Nobility in the XVIII-XIX centuries. status of men and women. The golden age and the fatal sunset. Essay on the economic position of the nobility

24.09.2019

Chapter two. NOBILITY

"Retired Capital". - The lifestyle of nobles. - A B. Kurakin. - P. A. Demidov. - Living statues. - And I. Annenkova. - Newsmen. - N. D. Ofrosimova. - Open houses. - Holidays in Kuskovo. - And G. Orlov. - Horn orchestras. - Ball at S. S. Apraksin. - The decline of the nobility. - The Bartenev family. - "Orders". - Moscow "Saint-Germain". - "Free from standing." - Bar house. - Yards. - Jester Ivan Savelich. - Saltychikha. - Concern for morality. - "Archival youths". - Noble assembly. - "Bride Fair"

In the last decades of the 18th and the first third of the 19th century, especially before the Patriotic War of 1812, the nobility played a very prominent role in the everyday life of Moscow. His tastes, habits and way of life largely influenced the life of other classes. It can be said that the nobility then set the tone in the city, and this period, which lasted until about the 1840s, can be called the time of noble Moscow.

Unlike St. Petersburg, which seemed to be some kind of eternal official, pulled into a uniform and buttoned up, Moscow, from the end of the 18th century and throughout the entire 19th century, embodied the elements of private life. After the appearance in 1762 of the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility in Russia, the phenomenon of the noble retiree arose, and Moscow became his capital. They went to Moscow "to rest." They returned to Moscow after the end of their career. As A. I. Herzen wrote: “Moscow served as a station between St. Petersburg and the other world for the retired nobility as a foretaste of grave silence.” One of the Moscow governors-general, the well-known writer F. V. Rostopchin, spoke about the same thing, only more diplomatically: in this city, to which everyone was drawn either by his birth, or by his upbringing, or by the memories of his youth, which play such a strong role in the slope of life. Each family had its own house, and the most prosperous - estates near Moscow. Part of the nobility spent the winter in Moscow, and the summer in its environs. They came there to have fun, to live with their loved ones, with relatives and contemporaries.

The status of the “capital of retirees” and the predominance of middle-aged and older people determined the generally opposition-conservative character of Moscow noble society. In the aristocratic living rooms, between whist and dinner, the noble opposition vitiated, dissatisfied with almost everything that happened in the power structures of St. Petersburg, with which it no longer had any relation.

Despite the fact that the nobility as a whole was considered the highest and "noble" estate, neither its appearance, nor its position, nor its way of life were the same for everyone. The nobility was subdivided into the highest aristocracy, the “imaginary” aristocracy, claiming to be noble and high social position, the middle circle and the small estates, and these circles were quite isolated and mixed little among themselves, always making it clear to each other about the border separating them. “After all, we were not some Chumichkins or Dorimedonts, but the Rimsky-Korsakovs, of the same tribe with the Miloslavskys, from whose family was the first wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich,” boasted the Moscow mistress E. P. Yankova, nee Rimskaya-Korsakova. A special stratum was made up of petty bureaucrats, who received the nobility by seniority, but also constituted a completely separate circle, unanimously despised by all those claiming at least some sort of nobleness.

The highest aristocracy, titled and wealthy ("nobles", "tycoons"), played the most significant role in the life of the city, mainly in the last decades of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - until 1812. A large fortune allowed this part of the nobility to live in grand style, without denying themselves anything. Many estates and several luxurious city houses, often with adjacent parks filled with all sorts of "curiosities" and undertakings in the form of Chinese pagodas, Greek temples, intricate grottoes, arbors, greenhouses and other things, collections of works of art and rarities, huge libraries, exquisite table, all sorts of whims, even eccentricities - they could afford almost everything. At their houses there were churches, art galleries, choirs, orchestras, house theaters (at the end of the 18th century there were 22 serf theaters in Moscow, maintained by Prince B. G. Shakhovsky, A. N. Zinoviev, V. P. Saltykov, Prince V. I. Shcherbatov, Prince P. M. Volkonsky and other nobles), “arenas with rare horses, falcon and dog hunters with a huge number of dogs, cellars filled with old wines. Nobles went to public festivities only in openwork gilded carriages with family coats of arms, on six horses in blinders, in a train; the heads of the horses were decorated with colorful tassels with gilded plaques. The coachmen and postilions were in German coats, in three-cornered hats, with powdered heads; the coachmen held the reins in one hand, and long whips in the other, with which they snapped in the air above the horses. Behind the carriage stood a huntsman in a hat with a large green feather, and a black man in a turban or a runner with a tall hussar in a bear's hat with gold tassels.

The French artist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who visited Moscow in 1800, recalled her visit to Prince Alexei Borisovich Kurakin on Staraya Basmannaya. “We were expected in his vast palace, decorated on the outside with truly royal luxury. Almost in all the halls, magnificently furnished, hung portraits of the owner of the house. Before inviting us to the table, the prince showed us his bedroom, which surpassed everything else in its elegance. The bed, raised to a dais with splendidly carpeted steps, was surrounded by richly draped columns. At the four corners were placed two statues and two vases of flowers. The most exquisite furnishings and magnificent sofas made this room a worthy abode of Venus. On the way to the dining room we passed through wide corridors, where on both sides stood slaves in ceremonial liveries and with torches in their hands, which gave the impression of a solemn ceremony. During dinner, invisible musicians, located somewhere upstairs, delighted us with delightful horn music ... The prince was a most beautiful person, invariably amiable with equals and without any arrogance to the lowest.

It can be added to the characterization of Prince A. B. Kurakin that his nickname was "diamond prince", and quite deservedly, because Kurakin's addiction to diamonds was great and well known: his suit was decorated with diamond buttons, buckles and aiguillettes; the stones shone on his fingers, watch chain, snuff box, cane, and so on, and he was captured in full splendor in his numerous portraits, in particular, on the one painted by V. L. Borovikovsky and kept in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Every morning of the "diamond prince" began with the fact that the valet gave him a pile of plump albums, each of which contained samples of fabrics and embroidery of numerous princely costumes, and Kurakin chose outfits for the coming day. Each costume had its own hat, shoes, cane, rings and everything else, up to the top dress, in the same style, and the violation of the kit (the snuffbox from the wrong costume!) Could drive the prince out of himself for a long time.

After the death of his fiancee, Countess Sheremeteva, from smallpox, Kurakin remained a bachelor forever and went to the eligible suitors, which did not prevent him from having almost eighty illegitimate children by the end of his life. Some of his descendants were considered serfs, he provided the nobility and even titles to others - barons Vrevsky, barons Serdobin and others - and left an inheritance, because of which then there was an endless and scandalous lawsuit for a long time.

By the way, about nicknames. In aristocratic Moscow, people liked to give nicknames, which fully corresponded to the patriarchal-family character of the city itself. For example, there were so many princes Golitsyns in Moscow that, as someone quipped, “among them it was already possible to announce a recruitment set” (every twentieth person from persons of the corresponding age was taken into recruits). As a result, almost every Golitsyn had his own nickname - it was necessary to somehow distinguish them from each other. There was Golitsyn-Ryabchik, Golitsyn-Firs, Yurka, Ryzhiy, Kulik, Spoon, Jesuit-Golitsyn, etc. The nickname of Prince N. I. Trubetskoy was “Yellow Dwarf”. I. M. Dolgorukov was called Balcony, Prince S. G. Volkonsky (Decembrist) - Byukhn, a certain Raevsky, who "fluttered" from house to house - Zephyr, etc.

Prokopy Akinfievich Demidov, who lived not far from Kurakin on Voznesenskaya (now Radio Street), was no less original than A. B. Kurakin. For festivities and shopping on the Kuznetsky Most, he rode in a carriage harnessed by a train of six: in front were two undersized Kalmyk horses, on which sat a giant postilion, literally dragging its feet along the ground; the middle horses were of enormous stature - the English "percherons", and the last ones were crumb ponies. On the heels flaunted lackeys - one old man, the other a boy of about ten, in liveries, sewn half from brocade, half from sackcloth, and shod with one foot in a stocking and a shoe, and the other in a bast shoe with onuchami. Muscovites, not particularly spoiled by spectacles, flocked to this wonderful exit, and the owner received untold pleasure from such publicity.

A passionate gardener, Demidov grew heat-loving plants - fruits and flowers - on all his estates, and achieved great success (he is depicted in the portrait by Dmitry Levitsky - with a watering can and flower bulbs). In his Moscow house, peaches grew in dirt sheds, pineapples ripened in greenhouses, and flower beds were full of the brightest and rarest flowers. Anyone from the "clean public" could come to Demidov's garden for a walk - the gates were not locked. And then thieves got into the habit of Demidov. They tore flowers and peeled unripe fruits, trampling plantings and peeling bark from trees. The disappointed Demidov ordered an investigation and it turned out that some high-society ladies who came to walk in his garden were abusive.

What an ordinary person would do in such a situation - decide for yourself, but Demidov came up with this. He ordered the Italian statues that adorned the garden to be removed from the pedestals and put in their place the courtyard peasants - completely naked and smeared with white paint. As soon as the intruders went deeper into the alley, the "statues" suddenly came to life and plunged the thieves into indescribable embarrassment.

Living at rest with almost unlimited means allowed the Moscow nobility to play weird in every possible way. Someone cast a carriage from pure silver, someone built a house of bizarre architecture (the owners of one such structure on Pokrovka were even nicknamed “Trubetskoy chest of drawers” after their house) ... a meerschaum pipe, and behind it a whole train of grooms with clockwork horses covered with Persian carpets and colored blankets. The third does not want to do anything like people: in the winter he rides on wheels, and in the summer on skids ... Will, brother! .. The people are rich, retired, whatever comes to mind, they do.

Many contemporaries left memories, for example, about the oddities and quirks of Anna Ivanovna Annenkova, nee Yakobiy, the mother of the Decembrist I. A. Annenkov. The daughter of very wealthy parents, who married late and widowed early, Anna Ivanovna owed no account to anyone and lived for her own pleasure. For her enormous wealth in Moscow, she was nicknamed the "Queen of Golconda." She turned the night into day and stayed awake at night and received guests, and slept during the day, and, going to rest, made a thorough toilet, not inferior to a day off. She could sleep only on heated silk sheets, only in the light (special lamps were burning in her bedroom, hidden inside snow-white alabaster vases, through the walls of which only a muffled mysterious flicker seeped) and to the accompaniment of a conversation, for which yard women sat by her bed all day and spoke in a low voice. As soon as they fell silent, the lady immediately woke up and arranged a dressing. Among the servants of Annenkova was one extremely fat woman, whose whole duty was to heat a place in the carriage for the hostess, and at home - her favorite chair. When Annenkova was going to sew a dress for herself, she bought the fabric she liked by tens of meters, all that was on sale, so that no one else in Moscow would have a second similar outfit. For all her extravagance, when the bride of her son condemned to Siberian exile, the Frenchwoman Pauline Goble, came to ask for money in order to organize Ivan's escape, Annenkova said: “Is my son a fugitive? This will not happen!” - and did not give money.

In general, the Moscow nobility could boast of many bright types and personalities, which in a peculiar way adorned the course of boring everyday life. Here, for example, the so-called "messengers". They were almost always bachelors, mostly middle-aged, even elderly. All their visible activity consisted in the fact that they migrated from one house to another from day to day, now for dinner, then at office hours, then for the evening, and everywhere they brought the latest news and gossip - both private and public, political . They could be seen at all family celebrations, at all weddings and funerals, at all card tables. Elderly ladies considered them their confidants and from time to time sent them somewhere with small assignments. How and how they lived, what was their personal life outside the living rooms, remained a mystery to everyone. Among them, even in the middle of the century, Prince A. M. Khilkov, retired cavalryman A. N. Teplov, M. A. Ryabinin, P. P. Svinin (who was under police supervision for involvement in the Decembrists’ cause) were known in the middle of the century) , and noble Moscow could not imagine its existence without these people.

An even more colorful type was represented by high-society old women - old ladies famous throughout the city, who preserved the habits and way of life of the last century, were a living chronicle of noble Moscow, remembered all close and distant family ties, all the customs and customs of peers and ancestors, and thus ensured the tradition and connection of times. Many of them enjoyed serious authority and influence, acted as guardians of public morals and opinions. Others were not only respected, but also feared, such as, for example, N. D. Ofrosimova, whose bright personality L. N. Tolstoy could not pass by and brought her out in War and Peace (the old woman Akhrosimova). Eccentric and absurd, like all old women, direct and sharp on the tongue, Ofrosimova, as they say, cut the truth-womb and did it right in the eyes, loudly and categorically. There was a case when she publicly denounced one of the Moscow administrators of theft and bribery, and did this in the theater in the presence of the emperor himself, but for the most part the social temperament of the old lady poured out in the domestic sphere. For example, young people, especially young ladies, who were starting to go out into the world, were brought to bow to her - the secular reputation of future brides largely depended on the approval of the old woman.

Ofrosimova could not stand the fashion of that time and especially often resented the dandies who allowed themselves, as they would say now, edgy things. Someone, after her attacks at his address, was embarrassed and went home to change clothes, but sometimes Ofrosimova received a rebuff. Once she made some remark to the well-known dandy Astashevsky, and he, contrary to Moscow custom, abruptly cut her off.

Slightly taken aback, Ofrosimova exclaimed:

Ahti, fathers! What an angry! Togo and look eat!

Calm down, madam, - Astashevsky replied coolly. - I don't eat pork.

In the 1860s and 1870s, the role of guardian of public morality was played by Princess Ekaterina Andreevna Gagarina, who also spoke, interfering with Russian and French, in the face of everyone the unpleasant truth. All of Moscow went to bow to her on holidays and on name days. She was also a universal philanthropist, always working for orphans and losers.

With all the whims and fantasies, the classic Moscow nobility did not become isolated in its own environment. Such rich people as S. S. Apraksin, A. P. Khrushchov, S. P. Potemkin, counts A. G. Orlov, K. G. and A. K Razumovsky, P. B. Sheremetev, princes N. B. Yusupov, Yu. V. Dolgorukov, N. I. Trubetskoy and others were the pride, generous benefactors and common benefactors of Moscow. They supported and protected close and distant relatives, colleagues and fellow countrymen, supported dozens of hosts, took care of orphans, gave dowries to poor brides, litigated in courts, and also treated and entertained “all of Moscow”. “Whoever had the means did not skimp and did not sit on his chest,” E. P. Yankova recalled, “but lived openly, amuse others and amuse himself through it.”

The nobles were simply obliged to keep an “open table”, at which “invited and uninvited”, and even just strangers, gathered, so that twenty to eighty people could gather at a daily dinner, and an “open house”, where one could easily, without an invitation , only being familiar with the owner, come "to the light." “A Moscow nobleman is always a great hospitable person, not at all proud in society, generous, affectionate and extremely attentive to everyone who visits his house,” wrote P. Wistenhof. Smaller aristocrats followed the magnates, followed by the middle nobility, and almost all of them lived in an “open house” until the war of 1812, settled in their homes the neglected from among distant relatives and the poorest neighbors and spoke contemptuously about the stingy “Petersburg”, who were already at the turn of the 18th century. -XIX centuries they introduced fixed reception days (“zhurfixes”) and received guests only on these days and on no other days.

Almost any nobleman who found himself in the capital and had no relatives here could come to dine with the Moscow nobleman, although, of course, first of all, he was connected with the owner in some way - his countryman, fellow soldier (at least at other times he served in the same regiment) or a relative, albeit the most distant one. Kinship in Moscow was greatly honored, and noblemen who had just met, even before the start of a real conversation, always considered it their duty to "be considered kinship." “Kinship was preserved not between the same blood, but up to the fourth, fifth generation in all its strength,” said a contemporary. “After all, you are not a stranger to me,” they said, “your grandmother Aksinya Fedorovna was my grandfather’s aunt, and you are my godson, come to us more often and tell us what you need?” , introducing others, asked to be merciful to them. One of those or the other gets sick - they bothered, visited, lent money. Each young man knew to which department he belonged, who was his relative, his patron. (...) The great-granddaughter brother (i.e., fourth cousin) of my mother, going from the village to Moscow, wrote to her without circumlocution: “sister, prepare rooms for me,” and terrible fuss arose: they prepared an outbuilding, washed the floors, smoked, put furniture, and the date was like a celebration. As V. G. Belinsky noted: “Not loving and not respecting relatives in Moscow is considered worse than freethinking.”

For a visit to the "open table" no invitation and other conditions were required, except for a confirmed noble origin, a suit corresponding to it (sometimes a uniform) and decorous behavior.

It was even possible not to be introduced to the host: it was enough to silently bow to him at the beginning and end of dinner. It was said about Count K G. Razumovsky that at one time some retired, poorly dressed officer went to his house for dinner like this: he bowed modestly and sat at the end of the table, and then quietly left.

One day, one of Razumovsky's adjutants decided to play a trick on him and began to inquire who invited him to dine here. "No one," replied the officer. “I thought, where is it better than with my field marshal.” “He doesn’t have a tavern, sir,” said the adjutant. “That’s where you can go without being called.” (He was lying: he wanted to show off the provincial.)

Since that time, the retiree has not appeared again. A few days later, Razumovsky began to ask: “Where is that grenadier officer who went here to dine and was sitting over there?” It turned out that no one knows the officer, and where he lodges is unknown. The count sent adjutants (and that joker among them) to find the missing man, and a few days later he was found somewhere on the outskirts of the city, in a removable corner. The count invited the officer to his place, asked, and learning that a protracted litigation had brought him to Moscow and that, while waiting for a decision on it, he completely lived, and at home he had a family without any means, he settled in, "got busy" in court, as a result, a positive decision on the case followed almost instantly, and then he gave more money for the return trip and sent a gift to his wife - and all this out of noble solidarity and in accordance with the tradition prescribed for nobles of his rank.

There is a colorful description of lunch at the “open table” in one old magazine: “Usually, these uninvited, very often unfamiliar visitors gathered in one of the front halls of the nobleman an hour before his dinner, that is, at two in the afternoon (then they sat down early at the table ).

The host with his friends came out to these very guests from the inner chambers, often deigning to talk to many of them, and was very pleased if his dear visitors did not make any repairs, and his reception room resounded with a cheerful, lively conversation.

At the appointed hour, the dining butler reported that the food was ready, and the host with a crowd of his guests went to the dining room ... Food and drinks were served both to the host and to the last of his guests - the same. These tables ... were simple and satisfying, like Russian hospitality. As a rule, after vodka, which in various decanters, decanters and bottles stood on a special table with decent appetizers of salmon, salmon, pressed caviar, fried liver, hard-boiled eggs, they served hot, mainly consisting of sour, lazy or green cabbage soup, or from veal stew, or from pickle with chicken, or from Little Russian borscht ...

This was followed by two or three cold dishes, such as: ham, goose under cabbage, boiled pork under onions ... pike perch under galantine ... boiled sturgeon ... After the cold one, two sauces certainly appeared; in this department, the most common dishes were - duck with mushrooms, veal liver with chopped lung, veal head with prunes and raisins, lamb with garlic, doused with red sweetish sauce; Little Russian dumplings, dumplings, brains under green peas... The fourth course consisted of roast turkeys, ducks, geese, piglets, veal, black grouse, hazel grouse, partridge, sturgeon with shots or lamb side with buckwheat porridge. Instead of salad, pickles, olives, olives, salted lemons and apples were served.

Lunch ended with two cakes - wet and dry. Wet cakes included: blancmange, compotes, various cold kissels with cream ... ice cream and creams. These dishes were called wet cakes because they were eaten with spoons; dry cakes were taken by hand. Favorite foods of this variety were: puff pies ... marshmallows, hearth pies with jam, fritters and almond biscuits ... All this was sprinkled with wines and drinks worthy of a dinner ... Those who wished ate coffee, but most preferred to drink a glass or two of punch, and then everyone bowed to the noble hospitable, knowing that for him and for them, according to Russian custom, an afternoon rest is necessary.

Moscow nobles periodically held holidays, to which any city dweller could come, regardless of origin. And many of the "tycoons" did it with pleasure and scope. The Moscow tradition of the end of the 18th century included holidays that Count Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetev gave at his place near Moscow - Kuskovo. They were arranged regularly in the summer (from May to August) every Thursday and Sunday, and the entrance was open to everyone - both noble and ignoble, and not even nobles, as long as they were not dressed in rags and behaved decently. The guests in Kuskovo poured in and heartily followed the invitation of the host "to have fun, as anyone else, in the house and garden." “The Kuskovskaya road,” recalled N. M. Karamzin, “represented the street of a crowded city, and the carriage jumped over the carriage. Music thundered in the gardens, people crowded in the alleys, and a Venetian gondola with multi-colored flags rode through the still waters of a large lake (this is how the vast Kuskovsky pond can be called). A performance for the noble, various amusements for the people and amusing lights for everyone made up the weekly holiday of Moscow. There were three theaters in Kuskovo, and Sheremetev's own serf actors played in them - including the famous Praskovya Zhemchugova, whom Sheremetev's son, Nikolai Petrovich, eventually married.

On the big pond they rode boats and gondolas. Count's orchestras played: horn and string. The count's choristers sang. Carousels, swings, bowling pins and other "rural games and fun" were waiting for those who wished on the site behind the Hermitage. In the evenings, colorful fireworks lit up in the sky. Guests were served free tea and fruit from the count's greenhouses and gardens.

Muscovites came to Kuskovo for several days. They stopped somewhere in the village with the peasants, then arranged a long tour of the estate, and finally took part in the holiday.

The popularity of the Kuskovsky festivities was so great that the owner of the first Moscow pleasure garden - "Voksala", the Englishman Michael Madox complained to all his acquaintances about Count Sheremetev, who "beats off the audience from him." “Rather, I can complain about him,” Sheremetev objected. - It is he who deprives me of visitors and interferes with the gift of amusing people from whom he himself is tearing hot money. I do not trade in fun, but amuse my guest with it. Why is he stealing my guests from me? Whoever went to him, perhaps, would have been with me ... "

Sheremetev holidays were far from being the only ones in Moscow. In the summer, count A. K. Razumovsky arranged wonderful festivities with music and refreshments at his Gorokhovo field. In July, here on the banks of the Yauza, a real demonstrative haymaking was started with smart peasants, who first mowed the hay, and then danced in a round dance on a mowed meadow. The gates connecting Razumovsky Park with the neighboring Demidov Park (that same lover of gardening) were thrown wide open on such days, and guests could walk for many hours in a row through the vast park space, enjoying all sorts of beauties and almost rural freedom.

A certain Vlasov (his wife was the sister of the famous "Princess Zeneida" - 3. A. Volkonskaya) had an estate near Moscow, in which up to 5 thousand people had fun (at the master's expense) on holidays. “None of all his greenhouses were sold,” recalled N. D. Ivanchin-Pisarev, who was at these festivities, “he liked to look at the trees showered with fruits, and then he gave the fruits to anyone: his people played skittles with oranges, and pineapples of all famous varieties were sent to neighbors and Moscow friends in baskets. I mentioned the parks, - he continued, - it was a forest for four miles. Vlasov called on the British, Germans, and more than 500 Russians to cut down everything that was not picturesque in it, but to leave one picturesque in flower beds and parks; paved the English paths with labyrinths; he removed it with bridges, deserts, and we, walking through this space and tired, sat on the rulers and went around, marveling at the surprises of the views at every step. After the festivities, ceremonial dinners were arranged for the invited, and, as Ivanchin-Pisarev emphasized, “they didn’t dare to enclose anyone or give him the worst wine: princes Yusupov and Golitsyn could not ask themselves what they would not have poured to Pankrat Agapovich Garonin” .

However, in Moscow in the first years of the 19th century, festivities and holidays at the home of Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov on the Kaluga Highway (where the Neskuchny Garden is now) were especially famous. From the end of the 18th century, Orlov was one of the brightest Moscow stars. There was a time when he rushed headlong into big politics: he put the great Catherine on the throne, delivered to her from Italy the impostor Princess Tarakanova captured by deceit, the Turks fought. The unfortunate Emperor Peter III, as one old historian delicately expressed, died “literally in his, Orlova , hugs ”... Then another time came, and Orlov settled in Moscow, delighting the townspeople with his article, good nature and openness, incredible physical strength: he jokingly unbent horseshoes and rolled silver rubles into a tube. He was a gambling man who loved vivid sensations, he liked to amaze Moscow with the breadth of his nature and generosity: when he went to public festivities, he threw whole handfuls of silver coins at the people.

It was Orlov who started horse races in the Mother See (a hippodrome was set up right in front of his house) and certainly participated in them, demonstrating hard-earned, own factory, "Orlov" trotters. He exhibited magnificent birds for goose and cockfights. On Shrovetide Week, he went out, along with others, on the ice of the Moskva River and participated in fist fights, being known almost to old age as one of best fighters. Sometimes, in order to once again test his strength, he invited one of the famous strong men to his home and fought with his fists.

The holidays of A. G. Orlov were arranged - for any decently dressed public, including peasants (only the beggars were not allowed in) - every Sunday in the summer, and there was music, and fireworks, and horse riding, and theatrical performances on the stage of the open Green Theater , in which garden greens served as backstage. On the open stages, the count's own songwriters and a real gypsy choir sang - Orlov was the first of the Russian nobles to order him from Moldova and became the initiator of the all-Russian fashion for gypsyism. Finally, the Oryol horn orchestra also performed, resounding the park with the sounds of unearthly beauty.

In general, many Moscow aristocrats had horn orchestras from serfs. They consisted of 30-60 improved hunting horns of different lengths and diameters. The largest could exceed two meters; when playing, they were supported on special stands. There were also small horns - about thirty centimeters in length. Each horn made only one sound. It was impossible to play a melody using just one horn - it was only possible for a whole orchestra, in which each musician entered on time with his only note. The horn orchestra rehearsals were incredibly difficult; the musicians were literally drilled to achieve a consistent and correct sound, but the result exceeded any description. When, at the height of the holiday, somewhere behind the trees or on the surface of the pond, a horn orchestra began to sound from the boats, it seemed to the listeners that they heard the sounds of several large organs consisting of fanfare at once. The impression was magical. The melody sounded especially beautiful above the water, and the owners of horn music, including Orlov, often made the orchestra slowly float along the river past the venue of the holiday, first in one direction, then in the other direction.

After 1812, the brilliance of merry aristocratic life in Moscow gradually began to fade. “The wars ... violated old habits and introduced new customs,” Count F. V. Rostopchin testified. - Hospitality - one of the Russian virtues - began to disappear, under the pretext of frugality, but in essence due to selfishness. Taverns and hotels proliferated, and their number increased as the difficulty increased to appear uninvited at dinner, to stay with relatives or friends. This change also affected the many servants who were kept from swagger or from the habit of seeing them. Important boyars like the Dolgorukys, Golitsyns, Volkonskys, Eropkins, Panins, Orlovs, Chernyshevs, and Sheremetevs no longer existed. With them, the noble life that they had maintained since the beginning of the reign of Catherine disappeared. Gradually, the “Moscow” ones began to introduce “fixed days”, the “open table” disappeared, balls became less frequent and more modest, more inconspicuous than a carriage ...

This, of course, did not happen immediately: from time to time one of the nobles strained and tried to shake the old days. In 1818, when the Court was in Moscow, who came to celebrate the first anniversary of the victory over Napoleon, a ball for 800-900 people was given in the Apraksins' house, the guests of which were not only the imperial family, but also numerous foreign guests. As D. I. Nikiforov said, “Emperor Alexander I, when introducing S. S. Apraksin to him, expressed a desire to be at his party. Apraksin, flattered by the attention of the sovereign, invited that evening, in addition to the retinue of the sovereign, all the Moscow noble society to his famous house on the corner of Arbatskaya Square and Prechistensky Boulevard. The messengers were immediately sent to the suburbs, from there they delivered tropical plants in tubs from greenhouses and the necessary supply of provisions, so that the preparation of the holiday was even inexpensive. Dinner was served in the Apraksinsky arena, turned into a winter garden, with palm trees, flower beds, fountains and sand-strewn paths. “The orchestra, their own servants, and the provisions for dinner are not purchased,” wrote Nikiforov. - A magnificent ball cost the count only five thousand banknotes. Of course, there was nothing supernatural, ostentatious, neither March strawberries, nor January cherries, nothing unnatural and contrary to nature and climate, but there was something that corresponded to the time and the country. In 1826, Prince Yusupov arranged a memorable holiday with a performance in his own theater, a ball and a ceremonial dinner in honor of the coronation of Nicholas I ... But nevertheless, these were already intra-noble holidays, and an ordinary citizen could touch the celebration only by looking into the illuminated windows or looking through the bars fences on the fireworks shining in the park.

Sergei Alexandrovich Rimsky-Korsakov was considered among the last Moscow hospitable people, who even in the mid-1840s gave cheerful balls and masquerades in his house near the Strastnoy Monastery with a large number of guests and with plentiful dinners, but these were already the last flashes of former splendor . The Russian nobility grew poorer and tightened its belts. “Now there is no shadow of the past,” sighed E. P. Yankova, “who is more significant and richer is all in St. in a lordly way, as it used to be, but in a petty-bourgeois way, about themselves. There is more luxury, everything is more expensive, needs have increased, and the means are small and poor, well, and live not as you want, but as you can. They would raise our old people, let them look at Moscow, they would gasp - what it has become like ... "

After the war, such characters as the Bartenev family, completely ruined after the death of the father of the family, began to appear in the Moscow aristocracy, but managed to remain among the nobility.

“From early in the morning, the family got to their feet,” said E. A Sabaneeva, “the children were washed, dressed, put in a carriage, and Barteneva went to an early mass, then to a late one, and all this to different monasteries or parish churches. After mass on the porch (in order to kill the worm), they bought from peddlers and sometimes bagels, sometimes buckwheat or pies, were put into the hands of the children. Then everyone got back into the carriage, and the Bartenevs went to one of their acquaintances, where they stayed for whole days - they had breakfast, lunch and dinner, looking, so to speak, by inspiration ... where God puts his heart. Barteneva's children were of different sexes and ages; in those houses where there were governesses, the older ones used the lessons together with the children of the owners of the house, and the younger ones were such well-groomed children! - nomadic life in Moscow has developed in them the ability to fall asleep in all corners of the living rooms, or, cuddling in the tea room under the table, take a deep sleep of innocence if mama stayed up late at a party. Sometimes, late at night, Barteneva will say goodbye to the hosts, head to the hall, call her old footman, tell them to pick up the sleepy children, carry them into the carriage, and the family returns to fill up the rest of the night in their large, often poorly heated house. There was a case when one of the girls was forgotten sleeping in the carriage, and at night, waking up in the carriage house, she began to scream loudly, which made a commotion all over the street.

Soon, one of Barteneva's eldest daughters, Polina, discovered a magnificent operatic voice and she was invited to participate in all Moscow amateur concerts. The Moscow poet I.P. Myatlev even dedicated verses to P. Barteneva:

Ah, Barteneva - mamsel,

You are not a pipe, not a flute,

Not a bagpipe, but such

Something wonderful, holy

What can never be understood...

You sing like grace

You sing like hope

Like a heartbeat...

Is there a devil in the nightingale's song,

It will sound, suddenly hair on end,

The heart will shake everything

Even my stomach hurts.

At one of the concerts, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (wife of Nicholas I) heard her and took her as a lady-in-waiting.

The lowest stratum of the Moscow nobility were civil officials who served in the institutions of the city. For the most part, they belonged to the tribe of "orders", to the lower classes of the Table of Ranks, to that "nettle seed" despised by everyone, about which Russian classical literature wrote so much and tastefully. According to the length of service, all of them, even raznochintsy by birth, sooner or later went out to the nobility - first to the personal, then to the hereditary, and replenished the ranks of the "noble class", but before and after the onset of this happy moment, they were their own among the "real" nobility never became. Officials in Moscow were not liked at all and were scolded in every possible way, calling them “ink”, “buffoons”, “leeches”, “drunken muzzles” and even “strawberries” for some reason (hello to N.V. Gogol!). The services of the clerks were involuntarily used, their society was necessarily tolerated, but the bureaucratic world remained isolated and self-sufficient.

In this estate, as well as in Moscow in general, during the "noble era", remarkable progress was observed. The petty official before the fire, the true "order", embodied the traditions of the bureaucracy of the eighteenth century. He was badly and cheaply dressed: the most common were frock coats and overcoats made of frieze - a coarse, fleecy woolen fabric that was considered the epitome of poverty. He smelled of fumes, his beard was badly shaved, his washed and unkempt hair hung down in dirty icicles for good reason. Uncleaned boots asked for porridge and allowed you to see the fingers sticking out - the orderly did not wear any socks or windings. His hands were smeared with tobacco and ink, ink spots dotted his cheeks - a true clerk had a habit of putting a pen behind his ear. Manners denounced the absence of any kind of education. He blew his nose into a fist, sniffed and puffed, spoke in long and incomprehensible periods - in a word, he was clearly and unambiguously a man of bad taste. (And it's a nobleman!)

In the post-fire period, the bureaucracy civilized quite quickly and noticeably. The official of the new formation followed cleanliness and fashion, dressed smartly, sprinkled perfume, wore cufflinks and rings with fake diamonds, a watch with a chain, pomaded his fashionably combed head, smoked expensive cigarettes, knew several French phrases and by the way, he knew how to screw them in, dragged himself behind the ladies, was a member of some club, and in the summer on Sundays he made a promenade through the Alexander Garden or visited some country Elysium.

The officials were divided into those who danced and those who did not dance; into "users" and "not users".

It was extremely rare to meet those who did not use and did not dance.

Since the majority of Moscow government places were concentrated in the Kremlin and near it in Okhotny Ryad, a significant part of the official's day passed right there. He began the day at about nine in the morning with a prayer in front of Iverskaya, at three o'clock, after the end of his presence, he went to dinner at one of the Okhotno-Ryad taverns, then he smoked a pipe until evening, played billiards with a marker, drank liqueur and read newspapers and magazines, and On the way home, I looked at the shop windows and signs. On Sundays, he attended a dance class, and in the evenings he sometimes went to the theater. The family immediately after the service hurried home, where after dinner he read some book (it doesn’t matter which one, up to opera librettos) and fiddled with the unfinished business brought from the service (in a bundle of a scarf; there were no briefcases with pens at that time).

The salaries of Moscow officials were ridiculous - 10, 20, 25 rubles, or even less. Until the 1880s, the clerk of the Moscow Orphan's Court received 3 rubles 27 kopecks per month. (Having learned about this, the Moscow mayor N.A. Alekseev literally gasped and increased official salaries by 40 times at once.) Naturally, officials got everything else necessary for life with bribes. They took it “according to their rank”, but if it was enough for an old lawyer to put a five into his fist, then it was embarrassing to approach an emancipated official with less than a quarter (25 rubles), and besides, it was customary to feed them a good (and very expensive) dinner at the Chevalier or Budier hotel. As a result, "the priest of Themis, serving in some court on three hundred rubles a year salary", often managed not only to live in a pretty mansion, but also to keep a couple of horses, and in addition a non-strict beauty.

At the Iberian Gates and near the Kazan Cathedral, there were crowds of jobless and retired (often due to alcoholism or dark deeds) solicitors, often ragged and swollen from drunkenness, ready for a minimal fee (10–25 kopecks) to write any petition and conduct any lawsuit, as well as crafty solicitors, various commission agents and professional witnesses - a dark audience, the worst part of the "nettle seed". These "Ablakaty from Iverskaya" were one of the sights of Moscow throughout the nineteenth century.

Officials lived most densely near Novinsky, in Gruziny, in lanes on Sretenka, on Taganka, on Devichye Pole, and sometimes in Zamoskvorechye, where they occupied rented apartments.

The “real” nobility, not interfering with the “orders”, settled in other places - on Maroseyka, Pokrovka with nearby lanes, in Basmannaya and German settlements and on the Gorokhov field adjacent to them, as well as on the territory between Ostozhenka and Tverskaya and on the nearby Zubovsky and Novinsky boulevards. The area between Ostozhenka and Arbat was even called "Moscow Saint-Germain", by analogy with the aristocratic suburb of Paris. By the way, "Moscow Saint-Germain" was also almost a suburb - a distant outskirts. It is no coincidence that I. S. Turgenev, starting his story "Mumu", based on the events that took place in his mother's house, writes about Ostozhenka as one of the "most remote streets of Moscow."

Until the end of the 19th century, beyond the current Garden Ring, urban suburbs began with rare unsightly houses, wastelands, filthy groves and almost rural freedom. The territory of the Maiden's field was already out of town, summer cottage(where, in particular, A. S. Pushkin visited the dacha of the princes Vyazemsky).

Life in the "noble" areas was quiet and sleepy. Lanterns, as it should be on the outskirts, rarely stood. The pavements were somehow paved with cobblestones. On a summer morning, as if in a village, the shepherd's horn rang out, and the sleepy servants, opening the gates, drove the cows out into the street, which huddled in a herd and bellowed merrily, jingling their bells and leaving fresh "pancakes" on the road, rushed to the nearest pasture, usually to the shore rivers or to a wasteland, to the Maiden's Field or to the Donskoy Monastery.

Closer to noon, a cart with a large barrel appeared. A man was sitting next to the barrel and from time to time splashed water on the pavement with a ladle - "watered" the street.

Until the 1840s, there were almost no trading establishments in the "noble" quarters, with the exception of bakeries (still referred to in the old fashioned way as "Kalashny"), edible and petty shops.

The houses were for the most part wooden, with bright green iron roofs, often with mezzanines; 7–9 windows along the facade, plastered and painted in muted colors - white, blue, light pink, pistachio, coffee; sometimes with small shields for coats of arms on the pediment. Yellow, which we often associate with "Empire" Moscow, was considered "official" and was rarely used for "lordly" houses.

Behind the house there was certainly a garden with linden trees - for shade and aroma, elderberry, lilac and acacia, sometimes very large, and the farther from the center the estate stood, the large sizes there was a garden. So, the Olsufievs' estate on the Maiden's Field (and not just one) could even in the middle of the century boast of a whole park that occupied several acres of land, with centuries-old trees and even a pasture for cattle. However, most of the estates with large parks were already sold to the treasury by the 1830–1840s: the descendants of the magnates were unable to maintain their grandfather's mansions, which, moreover, often turned out to be badly damaged by fire and looting in 1812. The house of Prince Kurakin, already familiar to us, was at that time occupied by the Commercial School, the palaces of Demidov and Razumovsky - by the Elizabethan Women's Institute and an orphanage; in the brilliant palaces of Pashkov on Mokhovaya and Musin-Pushkin on Razgulyai, and even in the house of Trubetskoy-Komod, men's gymnasiums were noisy ...

The spacious and not particularly clean courtyard of the manor's house was furnished with services: human, stables, cellars, carriage sheds. The kitchen certainly stood apart: placing it under the same roof with the master's chambers was considered unacceptable. There were about a dozen horses in the stable; one or more cows in a barn. On the wide gates, on one of the pylons, there was an inscription: “the house of the captain and cavalier such and such” or “the general's wife such and such”, and on the other it was obligatory: “Free from standing”.

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The nobility The nobility arose in the Russian state in the 12th-13th centuries. In the XIV century, the nobles began to receive lands and estates for their service. Gradually, these lands became hereditary, being the economic base of the local nobility. In the XIV-XV centuries, and in the XVI century up to

The nobility, which was strongly developed in the 19th century, became especially privileged. This upper class or nobility became so, since no one canceled, and as they believed, was not going to cancel serfdom. At the same time, their privileges were not canceled, but expanded against the background of other classes. Therefore, the nobles simply had the right to their serene life, which was approved not so much by law as in practice.

Nobles in the 19th century were hereditary. There were four ways to do this. First, the nobles were favored by the autocratic authorities. Secondly, they received ranks in their active service, both military and secular. Thirdly, they were often awarded Russian orders for distinction in the service. Fourthly, they had descendants who were distinguished by personal nobles and eminent citizens.

Before receiving the rank, Alexander II set the standards. So only those persons could become descendants of the nobles who in the civil service rose to the rank of state councilor, and in the military to the colonel or in the navy to the captain of the first rank.

In the 19th century, everything was done to rise to the rank of a real state councilor or colonel was impossible. This means that obtaining the title of a hereditary nobleman also became inaccessible. It was so important that a nobleman serve in the rank of state councilor for at least five years, and not just receive this title. Such tightened laws were aimed at ensuring that, unlike the last century, when the nobles in the full sense of doing nothing, they worked hard. Thus, the question of combating the laziness of the nobility was opened.

Additional rules dedicated to the awarding of awards were also introduced. Now it was possible to receive some new rank or an award in the form of an order only for real merits. This included official both secular and military distinctions. So if a nobleman received, for example, the First degree of the Order of St. Anne, then he could have the right to hereditary nobility. While the Order of St. Vladimir brought such a privilege at any of its degrees.

It turns out that now a person who was not born a nobleman could become one, only for differences in service, both secular and military. Therefore, the situation was leveled between people who were born nobles and those who were a simple landowner or even a peasant who redeemed himself, or received a ransom from his master. So culture in Russia began to grow, secular literacy developed.

This right was retained by the nobility until the twentieth century. Now, starting in 1900, the son or grandson of a nobleman could not be called that without observing a number of rules that were listed above. At the same time, there should be at least 20 years of service, which guaranteed that a person works, and does not engage in idleness, simply robbing the already poor peasants.

What Nicholas established went further, but not in all cases. In any case, the son or eldest grandson could receive the title of nobleman only when he reached the age of thirty. And also a prerequisite was work for the state. Then one could say that he has the right to the inheritance and the title of eminent nobleman.
The state was also assigned the right to the fact that it could only assert to which class this or that person belongs. So in the 18th century, a nobleman had the right to land. In the 19th century, such a right still remained, but it was already necessary to serve the state yourself. This rule also applied to foreign citizens who wanted to get Russian lands. They were supposed to receive these, only having risen to certain ranks, described above.

Also, the nobility could be transferred to another person only on the condition that marriage through the male line is preserved. So any nobleman could transfer his title to his wife, as well as to children. This is the case if, for example, a nobleman married a woman of a different class. As for the woman who was a noblewoman, when she married a man from another class, she could not transfer her nobility to him. And the children, too, were the children of a non-nobleman. So the king was pleased to preserve the purity of the nobility.

This situation also applied to children. If children were born before their father received a noble title, then they could become nobles only at the discretion of a higher person, that is, the king, who himself personally considered this situation.

And so, usually, personal nobility could be obtained only in case of an award, the possibility of achieving certain ranks in the service, and also at the discretion of the highest person.

Due to the lowering, starting from 1856, of the upper limit of the rank that must be obtained in order to have the title of personal nobleman, as well as leaving the lower ranks at the same level, the number of noblemen by personal rank has expanded. And this state of affairs led to the fact that cultural heritage Russia has risen sharply. Since more people aspired to achieve the title of nobleman, which led to the rise of the secular education of each of them.

Nobility in Russia arose in the XII century as the lowest part of the military service class, which constituted the court of a prince or a major boyar.

The Code of Laws of the Russian Empire defined the nobility as an estate, belonging to which “is a consequence of the quality and virtue of the men who ruled in antiquity, who distinguished themselves by merit, by which, turning the very service into merit, they acquired a noble denunciation for their offspring. Noble means all those who are born from noble ancestors, or who are granted this dignity by monarchs. A.S. Pushkin:

The word "noble" literally means "a person from the prince's court" or "court". The nobles were taken into the service of the prince to carry out various administrative, judicial and other assignments. In the system of European ideas, the top of the Russian nobility of that time is a kind of analogue of the viscountcy. Nobles hereditary 1st estate in the Russian Empire.

Story

From the end of the 12th century, the nobles constituted the lowest stratum of the nobility, directly connected with the prince and his household, in contrast to the boyars. In the era of Vsevolod the Big Nest, after the defeat of the old Rostov boyars in 1174, the nobles, together with the townspeople, temporarily become the main social and military support of princely power (in particular, the defeat of the Rostov boyars in the Battle of Kalka did not affect the combat capability of the troops of North-Eastern Russia).

Rise of the nobility

From the XIV century, the nobles began to receive land for their service: a class of landowners appeared - landowners. They were later allowed to purchase land.
After the annexation of the Novgorod land and the Tver principality (end of the 15th century) and the eviction of the estates from central regions the lands liberated in this way were distributed to the nobles under the condition of service.
The Sudebnik of 1497 restricted the right of peasants to move.
In February 1549, the first Zemsky Sobor took place in the Kremlin Palace. Ivan IV delivered a speech there. Inspired by the ideas of the nobleman Peresvetov, the tsar set out to build a centralized monarchy (autocracy) based on the nobility, which meant fighting the old (boyar) aristocracy. He publicly accused the boyars of abuse of power and called on everyone to joint activities to strengthen the unity of the Russian state.
In 1550 chosen thousand Moscow nobles (1071 people) was posted within 60-70 km around Moscow.
The Service Code of 1555 actually equalized the rights of the nobility with the boyars, including the right to inherit.
After the annexation of the Kazan Khanate (mid-16th century) and the eviction of the estates from the oprichnina area, which was declared the property of the tsar, the lands thus liberated were distributed to the nobles under the condition of service.
In the 80s of the 16th century, protected summers were introduced.
The Council Code of 1649 secured the right of the nobles to eternal possession and the indefinite search for fugitive peasants.

The strengthening of the Russian nobility in the period of the XIV-XVI centuries was mainly due to the receipt of land under the condition of military service, which actually turned the nobles into suppliers of the feudal militia, by analogy with the Western European chivalry and Russian boyars of the previous era. The local system, introduced with the aim of strengthening the army in a situation where the level of socio-economic development of the country did not yet allow centrally equipping the army (unlike, for example, France, where kings from the 14th century began to attract knighthood to the army on the basis of monetary payment, first periodically, and from the end of the 15th century - on a permanent basis), turned into serfdom, which limited the influx into the cities work force and slowed down the development of capitalist relations in general.

Apogee of the nobility

Peter I inherited from his father a society that was divided into classes "taxable", obliged to the state by "tax" (taxes and duties) and "servicemen", obliged to the state by service. In this system, in fact, everyone was enslaved, from top to bottom, and the nobles were attached to the service in the same way as the peasants to the land, which is due to the position of Muscovite Russia, as a constantly mobilized military camp, besieged from three sides.

In 1701, Peter I indicates that all "service people from the lands serve the service, but no one owns the lands for free." In 1721, the tsar held a general review of all the nobles, with the exception of those who lived in remote Siberia and Astrakhan. So that things would not stop in their absence, the nobles had to arrive in St. Petersburg or Moscow in two shifts: the first in December 1721, the second in March 1722.

Already in 1718, during the Tax Reform, Peter I excluded the nobles from taxation of the poll tax, and in March 1714 he adopted a decree “On the order of inheritance in movable and immovable property”, which equalized the patrimony and estate, and introduced the principle of single inheritance.

Peter led a decisive offensive against the old boyar aristocracy, making the nobles his support. In 1722, the Table of Ranks, following the European model, was introduced, replacing the principle of generosity with the principle of personal service. The rank of the lower, XIV class, received in military service, gave all those who received it hereditary nobility (in the civil service - only the rank of VIII class). Initially, the correspondence of the old, pre-Petrine, ranks of Moscow Russia, the Table of Ranks was established, but awards to the old ranks ceased.

In 1722, Emperor Peter the Great introduced the Table of Ranks - a law on the order of public service, based on Western European models.

According to the Table, the award of old (boyar) aristocratic titles was terminated, although they were not formally canceled. This was the end of the boyars. The word "boyar" remained only in folk speech as a designation of an aristocrat in general and degenerated to "master".
The nobility as such was not the basis for occupying the rank: the latter was determined only by personal length of service. “For this reason, we do not allow anyone any rank,” wrote Peter, “until they show us and the fatherland no services.” This aroused the indignation of both the remnants of the boyars and the new nobility. This, in particular, is devoted to the Second satire of Cantemir "On the envy and pride of the malevolent nobles."

In parallel with the establishment of the Table of Ranks, the King of Arms office under the Senate was created, the task of which was to account for the nobles, and to cleanse the estate from periodically appearing impostors who arbitrarily produced themselves in the nobles and painted coats of arms. Peter I confirms that “it belongs to no one, except us, and other crowned heads, who should be welcomed to the nobility with the coat of arms and seal”.

In the future, the Table of Ranks underwent numerous changes, but on the whole survived until 1917, which once again proves its viability.

The possibility of obtaining the nobility through the service creates a massive stratum of landless nobles who are entirely dependent on the service. In general, the Russian nobility was an extremely heterogeneous environment; in addition to rich princely families (by the end of the 19th century, about 250 genera were taken into account), there was also an extensive layer of small landed nobles (having less than a hundred serfs, often 5-6), who could not provide themselves with a decent existence for their estate, and hoped only for positions . In itself, the possession of estates and serfs did not automatically mean high incomes. There were even such cases when the nobles, having no other means of subsistence, personally plowed the land.

In the future, the nobles receive one benefit after another:

In 1731 the landowners were granted the right to collect a poll tax from the serfs;
Anna Ioannovna, with a manifesto of 1736, limits her service to 25 years; the collection of the poll tax of the peasants is transferred to their owners;
Elizaveta Petrovna in 1746 forbids anyone, except the nobles, to buy peasants and land;
In 1754, the Noble Bank was established, issuing loans in the amount of up to 10,000 rubles at 6% per year;
On February 18, 1762, Peter III signs the Manifesto on the Granting of Liberty and Freedom to the Russian Nobility, which freed him from compulsory service; within 10 years, up to 10 thousand nobles retire from the army;
Catherine II, carrying out the Provincial reform of 1775, actually transfers local power into the hands of elected representatives of the nobility, and introduces the position of district marshal of the nobility;
The charter granted to the nobility on April 21, 1785 finally frees the nobles from compulsory service, and formalizes the organization of local self-government of the nobility. The nobles are turning into a privileged class, no longer obligated to serve the state, and not paying taxes, but having many rights (the exclusive right to own land and peasants, the right to engage in industry and trade, freedom from corporal punishment, the right to their own class self-government).

A charter granted to the nobility turns the noble landowner into the chief agent of the local government; he is responsible for the selection of recruits, the collection of taxes from the peasants, supervision of public morality, etc., acting on his estate, in the words of N. M. Karamzin, as "the governor-general in a small form" and "the hereditary police chief."

The right to class self-government also becomes a special privilege of the nobles. The attitude of the state towards him was twofold. Together with the support of noble self-government, its fragmentation was artificially maintained - district organizations were not subordinate to provincial ones, and until 1905 there was no all-Russian noble organization.

The actual liberation of the nobles by Catherine II from compulsory service, while maintaining serfdom for the peasants, created a huge gap between the nobles and the people. This contradiction gave rise to rumors among the peasantry that Peter III was allegedly going to free the peasants as well (or “transfer them to the treasury”), for which he was killed. The pressure of the nobles on the peasantry was one of the reasons for the Pugachev uprising. The anger of the peasants was expressed in the mass pogroms of the nobles under the slogan "cut the poles - the fence will fall down by itself", only in the summer of 1774 the peasants killed about three thousand nobles and government officials. Emelyan Pugachev in his "manifesto" explicitly states that “who were before the nobles in their estates and vodchinas - these opponents of our power and rebellions of the empire and the despoilers of the peasants, to catch, execute and hang, and act in the same way as they, having no Christianity in themselves, repaired with you, the peasants”.

Obtaining "noble liberty" was the apogee of the power of the Russian nobility. Then began " gold autumn": the transformation of the upper nobility into an "idle class" (at the cost of a gradual removal from political life) and the slow ruin of the lower nobility. Strictly speaking, the "lower" nobility did not particularly go bankrupt simply because there was often no one to "ruin" - most of the service nobles were powerless.

Sunset of the nobility

At the beginning of the 19th century (especially after the Patriotic War), part of the nobility was imbued with republican sentiments. Many nobles joined Masonic lodges or secret anti-government organizations. The Decembrist movement had the features of a noble opposition.

Over time, the state begins to limit the massive influx of non-nobles into the nobility, which became possible due to the length of service of the ranks. Especially to satisfy the ambitions of such non-nobles, an "intermediate" class of honorary citizens was established. It was formed on April 10, 1832, and receives such important privileges of the nobility as exemption from poll tax, recruitment duty and corporal punishment.

The circle of persons entitled to honorary citizenship expanded over time - children of personal nobles, merchants of the 1st guild, commerce and manufacturing advisers, artists, graduates of a number of educational institutions, children of Orthodox clergy.

From June 11, 1845, civil ranks of X-XIV classes, instead of personal nobility, began to give only honorary citizenship. Since 1856, personal nobility began with the IX class, hereditary nobility - from the VI in military service (colonel) and from IV in civil service (actual privy councilor).

A wave of peasant riots during the Crimean War (the peasants signed up for the militia during the war, hoping to be freed from serfdom, but this did not happen) leads Alexander II to the idea that “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will automatically begin to be abolished from below”.

After the peasant reform of 1861, the economic position of the nobility weakened. As capitalism developed in Russia, the nobility lost its position in society. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the nobles retain about half of the land, receiving generous compensation for the other half; however, by the beginning of the 20th century, the landowners already owned only 60% of the land that belonged to them in 1861. As of January 1915, the landowners in the European part of Russia owned 39 out of 98 million acres of usable land. By the beginning of 1917, this number dropped sharply, and about 90% of the land was already in the hands of the peasants.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the hereditary nobility, which was officially perceived as “the first pillar of the throne” and “one of the most reliable instruments of the government,” was gradually losing its economic and administrative dominance. In 1897, the share of hereditary nobles among the military is 52%, among civil civil servants 31%. In 1914, from 20 to 40% of the nobles live in the villages, the rest move to the cities.

After the October Revolution of 1917, all estates in the RSFSR were liquidated by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks" dated November 10, 1917. Such an act, issued by the usurping power of the state that was not recognized at that time, does not entail legal consequences in relation to the rights of the state of the estates of the Russian Empire, and is void. Therefore, we can only talk about the non-recognition of estates in Soviet Russia and further - in the USSR, but no more.

Classification

During its heyday, the nobility was divided into:

ancient nobility- Descendants of ancient princely and boyar families (births were entered in the VI part of the genealogical books).
Titled nobility- princes, counts, barons (births were entered in the V part of genealogical books).
Foreign nobility- births were entered in the IV part of genealogical books.
Hereditary nobility- the nobility, transferred to the legitimate heirs (births were entered in the I, II and III parts of the genealogical books):

clans of the nobility of the military - in the II part
clans of the nobility acquired in the civil service or by order - in part III

Personal nobility- nobility received for personal merit (including when reaching the 14th grade in the civil service), but not inherited and therefore not included in genealogical books. It was created by Peter I in order to weaken the isolation of the nobility and give access to it to people of the lower classes.
Stateless nobility- the nobility received without endowment and fixing of the earths (estates).

The Russian nobility was made up of heterogeneous elements - its environment included: boyar children in provinces and counties, Great Russian Moscow nobility, Ukrainian Cossack nobility, Baltic nobility, Polish and Lithuanian gentry, gentry in provinces and counties Russia XVIII centuries (for example, the Galich gentry), Bessarabian nobility, Ossetian, Georgian, Armenian, and finally foreign nobility.

In 1858 there were 609,973 hereditary nobles, 276,809 personal and employees; in 1870 there were 544,188 hereditary nobles, 316,994 personal and employees; noble landowners, according to official data for 1877 - 78, it was considered in European Russia 114,716.

In the Great Russian provinces, nobles in 1858 accounted for 0.76% of the population, which was significantly less than in countries such as England, France, Austria and Prussia, where their number exceeded 1.5%. In the Commonwealth, nobles made up more than 5% of the population.

Acquisition of nobility

Hereditary nobility

Hereditary nobility was acquired in four ways:

awarding it at the special discretion of the autocratic power;
ranks in active service;
as a result of awards for "service distinctions" by Russian orders;
descendants of especially distinguished personal nobles and eminent citizens

One of the main ways of acquiring nobility is the acquisition of nobility by service. Previously, a professional military man who entered the service of one or another prince automatically became a nobleman.

In 1722-1845, hereditary nobility was given for the length of service of the first chief officer rank (fendrik, then ensign, cornet) in military service (and in general the title assigned to the XIV class and above - for example, the rank of bayonet junker was not chief officer, but the nobility gave) and the rank of collegiate assessor in civil and when awarded with any order of the Russian Empire, since 1831 - with the exception of the Polish order of Virtuti Militari.

In 1845-1856 - for the seniority of the rank of major and state councilor, and for awarding the orders of St. George, St. Vladimir of all degrees and the first degrees of other orders.

In 1856-1900 - the nobility was given to those who rose to the rank of colonel, captain of the 1st rank, a real state adviser.

It was permissible to apply for the award of hereditary nobility in the event that the father and grandfather of the applicant had personal nobility, having served him in the chief officer ranks. The right to acquire hereditary nobility by the descendants of personal nobles and eminent citizens was preserved until the beginning of the 20th century. The article of the law on the receipt of hereditary nobility by the son upon reaching the age of majority and entering the service if his grandfather and father were "immaculately" in the service in the ranks that brought personal nobility, for at least 20 years each, was canceled by the Decree of May 28, 1900. The laws on the states of 1899 edition did not contain the previously existing provision that if eminent citizens - grandfather and father - "immaculately preserved eminence", then their eldest grandson could ask for hereditary nobility, subject to his impeccable service and reaching 30 years of age.

In 1900-1917, the qualification for orders increased - hereditary nobility by the Order of St. Vladimir could only be obtained starting from the 3rd degree. This restriction was introduced due to the fact that the Order of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree complained en masse about length of service and for charitable donations. By 1917, there were about 1,300,000 hereditary nobles in the Russian Empire, or 1% of the population.

Personal nobility

A special position is occupied by personal nobles, who appeared simultaneously with the Table of Ranks. Unlike hereditary nobles, their noble dignity is not inherited, and their children receive a special status of "chief officer's children." Personal nobles receive the right to achieve hereditary nobility by length of service; also, until May 28, 1900, they had the right to apply for it if their fathers and grandfathers had served twenty years without blame in the ranks of chief officers.

Personal nobility was acquired:

by award, when a person was elevated to the nobility personally, not by order of service, but by special supreme discretion;
ranks in the service - in order to receive personal nobility according to the Manifesto of June 11, 1845 "On the procedure for acquiring nobility by service" it was necessary to rise in active service: civil - to the rank of 9th class (titular adviser), military - the first chief officer rank ( 14th grade). In addition, persons who received the rank of 4th class or colonel not in active service, but upon retirement, were also recognized as personal, and not hereditary nobles;
awarding the order - when awarding the Order of St. Anna II, III or IV degree at any time after July 22, 1845, St. Stanislav II or III degree at any time after June 28, 1855, St. Vladimir IV degree at any time after May 28 1900 Persons of the merchant rank, granted by Russian orders between October 30, 1826 and April 10, 1832, and the Order of St. Stanislav from November 17, 1831 to April 10, 1832, were also recognized as personal nobles. In the future, for persons of a merchant rank, the path to obtaining personal nobility through the award of orders was closed, and only personal or hereditary honorary citizenship was recognized for them.

Personal nobility was passed by marriage from husband to wife, but was not communicated to children and offspring. The rights of personal nobility were enjoyed by the widows of clergymen of the Orthodox and Armenian-Gregorian confession who did not belong to the hereditary nobility. The largest number of personal nobles was among mid-level officers and officials. By 1917, there were more than 6 million officials in the Russian Empire, a considerable part of total number which were personal nobles.

Transfer of hereditary nobility by inheritance

Hereditary nobility was inherited and as a result of marriage through the male line. Each nobleman communicated his noble dignity to his wife and children. A woman noblewoman, marrying a representative of another class, could not transfer the rights of nobility to her husband and children, but she herself remained a noblewoman.

The extension of noble dignity to children born before the award of the nobility depended on the "highest discretion". The question of children born before their fathers received the rank or order, which gave the right to hereditary nobility, was resolved in different ways. By the highest approved opinion of the State Council of March 5, 1874, restrictions on children born in a taxable state, including those born in a lower military and working rank, were abolished.

Complaint by the nobility after 1917

The award of nobility and titles of the Russian Empire was continued after 1917 by the heads of the Russian Imperial House in exile. For such awards, see the article Awarding titles and orders of the Russian Empire after 1917.

Privileges of the nobility

The nobility had the following privileges:

the right to own populated estates (until 1861),
freedom from compulsory service (in 1762-1874, all-class military service was later introduced),
freedom from zemstvo duties (until the 2nd half of the 19th century),
the right to enter the civil service and to receive education in privileged educational institutions(the Corps of Pages, the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, the Imperial School of Jurisprudence accepted children of nobles from 5 and 6 parts of the genealogy book and children of persons who had a rank of at least 4 classes),
corporate law.

Each hereditary nobleman was recorded in the genealogical book of the province where he had real estate. By the Highest Decree of May 28, 1900, the inclusion of landless nobles in the provincial genealogical books was granted to the assembly of leaders and deputies of the nobility. At the same time, those who did not have real estate were entered in the book of the province where their ancestors owned the estate.

Those who received the nobility directly through a rank or award with an order were entered in the book of the province where they wished, even if they did not have any estate there. This provision existed until the Decree of June 6, 1904 "On the procedure for maintaining genealogical books for nobles not recorded in genealogical books in the provinces", according to which the King of Arms was entrusted with maintaining a genealogical book common for the entire empire, where they began to enter nobles who did not own real estate or those who owned it in provinces where there were no noble institutions, as well as those who acquired the rights of hereditary nobility of Jews who, on the basis of the Decree of May 28, 1900, were not subject to inclusion in the provincial noble family books.

Personal nobles were not included in the genealogical book. Since 1854, they, along with honorary citizens, were recorded in the fifth part of the city's philistine book.

The nobles had the right to wear a sword. Common to all nobles was the title "your honor". There were also generic titles of nobility - baronial (baron), count (your high nobility), princely (your excellency), as well as other titles. If the serving nobles had titles and uniforms that corresponded to their ranks of a civil or military department, then a non-serving nobleman retained the right to wear the uniform of the province where he had an estate or was registered, as well as the right "by his nickname to be written as a landowner of his estates, and an patrimony of family , hereditary and granted his fiefdoms".

One of the privileges that belonged exclusively to hereditary nobles was the right to have a family coat of arms. Coats of arms were approved for each noble family by the highest authority and then remained forever (changes could only be made by special royal command). The general coat of arms of the noble families of the Russian Empire was created by the Decree of January 20, 1797. It was compiled by the Department of Heraldry and contained drawings and descriptions of the coats of arms of each family.

A number of legalizations from April 21, 1785 to April 17, 1863 hereditary, personal, foreign nobles could not be subjected to corporal punishment both in court and during detention. However, as a result of the gradual liberation from corporal punishment of other segments of the population, this privilege of the nobles in the post-reform period became simply a right for them.

The Laws on the States of 1876 edition contained an article on the exemption of nobles from personal taxes. However, in connection with the abolition of the poll tax under the Law of May 14, 1883, this article turned out to be unnecessary and was already absent in the 1899 edition.

Nobility in Russia- an estate that arose in the XII century in Russia, and then, gradually changing, continued to exist in the Russian kingdom and the Russian Empire. In the XVIII-beginning of the XX century, representatives of the nobility determined the development trends Russian culture, socio-political thought, made up the majority of the country's bureaucracy. After the February Revolution, the nobility in Russia disappeared forever as an estate and completely lost its social and other privileges.

Nobility in Russia

The nobility in Russia arose in the XII century. By the beginning of the century, the princely squad, which had previously been a single service corporation, broke up into regional communities. Constantly in the service of the prince was only a part of the combatants. In the XII century, they began to organize themselves into princely courts. The yard, like the squad in former times, consisted of two groups: the older (boyars) and the younger (nobles). The nobles, unlike the boyars, were directly connected with the prince and his household.

Since the XIV century, the nobles received land for their service. In the XIV-XVI centuries, the strengthening of the positions of the Russian nobility occurred primarily due to the receipt of land under the condition of military service. A stratum of landowners-landowners appeared. At the end of the 15th century, after the annexation of the Novgorod land and the Tver principality, the vacant lands of the local estates were distributed to the nobles on condition of service. With the introduction of the local system, the legal foundations of which were enshrined in the Sudebnik of 1497, the nobles turned into suppliers of the feudal militia, which the boyars had previously been.

In the 16th century, nobles were often referred to as "service people in the fatherland." At that time, the nobility in Russia had not yet developed, so the nobles were only one of the privileged strata of Russian society. Upper layer ruling class at the same time they were boyars. The boyar stratum included members of only a few dozen aristocratic families. A lower position was occupied by the "nobles of Moscow", who were part of the sovereign's court. During the 16th century, the size of the court and its role increased. The lowest rung of the hierarchical ladder was occupied by the “boyar city children”. They united in the county noble corporation and served "from their county." The tops of the emerging nobility were united by the sovereign's court - a single nationwide institution, which finally took shape by the middle of the 16th century. The court included "children of the boyars" - "nobles", they were appointed to military and administrative positions. In the middle and second half of the 16th century, these were the “children of the boyars” only in North-Eastern Russia. Thus, in different territories, the position of the “children of the boyars” varied.

In February 1549, speaking at the first Zemsky Sobor, Ivan IV the Terrible outlined a course towards building a centralized autocratic monarchy based on the nobility as opposed to the old boyar aristocracy. AT next year a select thousand Moscow nobles were endowed with estates in a zone of 60-70 km around Moscow. The Service Code of 1555 actually equalized the rights of the nobles with the boyars, including the right to inherit.

The Council Code of 1649 secured the right of the nobles to eternal possession and the indefinite search for fugitive peasants. This inextricably linked the nobility with the emerging serfdom.

Russian nobility inXVIIIcentury

In 1722, Emperor Peter I introduced the Table of Ranks - a law on the order of public service, based on Western European models. The award of old aristocratic titles was discontinued - this put an end to the boyars. Since that time, the word "boyar", later changed to "master", began to be used only in common parlance and denoted any aristocrat in general. The nobility ceased to be the basis for conferring a rank - priority was given to serviceability. “For this reason, we do not allow anyone any rank,” Peter I emphasized, “until they show us and the fatherland no services.” Back in 1721, the emperor granted the right to nobility to all officers and their children. The table of ranks gave the right to public service, and therefore to receive the nobility, representatives of the merchant class, townspeople, raznochintsy, state peasants. A division into hereditary and personal nobility was introduced. The number of nobility fit for service was determined with the help of reviews for adult nobles and undergrowths, which often took place under Peter I. Heraldry, established in 1722, was in charge of accounting for the nobles and their service.

Under Peter I, most of the nobles were illiterate. Under the threat of a ban on marriage and entry into the soldiers, the emperor sent them to study abroad. At the same time, a system of domestic noble educational institutions was taking shape. The Engineering School in Moscow and the Artillery School in St. Petersburg (1712), the Naval Academy (1715), the Engineering School in St. Petersburg (1719), the Cadet Corps (1732, since 1752 - the land gentry cadet corps), the Naval gentry cadet corps were established (1752), Corps of Pages (1759), Artillery and Engineering Cadet Gentry Corps (1769). In the second half XVIII century the nobles began to send their children to be raised in noble pensions. To prepare for the civil service in 1811, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (since 1844 - Alexandrovsky), the School of Law (1835) and other institutions were opened. Many children continued to study at home with tutors.

For some time, nobles were required to serve for life from the age of 15. In 1736, the term of service was limited to 25 years, in 1740 the nobles were given the opportunity to choose between civil and military service. In 1762, the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility Peter III the obligation to serve was abolished, however, the very next year it was restored by Catherine II, who came to power. In 1785, with the adoption of the "Letter of Letters to the Nobility", this obligation was again abolished. Freed from compulsory civil service, the nobles, in fact, freed themselves from any obligations to the state and the monarch. At the same time, the nobles received the right to leave Russia and enter the foreign service. The formation of a layer of the local nobility began, permanently residing in their estates. The nobles began to gradually move away from participation in political life, many were engaged in industry and trade, contained various enterprises. By decree of 1766, the institute of leaders of the nobility was established.

Already in the 18th century, the nobility began to play a key role in the development of secular national culture. By order of the nobles, palaces and mansions were built in major cities, architectural ensembles in estates, works of painters and sculptors were created. Theaters and libraries were under the care of the nobles. Most of the prominent writers and composers of the Russian Empire came from the nobility.

Russian nobility inXIX- earlyXXcentury

In the first half of the 19th century, the nobles played a leading role in the development of social thought and activity. social movements Russian Empire. The range of their views was extremely wide. After the Patriotic War of 1812, republican sentiments began to spread among the nobility. The nobles joined Masonic and secret anti-government organizations, in 1825 they made up the majority among the Decembrists, then they dominated the ranks of the Westerners and Slavophiles.

In the XIX century, the nobles continued to lose touch with the land, the most important and often the only source of income for the nobility was salary. In local governments and zemstvos, the nobles retained their leading positions - for example, the district marshals of the nobility actually headed the district administrations. After the peasant reform of 1861, the socio-economic position of the nobility weakened. The area owned by the nobility decreased by an average of approximately 0.68 million acres per year. The agrarian crisis of the late 19th century and the development of capitalism in Russia aggravated the position of the nobility. The counter-reforms of the 1880s-1890s once again strengthened the role of the nobility in local government. Attempts were made to support the economic situation of the nobles: in 1885, the Noble Bank appeared, which provided them with loans on favorable terms. Despite this and other supportive measures, the number of landowners among the nobility was declining: if in 1861 landowners accounted for 88% of the entire estate, then in 1905 - 30-40%. By 1915, the small landownership of the nobility (and it constituted the vast majority) had almost completely disappeared.

In 1906-1917, the nobles took Active participation in work State Duma while being members of different political parties. In 1906, the local nobles united in political organization"United nobility", which defended the historically established privileges of the nobility and landownership.

After the February Revolution, the nobility ceased to play an independent political role, despite the fact that its representatives were part of the Provisional Government. After the October Revolution of 1917, the estates in the RSFSR were liquidated by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks" of November 10, 1917. The Decree on Land, adopted on November 8 of the same year, deprived the nobles of their ownership of land. A significant part of the nobles during the years of the Revolution and civil war emigrated from the country. Under Soviet rule in the 1920s and 1930s, many people from the nobility were persecuted and repressed.

Classification and abundance

The nobility was subdivided into ancient (descendants of ancient princely and boyar families), titled (princes, counts, barons), hereditary (nobility passed on to legitimate heirs), columnar, unplaced (received without allotment and consolidation of land) and personal (received for personal merit, including upon reaching the 14th grade in the civil service, but not inherited). Personal nobility was introduced by Peter I in order to weaken the isolation of the nobility.

Among the hereditary nobility, differences remained between titled and non-titled nobles (the latter constituted the majority). The "pillar" nobles, who could prove more than a century of antiquity of their kind, enjoyed honor. Most of the titles did not formally give the holders of special rights, but in fact they contributed to their promotion.

In 1782, there were over 108 thousand nobles in Russia, which accounted for 0.79% of the population. After the adoption of the “Letter of Letters to the Nobility”, their number increased significantly: in 1795, there were 362,000 nobles in the Russian Empire, or 2.22% of the population. In 1858, there were 609,973 hereditary nobles and 276,809 personal and serving nobles in the country, in 1870 - 544,188 and 316,994 respectively. Noble landowners, according to the data of 1877-1878, in the European part of Russia, there were 114,716 people. In 1858, hereditary nobles made up 0.76% of the population of the Great Russian provinces of the Russian Empire. It was two times less than in the then Great Britain, France, Austria and Prussia.

As the borders of the Russian Empire expanded, the nobility grew in an increasing number of heterogeneous elements. The Ostzean nobility, the Ukrainian Cossack nobility of the annexed provinces, the Polish and Lithuanian gentry, the Bessarabian nobility, the Georgian, Armenian, foreign nobility, the Finnish knighthood, and the Tatar murzas joined the Moscow Great Russian nobility. In terms of property, the nobility was also not homogeneous. In 1777, 59% of the estate was made up of small landed nobility (20 male serfs each), 25% - middle landed (from 20 to 100 souls), 16% - large landed (from 100 souls). Some nobles owned tens of thousands of serfs.

Acquisition of nobility

The hereditary nobility was acquired in four ways: 1) by granting at the special discretion of the autocratic power; 2) ranks in active service; 3) as a result of awards for "service distinctions" by Russian orders; 4) descendants of particularly distinguished personal nobles and eminent citizens. Basically, the nobility was acquired by service. In 1722-1845, hereditary nobility was given for the length of service of the first chief officer rank in military service and the rank of collegiate assessor in civil service, as well as when awarding any of the Russian orders (since 1831 - except for the Polish order Virturi Militari); in 1845-1856 - for the length of service of the rank of major and state adviser, and for awarding the orders of St. George, St. Vladimir of all degrees and the first degrees of other orders; in 1856-1900 - for the length of service, the rank of colonel, captain of the 1st rank, real state adviser. Since 1900, according to the Order of St. Vladimir, hereditary nobility could only be obtained starting from the 3rd degree.

The personal title of nobility was conferred at the special highest discretion. It extended to the spouse, but was not transmitted to offspring. The rights of personal nobility were enjoyed by the widows of clergymen of the Orthodox and Armenian-Gregorian confessions who did not belong to the hereditary nobility. To obtain personal nobility, it was necessary either to rise in civilian active service to the rank of 9th class (titular adviser) or in the military - to the rank of 14th class, that is, the first chief officer, or to receive the Order of St. Anne II, III and IV degree (after 1845), St. Stanislav II and III degree (after 1855), St. Vladimir IV degree (1900).

The descendants of personal nobles, "immaculately" serving in the ranks for at least 20 years, had the right to apply for hereditary nobility until May 28, 1900, when the corresponding article of the law was repealed.

Hereditary nobility was inherited and as a result of marriage through the male line, but a noblewoman who married a non-nobleman could not transfer noble rights to her spouse and children born in marriage, although she herself continued to remain a noblewoman. The extension of noble dignity to children born before the award of the nobility depended on the “highest consideration”. In 1874, all restrictions on children born in a taxable state were abolished.

Privileges of the nobility

At different periods of time, the Russian nobility had the following privileges: 1) the right to own populated estates (until 1861); 2) freedom from compulsory service (until the introduction of all-class military service in 1874); 3) freedom from zemstvo duties (until the second half of the 19th century); 4) the right to enter the civil service and to study in privileged educational institutions; 5) the law of corporate organization. Each hereditary nobleman was entered in the genealogical book of the province where he had real estate. Those who did not have real estate were entered into the books of the provinces, where their ancestors owned the estates. Those who received the nobility through a rank or award with an order chose the province themselves, in the book of which they will be included. This could be done until 1904. Personal nobles were not included in the genealogical book - in 1854 they were recorded in the fifth part of the city philistine book along with honorary citizens.

Common to all nobles was the title "your honor." There were also generic titles: baronial (baron), count (“your high nobility”), princely (“your excellency”) and so on. Serving nobles had titles and uniforms that corresponded to their ranks of civil or military departments, non-serving nobles wore the uniforms of the provinces where they had estates or were recorded. Every nobleman had the right to carry a sword. The privilege of hereditary nobles was the right to the family coat of arms. The coat of arms of each noble family was approved by the highest authority, its appearance could not be changed without a special supreme command. In 1797, the General Armorial of the noble families of the Russian Empire was created, which contained drawings and descriptions of the coats of arms of different families.

Until 1863, one of the privileges of the nobles was the inability to subject them to corporal punishment either in court or during detention. In the post-reform period, this privilege became simply a right. The Laws on the States, issued in 1876, contained an article on the exemption of nobles from personal taxes. In 1883, after the abolition of the poll tax under the Act of May 14, 1883, this article was no longer needed, and it was no longer in the 1899 edition.

Story

Rise of the nobility

From the XIV century, the nobles began to receive land for their service: a class of landowners appeared - landowners. They were later allowed to purchase land.
After the annexation of the Novgorod land and the Principality of Tver (end of the 15th century) and the eviction of the estates from the central regions, the lands thus vacated were distributed to the nobles under the condition of service (see the estate).
The Sudebnik of 1497 limited the right of peasants to move (see serfdom).
In February of the year, the first Zemsky Sobor took place in the Kremlin Palace. Ivan IV delivered a speech on it. Inspired by the ideas of the nobleman Peresvetov, the tsar set out to build a centralized monarchy (autocracy) based on the nobility, which meant fighting the old (boyar) aristocracy. He publicly accused the boyars of abuse of power and called on everyone to work together to strengthen the unity of the Russian state.
In 1550 chosen thousand Moscow nobles (1071 people) was posted within 60-70 km. around Moscow.
The Service Code of 1555 actually equalized the rights of the nobility with the boyars, including the right to inherit.
After the annexation of the Kazan Khanate (mid-16th century) and the eviction of the estates from the oprichnina region, declared the property of the tsar, the lands thus liberated were distributed to the nobles under the condition of service.
In the 80s of the 16th century, reserved summers were introduced.
The Council Code of 1649 secured the right of the nobles to eternal possession and the indefinite search for fugitive peasants.

The strengthening of the Russian nobility in the period of the XIV-XVI centuries was mainly due to the receipt of land under the condition of military service, which actually turned the nobles into suppliers of the feudal militia, by analogy with the Western European chivalry and Russian boyars of the previous era. Local system, introduced with the aim of strengthening the army in a situation where the level of socio-economic development of the country did not yet allow centrally equipping the army (unlike, for example, France, where kings from the 14th century began to attract knighthood to the army on terms of monetary payment, first periodically, and from the end of the 15th century - on an ongoing basis), turned into serfdom, which limited the influx of labor into the cities and slowed down the development of capitalist relations in general.

Apogee of the nobility

In the year, Emperor Peter the Great introduced the Table of Ranks - a law on the order of public service, based on Western European models.
- According to the Table, the award of old (boyar) aristocratic titles was terminated, although they were not formally canceled. This was the end of the boyars. The word "boyar" remained only in folk speech as a designation of an aristocrat in general and degenerated to "master".
- The nobility as such was not the basis for occupying the rank: the latter was determined only by personal length of service. “For this reason, we do not allow anyone any rank,” wrote Peter, “until they show us and the fatherland no services.” This aroused the indignation of both the remnants of the boyars and the new nobility. This, in particular, is dedicated to the Second satire of Cantemir "On the envy and pride of the malevolent nobles".
The privileges of the nobility are enshrined and legally codified by the "Charter to the nobility of 1785". Main privilege: the nobility is exempt from compulsory public service (in fact, from any obligations to the state and the monarch).

Sunset of the nobility

At the beginning of the 19th century (especially after the Patriotic War), part of the nobility was imbued with republican sentiments. Many nobles joined Masonic lodges or secret anti-government organizations. The Decembrists' movement had the features of a noble opposition.
After the peasant reform of 1861, the economic position of the nobility weakened. As capitalism developed in Russia, the nobility lost its position in society.
After the October Revolution, all estates in the RSFSR were legally liquidated by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks" of November 10, 1917.

Classification

During its heyday, the nobility was divided into:

ancient nobility- descendants of ancient princely and boyar families.
Titled nobility- princes, earls, barons.
Hereditary nobility- nobility passed on to legitimate heirs.
Personal nobility- nobility received for personal merit (including when reaching the 14th grade in the civil service), but not inherited. It was created by Peter I in order to weaken the isolation of the nobility and give access to it to people of the lower classes.

The prestige of personal nobility was minimal (he was not even considered real nobility). In addition to the usual length of service of the hereditary nobility, personal nobles could apply for it until 1900 if their fathers and grandfathers served 20 years in the ranks of chief officers. Personal nobility extended only to the wife. Children also enjoyed the status of hereditary honorary citizens.

Grandchildren of personal nobles (that is, descendants of two generations of persons who received personal nobility and were in the service for at least 20 years each) could ask for elevation to hereditary nobility.

Personal nobility was acquired by persons of non-noble origin:

award (which was extremely rare)
achievement of rank in service
in case of award

According to the ranks, personal nobility received:

"one. Persons promoted in active service to the rank of chief officer, and in civilian service to the rank of ninth grade; …

3. Persons of the merchant class, granted the rank of the ninth class out of order of service, if they are not given special letters for hereditary nobility.

Stateless nobility- the nobility received without endowment and fixing of the earths (estates).

Acquisition of nobility

The title of a nobleman is inherited or assigned.

There were several ways to acquire nobility. One of them is the acquisition of the nobility by service. Previously, a professional military man who entered the service of one or another prince automatically became a nobleman.

In 1722-1845, hereditary nobility was given for the length of service of the first chief officer rank (fendrik, then ensign, cornet) in military service (and in general the rank assigned to the XIV class and above - for example, the rank of bayonet junker was not chief officer, but the nobility gave) and the rank of collegiate assessor in civil and when awarded with any order of the Russian Empire, since 1831 - with the exception of the Polish order Virtuti Militari.

In 1845-1856 - for the seniority of the rank of major and state councilor, and for awarding the orders of St. George, St. Vladimir of all degrees and the first degrees of other orders.

In 1856-1900 - the nobility was given to those who rose to the rank of colonel, captain of the 1st rank, a real state adviser.

It was permissible to apply for the award of hereditary nobility in the event that the father and grandfather of the applicant had personal nobility, having served him in the chief officer ranks.

Privileges of the nobility

The nobility had the following privileges:

the right to own populated estates (until 1861),
freedom from compulsory service (in 1762-1874, all-class military service was later introduced),
freedom from zemstvo duties (until the 2nd half of the 19th century),
the right to enter the civil service and to receive education in privileged educational institutions (children of nobles from 5 and 6 parts of the genealogy book and children of persons who had a rank of at least 4 classes were admitted to the Corps of Pages, the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, the Imperial School of Law),
corporate law.

Links

Lists of noble families of the Russian Empire by provinces. Bibliographic index
Kuchurin V.V. Mysticism and Western European Esotericism in the Religious Life of the Russian Nobility
Kuchurin V.V. P.N. Milyukov on the religious life of the Russian nobility
Lists of nobles published in the provinces of the Russian Empire
Yablochkov M. History of the nobility in Russia. St. Petersburg, 1876
Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility

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Story

Rise of the nobility

Apogee of the nobility

Sunset of the nobility

Classification

Acquisition of nobility

Hereditary nobility

Personal nobility

Transfer of hereditary nobility by inheritance

Complaint by the nobility after 1917

Privileges of the nobility

Story

Rise of the nobility

Apogee of the nobility

Sunset of the nobility

Classification

Acquisition of nobility

Privileges of the nobility

see also

Links

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