported Ustiug's drive to the northeast despite the fact that it provoked hostile responses from Kazan'. But Moscow withdrew its support after 1487, when the assumption of the Kazan' throne by a pro-Muscovite khan altered the nature of Muscovy's relations with its Tatar neighbors. Those relations then took precedence over Ustiug's pressures as a determinant of Muscovy's northeastern policies. Moscow, with the exception of a few incidents that occurred when its relations with Kazan' were strained, refrained from pursuing its aggressive policies in the northeast well into the sixteenth century.