9 century

The increasing role of Kiev as a trading city and border point from external enemies caused concentration of armed people in Kiev.
Under the hand of Prince Kievsky, an armed class was formed from a diverse military-trading people who had accumulated in the trade cities of Russia.
The military class with the Prince of Kiev at the head led the country's trade movement , sending boats with goods to Byzantium and other Black Sea and Caspian markets every year.
The military support of the trade cities was constituted by the city regiments, or thousands, who participated in the Princely campaigns under the command of the electoral merchants.

10 century

Until 11th century, society was divided into two categories: the conquerors and the vanquished.
Druzhina represented the administrative apparatus and the main military force of the Old Russian state. The most important duty of the druzhina was to ensure to collect tribute from the population.
The name druzhina is derived from the Slavic word drug (друг) with the meaning of «companion, friend». The English equivalent is retinue. In early Rus a druzhina helped the prince administer his principality and constituted the area's military force. The members of the local Slavic aristocracy as well as adventurers of a variety of other nationalities became druzhinniki. The druzhina organization varied with time and survived in one form or another until the 16th century.
The druzhina was composed of two groups: the senior members, later known as boyars, and the junior members, later known as boyar scions. The boyars were the prince's closest advisers who also performed higher state functions. The junior members constituted the prince's personal bodyguard and were common soldiers. Members were dependent upon their prince for financial support, but they served the prince freely and had the right to leave him and join the druzhina of another prince. As a result, a prince was inclined to seek the goodwill of his druzhina by paying the druzhinniki wages, sharing his war booty and taxes with them, and eventually rewarding the boyars with landed estates, complete with rights to tax and administer justice to the local population.
Senior druzhina of the Prince - Dumzi of Prince (professional military men, Princes of other provinces and boyars). Higher positions: posadniki (represented the power of the Kiev Prince and were in charge of branches of the Princely economy), heads of military.
The junior druzhina of the Prince: ordinary soldiers who were the military support of the power of the posadnik, the sons of the Prince's warriors: grid, youths, children. They occupied the lowest positions of the key-keepers, the grooms, and managed the less important territories.
In the initial period, the clergy was not a category in social structure, but was a separate and privileged class.
The legal position of the clergy in Kyivan Rus’ derived from the self-government of the church. The clergy constituted a social class with its own courts, whose jurisdiction extended not only to the priests, but also to groups associated with the church, known as church people (deacons, precentors, sextons, women who made the communion bread, and their families). Church property was exempt from state taxes. The church and the clergy in Kyivan Rus’ received a tithe from the prince's revenue. Sometimes persons of higher clerical rank, because of their education, had an influence on matters of state.
Beginning with Prince Vladimir church people were divided into categories as:
1. The clergy was divided into the lower (deacons, priests) and higher (the hierarchy or episcopate) clergy and into the secular (white) and regular (black) clergy. The secular clergy lives «in the world», among the people, and fulfils its spiritual functions among them in their religious communities. The white clergy could marry; therefore, there was a close bond with the people.
The regular (black) clergy, having renounced the world, lives in monasteries and devotes itself to prayer (the contemplative orders) or to prayer and works of Christian charity (schools, shelters, hospitals, and the like); it rarely has charge of parishes.
2. Layman, who served to the material needs of the church: prosvirnies and sveshegas (church attendant at the service).
3. Layman whose responsibilities were subject to the supervision of the clergy: midwives and doctors. They helped to monitor whether all newborns were baptized, and the dying people were instructed according to church rules. In addition, doctors were obliged to serve in hospitals, established and maintained by the church.
4. Layman who, due to illness or injury, lost their ability to work and who needed charitable support, such as blind, lame, crippled.
5. Layman asking for legal protection or material assistance such as pilgrims.
6. Layman by their own fault or accident, deprived of their rights or livelihood (rogues).

11 century

The greatest power in Kievan Rus were princes.
Princes care of law and justice, led the army, has taken a decision to defend the country, taking a direct part in military expeditions.
They forged relations with neighboring countries, concluded peace or declared war.
Thus, using modern terminology, we say that the prince of Rus was head of state lands, it embodied a quiet, ordinary life of society.
First, Kievan Rus’ was a relatively free society, especially by the European standards of the time. Its princes, even within their individual principalities, did not have anything like the absolute power Russia's later czars would wield. Princely power passed from father to son, that she was hereditary .
Of all the princes of Kyiv prince had the greatest power, the rest of the princes obeyed him as the oldest, most high. Such relations are called mizhknyazivski vasalitetom, and form of government - monarchy .
One of the biggest peculiarities of this ancient Russian nobility is the non-existence of noble titles, as there were only ruling princes. Nobility and the quality of being noble were defined by the possession of blood ties to one of the grand families, mainly the Rurik Royal family.
Kievan society lacked the class institutions and autonomous towns that were typical of Western European feudalism. Nevertheless, urban merchants, artisans and labourers sometimes exercised political influence through a city assembly, the veche (council), which included all the adult males in the population. In some cases, the veche either made agreements with their rulers or expelled them and invited others to take their place. At the bottom of society was a stratum of slaves.
More important was a class of tribute-paying peasants, who owed labour duty to the princes. The widespread personal serfdom characteristic of Western Europe did not exist in Kievan Rus'.
The change in political structure led to the inevitable development of the peasant class or smerdy. The smerdy were free un-landed people that found work by labouring for wages on the manors (an estate in land) that began to develop around 1031 as the boyars began to dominate socio-political structure. The smerdy were initially given equality in the Kievian law code, they were theoretically equal to the prince, so they enjoyed as much freedom as can be expected of manual labourers. However, in the 13th century, they slowly began to lose their rights and became less equal in the eyes of the law.
A kholop was a feudally dependent person in Russia between the 10th and early 18th centuries. Their legal status was close to that of slaves.
The Russkaya Pravda, a legal code of the late Kievan Rus, details the status and types of kholops of the time.
In the 11th - 12th centuries, the term referred to different categories of dependent people and especially slaves. A kholop’s master had unlimited power over his life, e.g., he could kill him, sell him, or pay his way out of debt with him. The master, however, was responsible for a kholop’s actions, such as insulting a freeman or stealing.
A person could become a kholop as a result of capture, selling oneself, being sold for debts, after having committed crimes, or through marriage to a kholop. Until the late 15th century, the kholops represented a majority among the servants, who had been working lordly lands. Some kholops, mainly house serfs, replenished the ranks of the princely servants (including those in the military) or engaged themselves in trades, farming, or administrative activities.
The church had a strong influence on slavery and slaveholding rights:
1) The church introduced the custom of the charitable liberation of slaves by owner will.
2) Establishing a compulsory free release of serfs at will for:
1. Slaves mothers, who had children from their own master, after his death.
2. Slaves woman abused by a free person.
3. Slave or slaves who were injured by the fault of their master.

12 century

Russkaya Pravda or Rus' Justice - was the legal code of Kievan Rus' and the subsequent Rus' principalities during the times of feudal division. It was written at the beginning of the 12th century and remade during many centuries. The basis of the Russkaya Pravda, Pravda of Yaroslav was written at the beginning of the 11th century. Russkaya Pravda was a main source of Old Russian Law.
In the 12th century, 6 soslovie (sosloviye) were designated : boyars (privileged landowners), free citizens, smerdy (state peasants), zakupy (owner peasants), tiuns (privileged slaves), kholopy (ordinary slaves). They differed in political, economic (property) and legal (inequality of civil rights) signs.
Social estates in the Russian Empire were denoted by the term soslovie (sosloviye), which approximately corresponds to the notion of the estate of the realm. The system of sosloviyes was a peculiar system of social groups in the history of the Russian Empire. In Russian language the terms «сословие» and «состояние» (in the meaning of the civil/legal estate) were used interchangeably.
At the top were boyars. These members of the nobility took up the highest military and civil posts and also formed a supreme council, the Duma, from the early centuries of Kievan Rus (10th-12th) until the time of Peter the Great (17th), when he did away with the rank.
Besides the real aristocracy, a rich landowner could also be called a Boyar. A modified form – barin was used by serfs to address their masters until the 19th century.
They formed the upper class of Kievan society. The boyars were reciprocal with merchants and the urban elite on the land of Kiev by their legal status. Their immunities and rights were: free of taxes, to be landowner (just boyars), if a boyar or a druzhinnik dies, his estate does not return to the prince. If there are no sons, the daughters will inherit, the word of boyars was the evidence in the court, and Russkaya Pravda protected life and property of boyars more careful. Their duty was a military serving.
The clergy were a part of a free population and they were divided into secular (white) and regular (black) clergy. The regular clergy played the main role in the state at that time; it was the clergy of monks and nuns. They also didn’t pay taxes. The best scientists (Nestor, Marion, Nikon), doctors (Agapitus), artists (Alimpiy), who held chronicles, rewrote books, organized different schools, lived and worked in monasteries as well.
The middle group of free people was given by cities. Townsmen were legally free, but in fact, they were dependent on the feudal top. They paid taxes, repaired the roads and bridges, in case of war they had to carry a military service.
The lowest group of a free population was represented by peasants – smerdy (servs). They owned land and cattle. Smerdy formed the majority of the Kievan Rus’ population, they paid fixed taxes and they served in the compulsory military service with their own weapon and horses. Only smerd’s sons could inherit his property. Daughters could inherit only mother’s property. Russkaya Pravda protected a slave's property and his personality as well but a penalty for the crime against him was less, than for the crime against a boyar.
Half-dependent peoples were called zakupy. Russkaya Pravda protected this category of population by «Ustav pro zakupov». On their legal status they were equal to the free people. They could be a witnesses in a court, they paid taxes e. g. Zakup was called a person who took a loan (kupu). When he returned this ‘kupa’, he would be free again. If he doesn’t give it back in time, he would turn to slave.
Tiuns were the household managers who are in the service of the boyars or princes and are responsible for order. Fire, later name - palace, was responsible for the house, yard. Stable tiun, respectively, was responsible for horses and stalls, work at the stable. On the rural and ratayne lay field work, etc. Tiuns were the most necessary support and assistance for landowners, feudal lords in the administration and court. Most of them were not free. As «Russkaya Pravda» says, as soon as a person accepted a position called «T'iun», he passed into the category of those whom they call slaves. In order to preserve their freedom, it was necessary to conclude a special agreement. Russkaya Pravda also speaks of the «Tivunsky without a series» (this means the absence of a proper contract) as one of the sources of servility. Despite this, the social position of the princely tiunov was very high. For the murder of a rural or military - 12 hryvnia, for the murder of a boyars servant - 40 hryvnia. For the princely firewear installed the largest size - 80 hryvnia.
Slaughter-tiaun allowed to be a witness in court, if there were no other, free, although the rule read «slaves obey to the slave.» At the same time, only the prince could conduct a trial on him. Secondary officials who belonged to the judicial and administrative authorities, also called tiunami. They were appointed princes, volostely or governors.
people were called slaves (kholopy). First only men were called so, but some time later all dependent people were called so. They were equal to the things; they had no rights, any property (they were property); they could be sold, changed, pawned; the owner bore the responsibility for the crimes committed by slave, and, in other hand, owner took fines for the crimes against his slave. The sources of slavery were: birth from slave, prisoners of war, marriage with slave, self-selling, runaway or non-payment debt zakup. The Russkaya Pravda also contained the norms which protected this category of population - «Ustav pro kholopov».
All categories of population weren’t closed. For example, smerd could turn in merchant, or boyar (for certain services to the state prince could grant a land and title). Or merchant could fail and become an izgoy. These were people who didn’t belong to any of other categories. There was no question of all being equal under the law: the rape or abduction of the daughter of a boyar merited compensation of 5 grivnas in gold and the same sum as a fine for the bishop; but only one grivna of gold was demanded for the rape or abduction of a daughter of 'lesser boyars', and smaller sums further down the social scale.
The Russian nobility (Russian: дворянство dvoryanstvo) arose in the 12th and 13th centuries as the lowest part of the feudal military class, which comprised the court of a prince or an important boyar.
The Russian word for nobility, dvoryanstvo (дворянство), derives from Slavonic dvor (двор), meaning the court of a prince (kniaz), and later, of the tsar or emperor. Here, dvor originally referred to servants at the estate of an aristocrat.
From the 14th-century land ownership by nobles increased, and by the 17th century, the bulk of feudal lords and the majority of landowners were nobles. The nobles were granted estates (pomestie) out of State lands in return for their service to the Prince, either for as long as they performed service or for their lifetime.
Pomestie, service landholding, was a parcel of land (hopefully inhabited by rent-paying peasants, later serfs in exchange for which the holder (not owner) had to render lifelong service to the state, typically military service, but occasionally service in the government bureaucracy.
It means, unlike boyars patrimony (hereditary property), dvoryanstvo estates (pomestie) were temporary possession.

13 century

The political fragmentation did not make fundamental changes to the state structure of the Kieran Rus principalities. With the weakening of the Prince’s power, the economic power of the boyars increased, their political influence, their desire for independence increased.
The palace-patrimonial control system was developed, in which control was exercised from the Princely palace by its apparatus without separation into public and private functions.
In the Galicia-Volyn principality, and in the Novgorod and Pskov republics, the boyars solved all matters with the help of boyar councils.
The influence of the boyars in the Chernigov, Polotsk, Minsk, Murom-Ryazan Princedoms was so great that these principalities could not form a strong princely power.
In the Kievan Rus, people involved in trade were traditionally referred to by three names: gosti (literally, guests), i.e. wealthy powerful merchants involved in international trade or foreign merchants; kuptsy (literally, merchants), i.e. any local merchant, and torgovtsy (literally, traders), i.e. small dealers in commodities.
A posad (Russian: посад) was the center of trade in Kievan Rus. Merchants and craftsmen resided there and sold goods such as pottery, armor, glass and copperware, icons, and clothing; as well as food, wax, and salt. Most large cities were adjoined by a posad, frequently situated below the main citadel and by a river. Posads were sometimes fortified with earthen walls.
Membership in the community became hereditary, and posad residents were expected to pay taxes and perform other duties to the state. Leaving the posad required the permission of an elected official. Until the 18th century, the posad had its own elected assembly, the «posadskiy skhod,» though the wealthiest members of the posad tended to dominate the governance of the community in «a tight self-perpetuating oligarchy.»

14 century

The pomestie system for dvoryanstvo (and also the service state) was strengthened at the time of annexation of Novgorod by Moscow's in 1478. Novgorodian laymen and churchmen, who preferred either to remain independent or to have Lithuania as a suzerain rather than Moscow, were purged after 1478 and either executed or forcibly resettled elsewhere.
Their vast landholdings were confiscated by Moscow and parceled out to loyal cavalry servicemen (dvoryanstvo - pomeshchiki ) for their support. Each serviceman was probably assigned land occupied by roughly 30 peasant households.
Moscow soon discovered that this was an efficient way to assure control over newly annexed territory while simultaneously maximizing the size of the army. As Moscow annexed other lands, it handed them out to servicemen as pomestie estates. The pomestie came to embody the essence of the service state. Each eligible serviceman had an entitlement (oklad ) based on his service. If he could locate land up to the limit of his entitlement, it was his. This was an effective incentive system, and servicemen strove mightily to increase their entitlements.
Chernososhnye Krest’iane (peasants in black-soil areas) - a category of the rural population of Russia from the 14th to 17th centuries directly dependent on the feudal government rather than on private owners.
Unlike the landlords’ peasants and the palace (dvortsovye) peasants, the chernososhnye krest’iane as state peasants lived on state land, had the use of allotments granted to them, were administered by state bodies, and were considered personally free.
Generally speaking, the chernososhnye krest’iane were exploited to a lesser extent than privately owned peasants. Among the chernososhnye krest’iane handicrafts and trade were highly developed, as were such activities as the extracting of salt, fur trapping, and fishing.

15 century

The unruly Feudal Rurik Princes and Boyars were always a limitation to Royal Power, and therefore, they had to be constrained. Consequently, Ivan 3, Grand Duke and Prince of Moscow compelled all appanaged Princes to cede their territorial princedoms and receive in compensation large landed estates of a feudal but private nature. In addition, in order to make the princes and boyars more compliant with the monarchy, a very clever trick was instituted.
Genealogical Register - Ivan 3 founded a Genealogical Register, in which the former ruling Princes were inscribed along with the Moscow boyars. It was a very important step in favor of the unification of the Russian Nobility into a single social class.
Mesnichestvo Law - Ivan 3 took the second step towards the fusion and merger of the princes and Boyars into a nobility dependant of the monarchy, By Mesnichestvo noble rank and social position was to be considered according to the dignity held by fathers and grandparents either at court or at the army. This Law was in force until 1682. The direct consequence of this was that the concept of hereditary nobility was introduced in Russia, as Boyars were made hereditary noblemen.
Ivan 3 increasingly held aloof from his boyars. The old patriarchal systems of government vanished. The boyars were no longer consulted on affairs of state. The sovereign became sacrosanct, while the boyars were reduced to dependency on the will of the sovereign. The boyars naturally resented this revolution and struggled against it.
The boyars were no longer nomadic (able to move from place to place), but attached to the Court.
Gosudarev Dvor (Sovereign's Court) was formed under Ivan 3.
The truest Russian word for their Emperor is not Tsar, but Gosudar, which rightly means master.
The 3 highest grades of Russian officialdom at Gosudarev Dvor:
Boyars - as Gosudar close comrades and trusty counsellors.
Okolnichie - first appeared at a much later date, when a regular Court had become established. They were preeminently courtiers, and acted at first as masters of the ceremonies, introducers of ambassadors, and grand heralds. But at a later day they held no particular office, but simply ranked as the second class of the official hierarchy, the boyars being the first.
Dumnuie dvoryane, or «nobles of the Council» - the third grade was held by those who had not yet attained to the boyartsvo or boyardom, and yet were members of the Tsar's Council.
Attached to these three first grades were the four dumnuie d'yaki, or clerks of the Council. They conducted the whole business of the Council, and being men of great experience, and relatively learned, were the Tsar's principal advisers, and necessarily enjoyed great influence in a state where the wielders of the sword could not always handle the pen.
A dyak was a title of the chief of a structural division of a prikaz. For example, posolsky dyak is a dyak of the Posolsky Prikaz (Diplomacy Department). A duma dyak was the lowest rank in the Boyar Duma (15-17th centuries).
A Podyachy or podyachiy (Russian: подьячий; from the Greek hypodiakonos, «assistant servant») was an office (bureaucratic) occupation in prikazes (local and upper governmental offices) and lesser local offices of Russia in 15th-18th centuries.
The Session of the Great Gosudar and his Boyars - the boyars sitting at a little distance from the Tsar on rows of benches according to rank, first the boyars, then the okol'nichie and then the dumnuie dvoryane, while the dumnuie d'yaki remained standing unless the Tsar bade them be seated.
Sovyetnuie lyudi, or «national councils,» - representatives of all soslovie, including the merchants and artificers, were held under the presidency of the Tsar on very urgent occasions, such as the beginning of a war when extraordinary subsidies were required.
Russian church: until the middle of the 15th century the Russian church belonged to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and had no independent governance. After the fall of Byzantium to Ottomans, Metropolitan of Moscow gained its independence -from the Church of the Constantinople Patriarchate.
1448 The Council of Russian bishops, regardless of Constantinople, elected for cathedra the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia, Bishop of Ryazan Jonah, marking the beginning of autocephalous status of the Russian Orthodox Church.

16 century

By the mid-16th century the chernososhnye krest’iane had disappeared in central Russia but remained in the northern areas of European Russia and in Siberia, where they were known as pashennye liudi (plowmen). At the end of the 17th century they numbered more than 50,000 households. In the 16th and 17th centuries agricultural land, including plowland, was divided up and privately held by the families of the chernososhnye krest’iane; the bulk of the pastureland and the forests and rivers were communally owned and used.
In the mid-16th century property and social distinctions emerged. Great merchants and entrepreneurs, such as the Amosovs, Bosyis, Gusel’nikovs, and Stroganovs, came from the ranks of the chernososhnye krest’iane. The reform of the land of Ivan 4 expanded the administrative, judicial, and financial responsibilities of elected bodies in the volosts (small rural districts) inhabited by the chernososhnye krest’iane; the bodies were headed by the richest peasants.
From the end of the 16th century the government increased the taxes paid by the chernososhnye krest’iane, restricted their rights to dispose of land, and imposed limitations on local self-administration. Under the reforms of Peter the Great, the chernososhnye krest’iane became part of the state peasants.
During the reign of Ivan 4 the Terrible several important events occurred concerning the pomestie:
1) The government advanced the service state significantly in 1556 by decreeing that all holders of service estates (pomestie) and hereditary estates (votchiny )had to render the same quantity of military service (i.e., provide one mounted cavalryman per 100 cheti of land actually possessed).
2) During Ivan's reign sons began to succeed to their fathers' service landholdings when their fathers died or could no longer render the required lifetime service.
3) During Ivan's Oprichnina, service landholders were given control over their peasants, including the right to set the level of rent payments (a change that caused massive peasant flight from the center to the expanding frontiers).
4) The Oprichnina exterminated so many owners of hereditary estates (boyars) that it appeared as though outright ownership of land was on the verge of extinction.
In the 2nd half of the 16th century, the traders and merchants of the Russian cities were collectively named posadskie lyudi, i.e. people residing at the posad, outskirts of towns, outside the city walls.
By the late 1500s, Russian merchants were organized in three groups: gosti, trading people of the gostinnaya sotnya (literally: the guests' hundred) and the mercers' sotnya (sukonnaya sotnya).
1555-56 Administrative reform - local officials should be elected instead of being ruled by centrally appointed namestniki (officials exercising delegated power on behalf of the prince).
This was really a way of passing the burden of administrative service by local populations so that resources previously used for kormlenie or «feeding» of namestniki could be transferred to Moscow.
The social status of kormlenie-holders ranged from top-level boyars acting as vicegerents in large prosperous cities to cavalrymen who were entitled to collect certain fees in small rural communities, which were often situated far away from the cavalrymen’s home towns. In some instances the cost of visiting such remote territories was higher than the amount of due income, a situation that caused some cavalrymen to farm out their kormlenie revenues.
Also this reform moved the principle of the pomestye from military to administrative service.
The holders of pomestie estates (dvoryane) were primarily members of the provincial middle service class cavalry who began to live directly on their service landholdings. This experience convinced them that they had the right to consider the pomestie as their personal property, which not only could be left to their male heirs, but also could be alienated like votchina property: sold, donated to monasteries, given to anyone, used as a dowry, and so forth. This project became the goal of dvoryane to enserf the peasantry. Such aspirations totally violated the initial purpose of the pomestie and undermined the basic principles of the service state.
1555 Gosudarev Rodoslovets - book featuring the family trees of Rurikid and Gediminid princely houses.
An important addendum contains a set of genealogies prepared by the non-princely noble families on the basis of their family records. As it was fashionable to trace one's blood line back to a foreign immigrant, all sorts of fantasy genealogies abound.
Russian church: prior to the establishment of the patriarchate, the Russian church was headed by Metropolitan.
1589 Jeremias II of Constantinople was enthroned as the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia - and after negotiations with Boris Godunov (the Regent for Tsar Feodor 1 of Russia).
He also known as Job (Russian: Иов) of Moscow . Job of Moscow is a saint of the Orthodox Church.

17 century

1613 Michael Romanov grated a Charter to merchants and guests, freeing them from the control of the sheriffs and chancellors (also freeing from payment of all taxes and dues).
Guests were empowered to possess estates.
The merchants of the corporations weree entrusted with the management of state trade and industry.
Other powerful citizens, usually merchants or manufacturers, conducted affairs of these towns.
Below them, enrolled into communes and guilds, were tradesmen and craftsmen, were subject to the control of such chancellors as those dealing with construction and armaments.
1649 The distinction between the pomestie (dvoryane) and the votchina(boyars) were retained by the Law Code, but the distinctions were fading in reality. During the first half of the 17th century, the pomestie essentially became hereditary property, but service still was compulsory and holders could not freely alienate it. During the Thirteen Years War (1654–1667), new formation military units began to replace the obsolescent middle service class cavalry, and after 1667 the service state nearly disintegrated. With it went the principle that service was compulsory from pomestie land.
1682 The mestnichestvo was abolished by Feodor 3 of Russia.
With the developing autocracy, where the core principle was the creation of a central bureaucracy reporting directly to the tsar, the role of the mestnichestvo was progressively reduced. Moreover, increasing defense needs required that the top military posts be occupied by capable officers, not ancestry-proud but inept boyars. Consequently, the available genealogical data was made public as the so-called Velvet Book, whereas the ancient pedigree books were burnt, to the great consternation and dismay of established boyar families.
The Velvet Book (barthatnaia knega) - established and commissioned by the Tsar Fedor, elder brother of the future Tsar Peter the Great. The book would mention and register all the nobility of Russia. It was based on the ancient genealogical records compiled under the Mesnichestvo ancient laws. This book was bounded in Red Velvet, and came to be known as The Velvet Book (barthatnaia knega). All the hereditary boyars and princely families were there.
The ancient pedigree books were burnt, to the great consternation and dismay of established boyar families.
1699-1724 Government reform by Peter the Great allowed to the towns to elect their own officials, collect revenue and stimulate trade - in an effort to reduce the power of provincial governments. In 1702 towns were governed by an elective board which replaced the old system of elected sheriffs. By 1724 towns could govern themselves through elected guilds of better off citizens. On paper these reforms were fine. But in reality the power of the local landlord and the provincial governor was immense and difficult to break.

18 century

Peter the Great finalized the status of the nobility, while abolishing the boyar title.
Dvoryane should perform military service or for their lifetime, starting the age of 15.
State peasantswere registered officially by the ukases of Peter the Great from among the rural population that had not been enserfed (the chernososhnye krest’iane, sharecroppers (polovnikt) of the northern Pomor’e, the Siberian plowland (pashennye) peasants, the odnodvortsy, and the non-Russian nationalities of the Volga and Ural regions).
Russian nobility titles were created by the first time by Tsar Peter the Grea - many prominent families needed to be rewarded.
Three types of Russian noble titles were created: Prince, Count and Baron.
The first Prince ever created in Russia was Menshikov. The first Russian Count in the nobility of Russia was Field Marshall Scheremeteff. The first Russian Baron ever created in the Russian nobility was the Vice-Chancellor Schafiroff.
1721 Most Holy Synod - established by Peter 1, in the course of his church reform. Its establishment was followed by the abolition of the Patriarchate. The Synod was composed partly of ecclesiastical persons, partly of laymen appointed by the Tsar.
The Most Holy Governing Synod was the highest governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918 (1918 is when the Church re-instated the Patriarchate). The jurisdiction of the Most Holy Synod extended over every kind of ecclesiastical question and over some partly secular matters.
1722 The Tsar Peter 1 created a House of Nobles, placing at its head a Herald Master.
1722 The Table of Ranks was a formal list of positions and ranks in the military, government, and court of Imperial Russia, introduced by Peter the Great.
The Table of Ranks re-organized the foundations of feudal Russian nobility (mestnichestvo) by recognising service in the military, in the civil service, and at the imperial court as the basis of an aristocrat's standing in society. The table divided ranks in 14 grades, with all nobles regardless of birth or wealth (at least in theory) beginning at the bottom of the table and rising through their service (sluzhba) to the tsar. The effect of the Table of Ranks was to create an educated class of noble bureaucrats.
1736 Tsarina Anna changed the age at which nobles had to start service from 15 to 20 and length of service was changed to 25 years instead of life and families with more than one son could keep one to manage the family estate.
1762 Peter 3 freed the nobility from obligatory civil and military service, allowing them to pursue personal interests. While some used this liberty as an excuse to lead lavish lives of leisure, a select group became increasingly educated in Western ideas through schooling, reading, and travel.
1785 Charter to the Gentry - the privileges of the nobility were fixed and were legally codified by Catherine the Great. The Charter introduced an organization of the nobility: every province (guberniya) and district (uyezd) had an Assembly of Nobility.
Classification of the Nobility of Russia to six groups by Catherine the Great:
1. Untitled Noblemen ennobled by Diploma or Letters patent.
2. The Military Nobility.
3. The Civil Nobility.
4. The Foreign Nobility.
5. The Princes, Counts and Barons created by Letters Patent.
6. The Old Princes and Nobles whose ancestors were registered in the Velvet Book.
Catherine also made specific reforms in institutional education. She based Russian education on that of Austria, and in 1786 a standardized curriculum to be taught in newly created public schools. Many members of the lower soslovie were allowed into these schools, Catherine hoped that they could become educated enough to rise through the Table of Ranks and eventually become nobles themselves.
1785 The Charter of the Cities (Charter on the Rights and Benefits for the Towns of the Russian Empire).
The Charter instituted an urban corporation comprising six categories of inhabitants:
1) owners of immoveable property (houses, shops, land);
2) merchants in three guilds (delineated by self-declared capital);
3) artisans in craft corporations;
4) merchants from other towns or governments;
5) «eminent» citizens (by education, wealth, or public service);
6) long-time residents unqualified for other categories but earning a living in town. There are detailed instructions for establishing eligibility and compiling registries of all these groups.
Each category elected representatives to a town council.
1785 Charter for State Peasants - was composed, but never issued. All three charters were intended as a single body of legislation establishing definitions, duties, rights, and privileges for three important legal estates.

19 century

1832 «Laws about Estates» - the Code of the Law of the Russian Empire.
The Laws defined 4 major estates (sosloviye): dvoryans (nobility), clergy, urban dwellers and rural dwellers (peasants). There also existed the military estate.
Also more detailed categories were recognized:
Clergy was subdivided into «white» (priests) and «black» (monks).
Urban dwellers were categorized into hereditary distinguished citizens, personal distinguished citizens, merchantry, urban commoners, and guilded craftspeople. Urban commoners included people who had some real estate in a town, were engaged in some trade, craft, or service, and paid taxes.
The rural dwellers category also included the inorodtsy estate, that included non-Russian and non-Orthodox native peoples of Siberia, Central Asia or Caucasus.
A separate category, not assigned to any of the above estates were raznochintsy (literally «persons of miscellaneous ranks», but in fact having no rank at all).
A separate stratification existed for governmental bureaucracy, who were classified according to the Table of Ranks. The higher ranks belonged to the sosloviye of dvoryanstvo.
Finally, in Siberia, the estate of «exiled» was officially recognized, with the subcategory of «exiled nobility».
1832 Manifesto of Nicholas I declared the institution of distinguished citizenship (or two categories) . The distinguished citizens ranked above merchantry and below nobility. They were freed of personal taxes, military service obligation, corporal punishments, etc. Distinguished citizenship was available for persons with a scientific or scholar degree, graduates of certain schools, people of arts and distinguished merchants and industrialists subject to certain conditions.
The estates were classified into two major groups: taxable estates, which had to pay the personal tax, and non-taxable ones.
2nd half of the 19th century - with the abolishment of the serfdom in Russia and the development of capitalism (industrial development, urbanization, and economic growth) the estate paradigm no longer corresponded to the actual socio-economical stratification of the population, but the terminology was in use until the Russian Revolution of 1917. The transition from feudalism (soslovie estate system) to capitalism (classes) was characteristic of 19th century in Russia.
1864 Zemstvos - the elected assemblies at the provincial and county levels by all classes including the peasants, although the landowning nobility had a disproportionately large share of both the votes and the seats.
1897 Census categorized the Russian people into 4 classes:
Upper classes: Royalty, nobility, higher clergy: 12.5%.
Middle classes: Merchants, bureaucrats, professionals: 1.5%.
Working classes: Factory workers, artisans, soldiers, sailors: 4%.
Peasants: Landed and landless farmers: 82%.
Upper classes:
Noble titles and land ownership were the main determinants of privilege in tsarist Russia. The tsar himself was a significant landowner, holding the title of up to 10% of land in western Russia. The Russian Orthodox church and its higher clergy also owned large tracts of land.
Protective of their wealth and privilege, Russia’s landed aristocracy was arguably the most conservative force in the empire. The abolition of serfdom in 1861 allowed many of them to increase their landholdings, largely at the expense of the state and emancipated serfs.
The middle classes:
Russia’s middle classes worked for the state (usually in the higher ranks of the bureaucracy) or the private sector, either as small business owners or trained professionals (such as doctors, lawyers and managers).
Industrial growth in the 1890s helped to expand the middle classes by increasing the ranks of factory owners, businessmen and entrepreneurs. Members of this group tended to be educated, worldly and receptive to liberal, democratic and reformist ideas.
Members of the middle-class were prominent in political groups like the Kadets (Constitutional Democrats) and, later, well represented in the State Duma.
Working classes:
During the 1890s Russia's industrial development led to a large increase in the size of the working class and of the urban middle class, which gave rise to a more dynamic political atmosphere and the development of radical parties. Because the state and foreigners owned much of Russia's industry, the Russian working class was comparatively stronger and the Russian bourgeoisie comparatively weaker than in the West.
The working class and the peasants became the first to establish political parties in Russia, because the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie were politically timid. During the 1890s and early 1900s, bad living- and working-conditions, high taxes and land hunger gave rise to more frequent strikes and agrarian disorders. These activities prompted the bourgeoisie of various nationalities in the Russian Empire to develop a host of different parties, both liberal and conservative.
The peasantry:
The peasantry was by far the empire’s largest social class. It contained at least 4 out of every 5 Russians. Most worked small plots of land using methods of farming that had changed little since the Middle Ages.
Farming in Russia was a difficult business that was dictated by the soil and the weather. Russian farming was further hindered by its reliance on antiquated methods and techniques, without the benefit of machinery or chemical fertilizers.
There was little or no formal education so the majority of peasants were illiterate. Many were intensely religious and superstition to the point of medievalism.
Russia had one of the highest child mortality rates of the Western world. By the late 1800s, around 47% of children in rural areas did not survive to their fifth birthday.
Post-1861 changes
Before 1861 most Russian peasants had been serfs and possessed no legal status or rights as free men. Alexander II emancipation edict gave them freedom of movement and other rights – but the land redistribution that followed left thousands of peasants worse off than before.
After the emancipation, the best tracts of farmland were usually allocated to land-owning nobles. They kept it for themselves or leased it for high rents. The former serfs were left with whatever remained but were obliged to make 49 annual redemption payments to the government – in effect, a 49-year state mortgage. These redemption payments were often higher than the rent and land taxes they paid before 1861.
Some common land was also controlled and allocated by the obshchina or mir (peasant commune). The mir was also responsible for other administrative duties, such as the collection of taxes and the supply of conscripts to the Imperial Army.
Few peasants had any understanding of government, politics or economics. But for all their political apathy, the peasantry was occasionally roused to action – particularly by changes that affected them directly, such as food shortages or new taxes. There were significant peasant protests in 1894 when the government introduced a state monopoly on vodka production (previously, the peasants could distil their own, provided they paid a small excise to the state).
Many peasants were also receptive to anti-Semitic propaganda that blamed Russia’s Jews for everything from harvest failures to missing children. Whipped up by rumours and agitators, peasant gangs carried out dozens of pogroms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Peasant unrest and violence would erupt during the 1905 Revolution, though it was directed at land-owners more than the government.
Generally in 19 century:
1. Russian society of comprised of more than 125 million people. There was significant diversity of ethnicity, language and culture.
2. The dominant classes were royalty, aristocracy and land-owners, who wielded significant political influence.
3. Russia’s middle class was small in comparison to other nations but was growing by the early 1900s.
4. The peasantry made up by far the largest section, most living in small communities scattered across the empire.
5. Russian society was intensely patriarchal, with men dominant in most spheres of decision-making and women denied many legal and civil rights.

20 century

Before 1917 October Revolution:
Peasants: growing numbers of peasant villagers migrated to and from industrial and urban environments. They still resented paying redemption payments to the state. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants and substantial inequality of land ownership, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.
Workers: urban overcrowding (between 1890 and 1910, the population of Saint Petersburg swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600), overcrowded housing (1904 survey - an average of 16 people shared each apartment in Saint Petersburg, with 6 people per room) with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (~10-12-hour workday 6 days a week), constant risk of injury and death from poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline, inadequate wages.
All these conditions made worse after 1914 by steep wartime increases in the cost of living). Workers living in cities were highly concentrated and exposed to new ideas about the social and political order.

Right after 1917 October Revolution:
The Decree Abolishing Classes and Civil Ranks was a decree intended to abolish the estates and estate legal instruments — classes, titles and civil ranks of the Russian Empire on the territory of Soviet Russia, to introduce the legal equality of all citizens of the new state.
The decree contained the following basic provisions: 1. All the estates and class divisions of citizens that existed before in Russia, the estate privileges and restrictions, the estate organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks are abolished. 2. Any titles (nobleman, merchant, tradesman, peasant, etc., princely, county titles, etc.) and the name of civilian officials (secret, state and other advisers) are destroyed and one common name for the entire Russian population is established — citizens of the Russian Republic. General categories of Soviet society:
4 major socio-occupational groupings: the political-governmental elite and cultural and scientific intelligentsia; white-collar workers; blue-collar workers; and peasants and other agricultural workers.
Soviet ideology held that Soviet society consisted solely of two nonantagonistic classes -workers and peasants. Those engaged in nonmanual labor (from bookkeepers to party functionaries) formed strata in both classes.
Social position was determined not only by occupation but also by education, party membership, place of residence, and even nationality. Membership in the ruling group, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), aided career advancement. Those who worked full time for the party received political power, special privileges, and financial benefits. Social status increased the higher one was promoted in the party, but this power was derived from position and could neither be inherited from nor be bequeathed to relatives.
The Soviet regime glorified manual labor and often paid higher wages to certain types of skilled laborers than to many white-collar workers, including physicians, engineers, and teachers. These professionals, however, enjoyed higher social prestige than the better-paid laborers. Considerable differences existed among the country's various social and economic groups.
Soviet statistics showed that the income for many occupations was not sufficient to support a family, even if both spouses worked. These statistics on income, however, did not take into account money or benefits derived from the unofficial economy, that is, the black market in goods and services.
The largest official social organizations, such as the trade unions, youth organizations, and sports organizations, were tightly controlled by the state. Unofficial organizations, once banned, were becoming increasingly evident in the late 1980s.
Under the Soviet Constitution, women possessed equal rights with men and were granted special benefits, such as paid maternity leave for child-bearing. At the same time, women as a group were overrepresented in the lower-paid occupations and underrepresented in high positions in the economy, government, and the party. If married, they performed most of the homemaking chores in addition to their work outside the home. This overwork, coupled with crowded housing conditions, contributed to a high rate of divorce and abortion.

end of the 80s Model of society after Perestroika:
1) the political-governmental elite;
2) economic elite, oligarchs and top managers, «new Russians»;
3) medium business; media elite and small business, managers;
4) professionals with high salaries - lawyers, programmers, accountants, skilled workers;
5) intelligentsia, employees and workers with low salaries;
6) collective farmers and workers with low salaries;
7) marginalized (situated between various social groups) layers.