ABSTRACT
For much of modern Russian history the seventeenth century has served as a background whose function is to provide contrast for the reign of Peter the Great. To provide the maximum contrast, both the Slavophiles and Westernizers of the middle of the nineteenth century painted a picture of the decades previous to 1689 as one of unchanging continuation of “tradition.” That picture has survived the changes in culture and ideology in Russia and elsewhere in large part because (until quite recently) the seventeenth century of Russian history was comparatively unknown. The huge boom in studies of the sixteenth century that began in the 1950s in the Soviet Union has no counterpart for the seventeenth century. That being said, the work of the last thirty years or so makes it possible to see Peter’s achievement in at least a somewhat new light, and to get beyond searching for the origins of Peter’s attitudes in the German Suburb. We know enough now to say that there were trends which we can trace in the Russia of the seventeenth century that lead forward to Peter’s time, even if we do not know all the details and many areas are left unexplored. These trends fall into three groups: religious-cultural changes, the evolution of the state and state policy, and the larger socio-economic background, including demographic and geographic issues.
