ABSTRACT
Tsar Ivan IV’s conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in 1552 ushered in a new era of Muscovite expansion south along the Volga River and east into Siberia, and soon confronted the Russian state with the problem of how to govern these newly incorporated lands and peoples. Almost immediately, Muscovite authorities replaced the Khanate’s political and religious administrative structures with their Russian equivalents, such as a voevoda (regional governor) and a new Orthodox bishopric, justifying the triumphant rhetoric of the Russian Orthodox Church. Moscow hoped to secure the region from nearby nomadic raiders, pacify its indigenous population, and thus successfully extend its borders. Control over the former Khanate’s lands and people, however, was a project that had only begun.2
