Foreigners in Muscovy: Western Immigrants in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Russia

Between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries, the State of Muscovy emerged from being a rather homogenous Russian-speaking and Orthodox medieval principality to becoming a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Not only the conquest of the neighbouring Tatar Khanates and the colonisation of Siberia demanded the integration of non-Christian populations into the Russian state. The ethnic composition of the capital and other towns also changed due to Muscovite policies of recruiting soldiers, officers, and specialists from various European countries, as well as the accommodation of merchants and the resettlement of war prisoners and civilians from annexed territories. The presence of foreign immigrants was accompanied by controversy and conflicts, which demanded adaptations not only in the Muscovite legal, fiscal, and economic systems but also in the everyday life of both native citizens and immigrants.