This article is about the title of nobility. For people with the surname, see Boyar (surname).
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Multiple different derivation theories of the word have been suggested by scholars and linguists, such as it having possible roots from old Turkic: bai ("noble, rich"; cf. "bay") plus Turkicär ("man, men"),[3] proto-Slavic "boj" (fight, battle) or romanian "boi" (oxen, cattle) to "Boier" (owner of cattle).[5] The title entered Old East Slavic as быля (bylya, attested solely in The Tale of Igor's Campaign).[citation needed]
Bolyars in Bulgaria
The oldest Slavic form of boyar—bolyarin, pl. bolyari (Bulgarian: болярин, pl.боляри)—dates from the 10th century, and it is found in Bulgaria, also popular as old Bulgar title boila, which denoted a high aristocratic status among the Bulgars. It was probably built from bol- meaning many and yarin, yarki- meaning bright, enlightened. In support of this hypothesis is the 10th-century diplomatic protocol of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, where the Bulgarian nobles are called boliades,[4] while the 9th-century Bulgar sources call them boila.[2]
A member of the nobility during the First Bulgarian Empire was called a boila, while in the Second Bulgarian Empire, the corresponding title became bolyar or bolyarin. Bolyar, as well as its predecessor, boila, was a hereditary title. The Bulgarian bolyars were divided into veliki ("great") and malki ("minor").
In medieval Serbia, the rank of the boyars (Боjари, bojari) was equivalent to the rank of the baron; meaning "free warrior" (or "free man" in general), it was the first rank after the non-free peasants or serfs. The etymology of the term comes from the word battle (бој, boj). The boyars of Serbia were literally "men for the battle" or the warrior class, in contrast to the peasants. They could own land but were obliged to defend it and fight for the king. With the rule of the Ottoman Empire after 1450, the Ottoman as well as the Austro-Hungarian terms exchanged the Serbian one. Today, it is an archaic term representing the aristocracy (племство, plemstvo).
Boyars in Rus'
From the 9th to 13th century, boyars wielded considerable power through their military support of the Rus's princes. Power and prestige of many of them, however, soon came to depend almost completely on service to the state, family history of service and, to a lesser extent, land ownership. Boyars of Kievan Rus were visually very similar to knights, but after the Mongol invasion, their cultural links were mostly lost.
The boyars occupied the highest state offices and, through a council (duma), advised the grand duke. They received extensive grants of land and, as members of the Boyars' Duma, were the major legislators of Kievan Rus'.
After the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, the boyars from western and southern parts of Kievan Rus' (modern Belarus and Ukraine) were incorporated into Lithuanian and Polish nobility (szlachta). In the 16th and 17th centuries, many of those Rus boyars who failed to get the status of a nobleman actively participated in the formation of the Cossack army.
Boyars in Novgorod and Pskov formed a sort of republic, where the power of princes (knyaz) was strongly limited until the conquest by Moscow. Boyars kept their influence in the Russian principalities of Vladimir, Tver and Moscow. Only after the centralization of power by Moscow was the power of the boyars diminished.
Tsardom of Russia
A mounted Russian boyar from the 17th century
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the boyars of Moscow had considerable influence that continued from the Muscovy period. However, starting with the reign of Ivan III, the boyars were starting to lose that influence to the authoritative tsars in Muscovy. Because of Ivan III's expansionist policies, administrative changes were needed in order to ease the burden of governing Muscovy.[6] Small principalities knew their loyal subjects by name, but after the consolidation of territories under Ivan, familial loyalty and friendship with the boyar's subjects turned those same subjects into administrative lists.[6] The face of provincial rule disappeared.
Boyar membership, until the 16th century, did not necessarily require one to be Russian, or even Orthodox, as historians note that many boyars came from places like Lithuania or the Nogais, and some remained Muslims for a generation after the Mongols were ousted.[7] What is interesting about the boyars is their implied duties. Because boyars were not constitutionally instituted, much of their powers and duties came from agreements signed between princes. Agreements, such as one between Ivan III and Mikhail Borisovich in 1484 showed how allegiances needed to be earned and secured, rather than implied and enforced.[8]
Instead of the grand prince personally overseeing his lands, he had to rely on his captains and close advisors to oversee day-to-day operations.[6] Instead of the great voice the boyars had previously in their advisory roles, they now had less bargaining power and mobility.[9] They answered questions posed by the grand prince, and Ivan III even made sure to get their approval on special events, such as his marriage to Zoe Paleologa, or the attack on Novgorod.[10] This was to ensure the boyars and their military power remained loyal to the tsar.[11]
The grand duke also made sure that peasants could not leave the princes' lands, or from one place to another, in the mid-1400s, effectively establishing serfdom.[11] The boyars gained rewards and gifts as well. Some boyars were sent to regions as governors, and could “feed off” the locals in this way.[12] Still, by the end of the 15th century, boyar membership had declined, and merit rather than family background decided who became a boyar.[13] When Ivan IV became the tsar, more radical changes were implemented to limit boyar influence.
Ivan IV became the grand prince of all Muscovy in 1533 at the age of three, but various boyar factions tried to compete for control of the regency.[14] When Ivan IV came to power in 1547, much more of the boyars' independent political power became obsolete. The independence and autonomy experienced by the princes of the regions in Muscovy was abolished under Ivan IV by the end of the sixteenth century, making them "the prince's sons", or just simple boyars serving the Grand Prince.[15] Ivan IV divided Muscovy into two parts in 1565, and in the private part, the terror began.[14]
The boyars attempted to band together and resist, but instead of constitutionally establishing their role in government, Ivan IV ruthlessly crushed the boyar opposition with the use of the oprichnina terror purges.[16] Land grants were also given to subjects that provided military service, and soon this type of land grant became the more common compared to inherited land among the boyars.[16] Ivan IV consolidated his power, centralized royal power, and made every effort possible to curb the influence of the princes.
After Ivan IV, a time of troubles began when his son Fedor died without an heir, ending the Rurik dynasty.[14] The boyar Boris Godunov tried to proclaim himself tsar, but several boyar factions refused to recognize him.[14] The chaos continued after the first False Dmitriy gained the throne, and civil war erupted.[14] When the Romanovs took over, the seventeenth century became one filled with administrative reform. A comprehensive legal code was introduced, and a merging of the boyars into the elite bureaucracy was beginning to form.[14]
By the end of the Time of Troubles, the boyars had lost nearly all independent power. Instead of going to Moscow to gain more power, the boyars felt defeated, and felt compelled to go to Moscow to maintain a united and strong Russia.[17] Second, the boyars lost their independent principalities, where they maintained all their power, and instead governed districts and regions under the grand prince of the time. Boyars also lost their advisory influence over the grand prince with tools such as the duma, and instead the grand prince no longer felt compelled to listen to the demands of the boyars. The tsar no longer feared losing their military support, and unification of Muscovy became paramount in importance. With Peter the Great, the final nail in the coffin happened for the boyar's power, and they would never recover from his administrative reforms.
Peter the Great, who took power in 1697, took it upon himself to westernize Russia, and catch it up with the modern world. After the revolt of the streltsy regiments in 1698, Peter the Great returned to Russia, forcing government officials and those that were financially able to have clean shaven faces and wear Western clothing.[18] Peter also reformed the judicial system, and created a senate with members appointed by him, replacing the old council of boyars that originally advised the tsar.[18] This move he made was one of many that dismantled the powers and status the boyars previously possessed.[18]
Peter was driving out the conservative and religious faction of the boyars out of the courts, and instead using both foreign and Russian officials to fill the administrative system. Several boyars, as well as other nobility, spoke out against these reforms, including historian Mikhail Shcherbatov, who stated that the reforms Peter made helped destroy Russian tradition, and created people that tried to "worm their way up, by flattering and humoring the monarch and the grandees in every way."[18] Still, the reforms continued, as by this point, the tsar possessed too much power, and Russia became an absolute monarchy more and more with each ruler.
In the Carpathian regions inhabited by present day Romanians, the boyar (boier) class emerged from the chiefs (named cneaz ("leader") or jude ("judge") in the areas north of the Danube, and celnic south of the river) of rural communities in the early Middle Ages, who made their judicial and administrative attributions hereditary and gradually expanded them upon other communities. They were approved by the Ottoman Empire, which had suzerainty over the area. After the appearance of more advanced political structures in the area, their privileged status had to be confirmed by the central power, which used this prerogative to include in the boyar class individuals that distinguished themselves in the military or civilian functions they performed, by allocating them lands from the princely domains.
Historian Djuvara explained the hypotheses concerning the origin of the Romanians, such as advancing the theory that the vast majority of the nobility in the medieval states that made up the territory of modern-day Romania was of Cuman origin and not Romanian: "Romanians were called the black Cumans".[20]
The boyar condition
The Romanian social hierarchy was composed of boyar, mazil (turkish: mazul), răzeș (yeoman, freedman) and rumân (serf). Being a boyar implied three things: being a land-owner, having serfs, and having a military and/or administrative function. A boyar could have a state function and/or a court function. These functions were called dregătorie or boierie. Only the prince had the power to assign a boierie. Landowners with serfs but no function were categorized as mazil but were still considered to be of noble origin (din os boieresc, literally "of boyar bone"). Small landowners who possessed a domain without distinction (devălmășie) were called moșneni, răzeși, while the serfs (indentured servants) were called rumâni.
Origin
Although functions could only be accorded by the prince and were not hereditary, land possession was hereditary. The prince could give land to somebody but could not take it from its possessor except for serious reasons such as treason. Therefore, there were two kinds of boyars: those whose families, as chiefs of the ancient rural communities, had held land before the formation of the feudal states, such that the prince merely confirmed their preexisting status as landowners; and those who acquired their domain from a princely donation or who had inherited it from an ancestor who acquired it through such a donation (cf. the distinction between Uradel and Briefadel in the Holy Roman Empire and in its feudal successor regimes). During the Phanariot régime, there were also boyars who had no land at all, but only a function. This way, the number of boyars could be increased, by selling functions to those who could afford them.
The close alliance between the boyar condition and the military-administrative functions led to a confusion, aggravated by the Phanariots: these functions began to be considered as noble titles, like in the Occident. In fact, this was not at all the case. Traditionally, the boyars were organized in three states: boyars of the first, second, and third states. For example, there was a first or a grand postelnic, a second postelnic, and a third postelnic, each one with his different obligations and rights.
The difference of condition was visible even in the vestimentation or physical aspect. Only the boyars of the first state had the right, for example, to grow a beard, the rest being entitled only to a mustache. Within the class of the boyars of the first state, there was the subclass of the "grand boyars". Those were great landowners who also had some very high functions, such as the function of great vornic. Above those grand boyars was only the prince.
The prince
Usually a prince was a boyar before his election or appointment as prince, but this was not an absolute condition. Initially, only princely descendants could be elected princes. During the Phanariot epoch, however, any man could be a prince if appointed by the sultan, and rich enough to buy this appointment from the grand vizier. During the Ottoman suzerainty, and especially during the Phanariot régime, the title of Prince became an administrative function within the imperial Ottoman hierarchy, and thus the ultimate form of boyardness. The title of Prince of Wallachia or Moldavia was equivalent in dignity to that of a Pasha with two horse-tails.
Cultural references
Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen wrote a march entitled "Bojarenes inntogsmarsj" ("Entry March of the Boyars"), known in Norway as the signal tune for the radio programme Ønskekonserten. Edvard Grieg arranged it for solo piano. August Strindberg requests that this piece be played during his play The Dance of Death, Part One.
Notes on Muscovite Affairs (1549) was a Latin book by Baron Sigismund von Herberstein on the geography, history and customs of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. The book was the main early source of knowledge about Russia in Western Europe.
A duma is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions.
Ivan III Vasilyevich, also known as Ivan the Great, was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1462 until his death in 1505. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his blind father Vasily II before he officially ascended the throne.
Vladimir-Suzdal, formally known as the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal or Grand Principality of Vladimir (1157–1331), also as Suzdalia or Vladimir-Suzdalian Rus', was one of the major principalities emerging from Kievan Rus' in the late 12th century, centered in Vladimir-on-Klyazma. With time the principality grew into a grand principality divided into several smaller principalities. After being conquered by the Mongol Empire, the principality became a self-governed state headed by its own nobility. A governorship of the principality, however, was prescribed by a jarlig issued from the Golden Horde to a Rurikid sovereign.
Knyaz or knez, also knjaz, kniaz is a historical Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times of history and different ancient Slavic lands. It is usually translated into English as prince, depending on specific historical context and the potentially known Latin equivalents of the title for each bearer of the name. These translations probably derive from the fact that the title tsar was often treated as equivalent to "king" by European monarchs. In Latin sources the title is usually translated as princeps, but the word was originally derived from the common Germanic *kuningaz (king).
Bolghar was intermittently the capital of Volga Bulgaria from the 10th to the 13th centuries, along with Bilyar and Nur-Suvar. It was situated on the bank of the Volga River, about 30 km downstream from its confluence with the Kama River and some 130 km from modern Kazan in what is now Spassky District. West of it lies a small modern town, since 1991 known as Bolgar. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed Bolgar Historical and Archaeological Complex to the World Heritage List in 2014.
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Fanariots were members of prominent Greek families in Phanar, the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is located, who traditionally occupied four important positions in the Ottoman Empire: Voivode of Moldavia, Voivode of Wallachia, Grand Dragoman of the Porte and Grand Dragoman of the Fleet. Despite their cosmopolitanism and often-Western education, the Phanariots were aware of their Greek ancestry and culture; according to Nicholas Mavrocordatos' Philotheou Parerga, "We are a race completely Hellenic".
The Qasim Khanate or the Qasim Kingdom was a Tatar-ruled khanate, a vassal of Russia, which existed from 1452 until 1681 in the territory of modern Ryazan Oblast in Russia with its capital at Kasimov, in the middle course of the Oka River. It was established in the lands which Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow presented in 1452 to the Kazan prince Qasim Khan, son of the first Kazan khan Olug Moxammat.
The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval state that existed in Southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded in 680–681 after part of the Bulgars, led by Asparuh, moved south to the northeastern Balkans. There they secured Byzantine recognition of their right to settle south of the Danube by defeating – possibly with the help of local South Slavic tribes – the Byzantine army led by Constantine IV. During the 9th and 10th century, Bulgaria at the height of its power spread from the Danube Bend to the Black Sea and from the Dnieper River to the Adriatic Sea and became an important power in the region competing with the Byzantine Empire.
The Moscow uprising of 1648, sometimes known as the salt riot, started because of the government's replacement of different taxes with a universal salt tax for the purpose of replenishing the state treasury after the Time of Troubles. This drove up the price of salt, leading to violent riots in the streets of Moscow. The riot was an early challenge to the reign of Alexei I, eventually resulting in the exile of Alexei's advisor Boris Morozov.
The government reforms of Peter I aimed to modernize the Tsardom of Russia based on Western European models.
The Sobornoye Ulozheniye was a legal code promulgated in 1649 by the Zemsky Sobor under Alexis of Russia as a replacement for the Sudebnik of 1550 introduced by Ivan IV of Russia. The code survived well into the 19th century, when its articles were revised under the direction of Mikhail Speransky.
The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.
The history of Ukrainian nationality can be traced back to the kingdom of Kievan Rus' of the 9th to 12th centuries. It was the predecessor state to what would eventually become the Eastern Slavic nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. During this time, Eastern Orthodoxy, a defining feature of Ukrainian nationalism, was incorporated into everyday life.
Irina Feodorovna Godunova, also known by her monastic name Alexandra (Александра), was the tsaritsa consort of all Russia by marriage to Feodor I from 1584 until his death on 17 January [O.S. 7 January] 1598. As her husband died childless, she was the de facto ruler of Russia until she retired to Novodevichy Convent nine days later. She remained the nominal ruler of Russia until her brother Boris Godunov was elected tsar on 3 March [O.S. 21 February] 1598.
The Principality of Moscow or Grand Duchy of Moscow, also known simply as Muscovy, was a principality of the Late Middle Ages centered on Moscow. It eventually evolved into the Tsardom of Russia in the early modern period. The princes of Moscow were descendants of the first prince Daniel, referred to in modern historiography as the Daniilovichi, a branch of the Rurikids.
The Muscovite War of Succession, or Muscovite Civil War, was a war of succession in the Grand Duchy of Moscow (Muscovy) from 1425 to 1453. The two warring parties were Vasily II, the son of the previous Grand Prince of Moscow Vasily I, and on the other hand his uncle, Yury Dmitrievich, the Prince of Zvenigorod, and the sons of Yuri Dmitrievich, Vasily Kosoy and Dmitry Shemyaka. In the intermediate stage, the party of Yury conquered Moscow, but in the end, Vasily II regained his crown.
This is a select bibliography of post World War II English language books and journal articles about the history of Russia and its borderlands from the Mongol invasions until 1613. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
The Tsar of all Russia, officially the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, was the title of the Russian monarch from 1547 to 1721. During this period, the state was a tsardom.
The Sovereign of all Russia, also the Sovereign and Grand Prince of all Russia, was a title used by the grand princes of Moscow. The title was later changed to sovereign, tsar and grand prince.
References
↑ Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary, Volume I, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences publishing house, 1971, p. 71
↑ "boier", Wikționar (in Romanian), 2017-05-13, retrieved 2022-05-07
1 2 3 Gustave, Alef (1967). "Reflections on the Boyar Duma". The Slavonic and East European Review. 45 (104): 76–123. JSTOR4205832.
↑ Bushkovitch, Paul (2004). "Princes Cherkaaskii or Circassian Murzas: The Kabardians in the Russian Boyar Elite, 1560–1700". Cahiers du Monde Russe. 45 (1/2): 10. JSTOR20174844.
↑ (in Romanian) Eugen Istodor, "Revoluția lui Djuvara: „Românii erau numiți cumanii negri" ", interview with Neagu Djuvara in Cotidianul, retrieved June 19, 2007
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