The cultural gap between the elites and the people was deepened by political, social, and economic conflicts: urban strife at times threatened the stability of the regime itself (for example, the salt riots of Moscow, 1648, and revolts in Pskov and Novgorod, 1650). The military servitors' struggle to establish full control (legalized by the Code of 1649) over their peasants led to numerous revolts. In 1670-71 dissatisfied Cossacks, persecuted Old Believers, escaped serfs, and disgruntled urban elements joined forces under Stenka RAZIN in a revolt that swept the entire Volga valley and threatened Moscow itself.
The trend was reinforced following the incorporation of eastern Ukraine (1654). The ecclesiastical academy in Kiev (founded in 1637 by the Ukrainian churchman Peter Mohyla) educated future clergy (and some laymen) according to contemporary European neoscholastic philosophical and juridical curricula; its graduates often continued their studies at central and western European universities. Better trained and more learned than the native Muscovite clerics, the graduates of the Kievan academy were welcomed in Moscow. They were the first to organize regular schools there (for example, the Greco-Latin Slavonic Academy), and they brought Western political and juridical works and belles-lettres to the Kremlin court. The winds of culture and art blowing from the west also helped change Muscovite tastes in architecture, icon painting, church music, and poetry--changes in style that are usually labeled Moscow baroque. These foreign and innovative influences helped smooth the path for the forceful Europeanization that followed under Peter I.
The government, especially under Tsar ALEXIS (r. 1645-76), tried to cope with the difficulties by centralizing the local administrations (prikazy, or departments) under direct supervision of the boyar duma and the tsar, assisted by professional hereditary clerks (diaki). Naturally, the fiscal burden grew in proportion to centralization. To ensure domestic control and to carry on an active foreign policy (for example, the annexation of the Ukraine in 1654 and wars with Poland leading to a "perpetual peace" in 1686), a professional army of streltsy (musketeers) and foreign mercenaries and modernized technology were introduced. Although absolutism was retained intact, factionalism and palace coups became more frequent and made pursuing coherent policies difficult. When Tsar Fyodor III died in 1682 the situation was ripe for the energetic intervention of a genuine leader. After the brief but tumultuous regency of SOPHIA, 1682-89, Fyodor's half brother Peter grasped the opportunity.
