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In 1613 the Zemskii Sobor elected
Mikhail Romanov the new Russian tsar. The
Romanovs belonged to one of the most eminent boyar families., related to the
house of Riurik. The Riurik's last Tsar, Fedor, was the first cousin of
Mikhail's father, Fedor Romanov, later better known as Patriarch Filaret, whom
Boris Godunov forced to take monastic vows. It took time to find the where
abouts of the new tsar, a frail sixteen-year-old man. When the delegation sent
by the Sobor to offer him the crown, finally found him in a monastery near
Kaluga, Mikhail got frightened and started crying. With the blessing of his
mother, Sister Martha, (who was also forced to take the veil), he accepted, and
in July of the same year the coronation took place at the Kremlin's Cathedral
of the Assumption.
For half of Mikhail's long reign the country was ruled first by his mother and
then, from 1619-1633, by his father, who, as Holy Patriarch and "Velikii
Gosudar" ("Majesty"), (titles he assumed after returning from
Polish captivity) was the actual master in Moscow. Though he was very religious
and eager to preserve traditions, the hostile attitudes of their neighbors
compelled the first Romanovs to turn to the West European countries for
assistance in rebuilding the country. Diplomatic relations were established
with several countries; among the first were England and Holland. In 1614 John
Meric, a prominent merchant, arrived in Moscow as head of a British diplomatic
mission. He was followed by increasing number of foreign artists, craftsmen,
merchants and members of various liberal professions, including professional
soldiers needed to train the new Russian army. This trend had already begun
under Ivan IV and was continued by Godunov, who invited several doctors to
Moscow and opened a few pharmacies. He also purchased from the Germans two
ships with crews, instituting a Russian navy almost a century before Peter I
did so on a larger scale. But it was under the Romanovs hat the most notable
expansion of trade and cultural relations took place. Development of natural
resources was put into the hands of foreign engineers and technicians;
concessions were readily granted to foreigners, and foreign capital offered
profitable investment opportunities. Similarly to the Greek masters, who had
taught Russian monks how to paint icons, foreign craftsmen now trained young
Russians to weave, melt, build, forge cast, and also to appoint new, secular
subjects. Russia discovered that there was much to learn from the West. The
very conservative and insular Russian government and society had to make
concessions to attractive western ides.
It all started with simple though helpful, innocently-looking practical
necessities of daily life, which were yet capable of alluring many. The
appetite of the Muscovites, particularly of the "Dvoriane," the
social class of service nobility, for western novelties, continued to increase
and gradually brought considerable changes. Then came a desire to emancipate
most of cultural life from the dogmatic morals and censorship of the Church. Of
course this process of cultural evolution took many years, but the fact is that
the numbers of those who accepted western civilization as a new and better form
of life grew continuously. From a very few Dvoriane acceptance spread first to
most members of the aristocracy, and then caught on with the suburban
populations, with the merchants, craftsmen and even with the well-to-do
peasants. The first to attract attention were house fold items and furniture.
Leather armchairs and huge clocks were much appreciated, as were mirrors,
contemporary musical instruments and even fancy cages with birds, parrots and
canaries, which enjoyed great popularity. The Dvoriane started to hang western
engravings and oil canvases representing various subjects including portraits
of western royalty on their walls. There were fewer and fewer of those who
found "Friazhskii" art sacrilegious. At receptions boyars and
Dvoriane used silver and pewter dishes and cups, and the more
progressive-minded no longer dressed in the old-fashioned oriental
"Feriaz" - a long robe without collar - but in western-looking
tunics, called "Caftan" by the Russians. Since not all noblemen
switched to the new mode of dress, tsar Fedor Alekseyevich issued an ukaz to
compel them to. His more conservative father, Tsar Aleksei had only a decade
before reprimanded some of his courtiers for having cut their hair the western
way. The material "westernization" of the Russian nobility and the
well-to-do was so deep that a Yugoslav scholar, Yuri Krizhanich, accused them
of being "Alien-minded maniacs." Krizhanich arrived in Moscow in 1659
in the hope of winning Russians and the Tsar over to the idea of Pan-slavism,
but two years later he found himself exiled to Tobolsk, Siberia, where he spent
fifteen years writing books about panslavism, education, enlightened absolutism
and the necessity for Russia to accept western civilization if she wanted to
become great and lead all the Slavs in their fight against the German menace.
In 1676 Krizhanich received permission to leave Russia, but his books remained,
and could be seen on shelves in the offices of Russian leaders, including Tsar
Fedor Alekseyevich and his sister Tsarevna Sophia. Krizhanich's books were not
published until the 19th century.
To redecorate and rebuild the Kremlin's churches and palaces, after the Polish
invaders were chased out of Moscow, the new Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich chiefly
relied on the Stroganov's painters and all those artists and builders who,
during the "The Times of Trouble," had left the capital for a safer
place to live and work, Nazari Istomin, after working for Patriarch Filaret,
together with Prokopii Chirin and others, painted new icons for the restored
churches and redecorated the tsar's private quarters. One of the most
interesting icons of that period is the "Plozhenie Rizi Spasitelia"
(As the Deposition of the Robe of Christ), attributed to Nikifor Savin and
painted in 1625. Using the interior of the Cathedral of the Assumption in the
Kremlin for the background, the painter has made a collective portrait of the
Tsar Mikhail and his father Patriarch Filaret, seen standing in the middle, and
the boyars, archbishops, priests and people, behind them. The upper part of the
icon shows the roof and the five cupolas of the Cathedral which shelter the
rest. The icon is a very fine example of the meticulous and richly decorative
style that the former Stroganov painters brought with them to Moscow. There are
many copies of this icon; the original is in the old-believers' Cathedral of
the Protection of the Virgin in Moscow. In the same Cathedral is another fine
icon of the period, painted by an unknown artist, showing Saints Boris and
Gleb, dressed in princely robes and with crowns on their heads, riding on
horseback. An unusual detail is that the ground is covered with flowers. Also
very interesting are the icons that once stood in the iconostasis of the Church
of the Archangel Michael in the Kremlin. Most art students agree that they show
a blend of the Stroganov and Moscow styles in their earliest stage. The church
was located on church square close to the Chudov Monastery (The Monastery of
the Miracles). It was rebuilt and redecorated immediately after the fire of
1626 that destroyed the old church. Foreign visitors were particularly
impressed by its fine frescoes, mostly showing scenes from all the ecumenical
councils that took place before the 17th Century.
The last major artistic enterprise of Mikhail Romanov was the redecoration of
the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin. In 1642 the Tsar ordered that
the entire Cathedral be repainted and the background covered with gold leaf.
About a hundred painters from all parts f the country were mobilized for the
job, headed by Ivan Paisein, a well known painter from Pskov who was brought to
Moscow to work for the Tsar. His main assistants were his brother Boris, Bazhen
Savin, Sidor Pospeyev, and Marko Matveyev. It took them two years to finish the
work, which was supervised by the Tsar's close friend Prince Boris Repnin.
According to the Chronicle the painters carefully replaced the gold leaf in the
background, and while restoring the frescoes, scrupulously preserved all
details of the original murals of 1514, which were painted, according to some
art historians, by Dionisii's son, Feodosii. These restored frescoes were
repainted several times since and sometimes white-washed. Their cleaning was
begun before the revolution and when they were first seen after a few
centuries, they failed to live up to expectations. Their colors did not have
the gaiety so typical of the Dionissi family. The restoration continued after
the revolution and only in 1949-1950 was the cleaning completed, rejuvenating
the old frescoes and giving them back most of their original appearance.
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