Terem (Russia)

The "terem" (Russian: Терем) refers to the separate living quarters occupied by elite women of the Principality of Moscow and Tsardom of Russia.

Royal or noble women were not only confined to separate quarters, but were also prevented from socialization with men outside their immediate family, and were shielded from the public eye in closed carriages or heavily concealing clothing.

[5] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the seclusion of aristocratic women to separate quarters became a common practice among royal and boyar families.

The terem was often a cloistered apartment within a home or castle, usually on an upper story or in a separate wing, from which all contact with unrelated males was forbidden.

[6] The women’s quarters of the tsar’s palace were particularly elaborate and were equipped with a separate courtyard, dining room, and children’s apartments, as well as a large group of maidservants, wet nurses, nannies, and ladies in waiting.

[6] Even in the late seventeenth century, when different rooms began to be distinguished for specific purposes, separate quarters for men and women were maintained in noble households.

[citation needed] The practice of the terem strictly segregated aristocratic Russian women both from members of the opposite sex, as well as the public eye in general.

[10] As in Islamic and Near Eastern societies, the veiling and seclusion of women allowed for greater control over a woman’s marriage choices, which often had immense political and economic implications.

Unfortunately, due to a paucity of sources from the late Muscovite-early Russian period, it is particularly difficult for historians to either determine the cultural origins of the practice of segregating elite women, or when it became a part of the social mainstream.

[5] This evidence has led several modern historians, including Nancy S. Kollman, to point to the end of the fifteenth century for the origins of female seclusion in Russia.

Russian historian Vissarion Belinsky, writing on the reforms of Peter the Great, associated the terem and other “backward” institutions like “burying money in the ground and of wearing rags for fear of revealing one’s wealth” as being the fault of Tatar influence.

[5][18] In fact, women of the Chingisid dynasty and the wives and widows of the khan enjoyed relatively higher political power and social freedom.

Though Byzantine women were not secluded after the eleventh century, it remained a highly praised ideal that could have easily been adopted by visiting Muscovite churchmen, already deeply influenced by Orthodox teachings on gender and female roles.

[18] Although the exact origins of the practice remain a mystery, most historians now concede that the terem was actually an indigenous innovation, most likely developed in response to political changes that occurred during the sixteenth century.

[citation needed] The first accounts by foreign travelers like Adam Olearius and Sigismund von Herberstein that described the institution of the terem first appeared in the sixteenth century.

[5] During this time, the political importance of upper-class women, even those who were members of the tsar’s family, clearly began to decline, as power became increasingly centralized in the person of the autocrat.

As a result, traditional offices typically afforded to women of the imperial family, such as the reading of petitions by the tsaritsa, were transferred to officials of the court instead.

[15] In 1718, Peter the Great (1682-1725) officially outlawed the seclusion of aristocratic women in the terem and ordered that they participate in the social functioning of the new, Western-style court at St. Petersburg.

Thus, targeting familial norms was only one part of his ongoing agenda to destroy the “clan politics” of his realm and to “create a service nobility modeled on that of the West.”[7] However, the forced introduction of women into the social organism of the court was met with resistance on certain fronts.

Certainly, not all women were happy to attend the assemblies of court organized by Peter and adopt new clothing styles radically different from traditionally concealing garments.

[13] As late as 1713, foreign travelers observed that aristocratic Russian women were still kept “extremely retired.”[13] On the whole, however, the abolition of the terem greatly improved the legal and social status of noblewomen in Russia.