ABSTRACT

A popular textbook on Russian history places the beginning of “modern” Russia in 1645. The “misleading exactitude” of the periodization aside, the author’s choice of date underscores the importance of the reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich (1645-76) to the gradual advance of Russia into the modern era.1 Philip Longworth’s biography of Aleksei provides abundant evidence of the pivotal nature of this time in Russian history, particularly in relation to the dramatic, much scrutinized reign of Aleksei’s son, Peter the Great.2 Under Aleksei, the various ‘isms’ normally associated with modernization in the West between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries appear in Russia to various degrees: absolutism, bureaucratism, mercantilism, humanism. The overhaul of the Muscovite military and increasing openness to Western influences further distinguish the period from former times.