History Museum of the City of Moscow in collaboration with Zagreb City Museum, guest appearance in Zagreb City Museum
Exhibition concept: Tatjana V. Skorobogatova, Boris Mašić
Exhibition design: Željko Kovačić
Poster design: Miljenko Gregl
The exhibition is the outcome of collaboration between two museum establishments, Zagreb City Museum and the History Museum of the City of Moscow. Both of these museums look after, evaluate and present material testimonies of the histories of their towns. Zagreb City Museum was the initiator of this collaborative venture that has resulted in the mounting of an exhibition about 17th century Moscow, a watershed period for Russian history, one of the witnesses of which was Juraj Križanić.
Old maps, engravings and pictures presented at the exhibition endeavour to conjure up the appearance of the city, its planning, architecture and spirit. The original remains of the material culture of the 17th century, the books, weapons, ceramic vessels, clothing, toys, wooden spoons and the like, are living witnesses of the everyday life of the Muscovites of the era and represent an epoch that essentially determined Russia's course in the centuries to come; in all this, Juraj Križanić was immediately involved.
Thinker, erudite scholar, educator, Slavonic patriot and theologian, Juraj Križanić (1618-1683) happened to be in Moscow at a time when Russia set out on a path of turbulent social and political reforms. Križanić attentively kept up with and also took an active part in the events during the reforms of the political system, religious life, the economy, culture and education, and the manners and lifestyles of Muscovites who were those that, ultimately, put into practice the reforms of Peter the Great.
At the beginning of the 17th century, Russia underwent a change of dynasties, military intervention by foreign troops (the very centre of the state, Moscow's Kremlin, was occupied at this time), a peasants' revolt and ecclesiastical reform that led to a schism. In spite of all these troubles, during the 17th century Russia managed to extend its territory and to become a powerful model to the Orthodox nations that saw in it a potential protector against the threatened inroads of the Ottoman Empire.
Understanding the urgency of setting up broader international political and commercial connections, the then Russian Empire quickly underwent transformations. These changes were manifested, for example, in education, and schools were opened that imposed widespread literacy, with an emphasis on Latin and Greek, the languages of international communication. In the big cities classics schools were founded, and in Moscow there was the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy.
It was in this kind of setting that Juraj Križanić found himself in the Moscow of the middle of the 17th century. He had learned the history of it much earlier, thanks to the books that were the main factor in the shaping of his attitude towards Slavic things and the fundamental premises of his thoughts about the role of Russia in the Slavic world. Entering the service of Russian Tsar Aleksey I Mikhailovich, he worked on translations of liturgical and foreign books, and was personally acquainted with the leading figures in the cultural and political life of the Moscow of that time – F. M. Rtichev, Boris I. Morozov and S. Polocki.
Numerous objects of the material culture of the time are kept in the holdings of the History Museum of the City of Moscow, as well as art objects of later periods that relate to the period of which the exhibition speaks. These are maps of Moscow, engravings by a well-known Russian artist (and connoisseur of medieval Moscow) Apolinari Mikhailovich Vaznetsov, artistic works by leading Russian painters Vasily Surikov, Nikolai Makovski, engravings created on the journeys of foreigners around Russia (A. Meyerberg, E. Palmqwist, A Oleari), phototypes of Moscow buildings and facsimiles of works by Juraj Križanić from the holdings of the Russian State Archives of Old Documents.
Thematically, the exhibition is divided into four units:
- Russia and international circumstances in the
17th century
- The social and political organisation of the state
and its capital of Moscow
- The everyday lile of Muscovites
- Tobolsk, the place of Križanić's confinement
The purpose of the first unit is to show the appearance of Russia as for the first time an active participant in international relations, defined by the main guidelines of the Russian foreign policy of the time. Since Juraj Križanić first of all lived in Moscow within the context of a foreign embassy, most of the exhibits show their role and appearance in Moscow, reconstructing the road taken from the embassy to the residence of the Russian emperor in the Kremlin.
The exhibits of the second thematic unit mirror the political and spiritual conditions in Russia, which was then on the brink of crucial social changes.
Social ferments and unrest of the early 17th century had led to the disintegration of state institutions, and the constant menace of new insurgency from the commons required the establishment of a stable and well-organised state apparatus with all its accoutrements army, officials, a judiciary and a Church. For this reason, on January 29, 1649 a new Code of the Empire of Moscow was adopted – the Sobornoie ulozheniye. This document is the main exhibit in this part of the show. The law forbad craftsmen, petty traders and other taxpayers of the tiagla to change their place of residence; it markedly increased the subordination of the peasantry to the landowner, it introduced the death penalty for insults offered to and attacks on the Tsar's person – The Ruler's Works and Words and no distinction was made in the punishment of crimes against the state or insults offered to the Tsar.
There is a special focus on exhibits presenting church reform by Patriarch Nikon, the aim of which was to strengthen Orthodoxy. This reform to a large extent suited the objectives of Russian foreign policy of the time. For after the unification of Ukraine and Russia, Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich aimed at the unification of the Orthodox churches of the Ukraine and of the Baltic lands with the Russian church. A necessary precondition for this was the implementation of the standardisation of church rituals and liturgies and books according to the Greek model. For the realisation of this aim, Patriarch Nikon had the powerful support of the ruling classes of the Russia of that time. But the reforms met with resistance from all layers of Russian society, leading to a schism. The leading opponent of reform was Archpriest Awakum, whom Križanić was to meet during his confinement in Tobolsk; his fanaticism was repellent to Križanić.
The third unit shows the manners and lifestyle of Muscovites and the appearance of their city in the 17th century. Objects from everyday life help in the evocation of the conditions of life, the way people lived at home and the tastes of the inhabitants of the Moscow of that time. Some of the details of this quotidian must have been exotic to Križanić. He was, for example, appalled by the custom of hiding coins in the mouth.
The fourth unit is devoted to the fifteen-year long stay of Juraj Križanić in Tobolsk, to which he was exiled according to an imperial decree of 1661, because of "wrong words", perhaps scandal-mongering. The plans of this centre of the Siberian Oblast conjure up its appearance in the 17th century, and the facsimiles of the most important Križanić's works written in Tobolsk are witnesses to the exceptional intellectual engagement of the author during this period. There he wrote his most important work, Politics, in which all of the aspects of the life of Russian society of the time are treated: the economy, religion, education, the importance and role of the army in the political structure of the state. He also wrote in it his thoughts about the autocratic system of rule that he considered the best form of government, and his thoughts about Russian everyday life. It was characteristic of Križanić that he was fairly harsh in his condemnation of various forms of everyday life and the political structure of contemporary Russia; not with the aim, however, of showing the backwardness of Russian society as compared with the culture of the west, rather in order to justify the social reforms that as historical necessity he proposed to the Tsar. It was in Russia that Križanić saw the only possible champion of the right for the liberation of the Slavic peoples from the Ottoman occupation, with a liberator embodied in the figure of the Russian ruler.
After the death of Aleksey I Mikhailovich, Križanić returned to Moscow, from which, with the consent of the new Tsar, he left in 1678, because of the impossibility of bringing his life's ideas to fruition.
The ideas of Juraj Križanić anticipated the reforms put through in the first quarter of the 18th century by Peter the Great.
Tatjana V. Skorobogatova
Pictures from the exhibition
photo Miljenko Gregl, ZCM
