A history of Russia

boyar duma formed in effect an integral part of the supreme authority of the land rather than merely a government department or agency. The celebrated Muscovite formula for state decisions, 'the sovereign directed and the boyars assented,' reminds one strongly of the English legal phrase 'King in Council,' while the boyar duma itself bears resemblance to royal councils in different European monarchies. The boyar duma assumed the directing authority in the absence of the tsar from Moscow or in case of an interregnum, such as that which followed the deposition of Basil Shuisky.

The nature of the zemskie sobory and their relationship to the Muscovite autocracy present even more complicated problems than does the boyar duma. Again, one should bear in mind that Muscovite political practice showed little evidence of the clear disjunctions of modern political theory and that it was based on custom, not written constitutions. The zemskie sobory, as we had occasion to see earlier, were essentially sporadic gatherings convened by the tsar when he wanted to discuss and decide a particularly important issue 'with all the land.' Fortunately for the students of the zemskie sobory, they had much in common with certain Western institutions and especially with the so-called Estates General. In fact, their chief characteristic, in the opinion of most scholars, consisted precisely in their inclusion of at least three estates: the clergy, the boyars, and the gentry servitors of the tsar. These were usually supplemented by the townspeople and, on at least one occasion, in 1613, by the peasants. The representation was by estates. Sometimes, as in the West, the estates would first meet separately, for instance, in the boyar duma or a Church council, and afterwards present their opinion to the entire zemskii sobor. The numbers of the participants in the different zemskie sobory varied from about two hundred to perhaps five hundred or more in 1613, with the service gentry invariably strongly in evidence.

The assembly of 1471, called by Ivan III before his campaign against Novgorod, has usually been listed as a 'forerunner' of the zemskie sobory. The first full-fledged zemskie sobory occurred in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in 1549, 1566, 1575, and possibily 1580, and dealt with such important matters as the tsar's program of reforms and the Livonian War. Immediately after Ivan the Terrible's death, in 1584, another zemskii sobor confirmed his son Theodore as tsar, a step possibly suggested by the fact

that Ivan the Terrible had left no testament and no formal law of succession existed in Muscovite Russia. In 1598 a zemskii sobor offered the throne to Boris Godunov. The celebrated zemskii sobor of 1613, which we discussed earlier, elected Michael Romanov and his successors to rule Russia. As we know, at the time of Tsar Michael the zemskie sobory reached the peak of their activity: they met almost continually during the first decade of the reign; later, in 1632-34, 1636-37, and 1642, they convened to tackle the issue of special taxes to continue war against Poland and the problem of the Crimea, Azov, and relations with Turkey. In 1645 a zemskii sobor confirmed Alexis's accession to the throne, while during his reign one zemskii sobor dealt with the Ulozhenie of 1649, another in 1650 with the disturbances in Pskov, and still another in 1651-53 with the Ukrainian problem. Many historians add to the list of zemskie sobory the gathering or gatherings of 1681-82 connected with the abolition of the mestnichestvo and the accession of a new ruler. Unknown zemskie sobory may yet be uncovered; recently a Soviet historian claimed to have discovered one in 1575. But, in any case, the zemskie sobory belonged clearly to Muscovite Russia, and the period of their activity corresponded roughly to its chronological boundaries. They found no place in Peter the Great's reformed empire.

The key controversial issue in the literature on the zemskie sobory has been the scope of their authority and their exact position in the Muscovite order of things. Kliuchevsky and some other leading specialists have shown that the zemskie sobory aided and supported the policies of the tsars, but did not limit their power. The question of restricting the sovereign's authority never arose at their gatherings. Moreover, at least in the sixteenth century, the members were appointed by the government rather than elected. Although in the Time of Troubles, with the collapse of the central government and an interregnum, the elective principle appeared and a zemskii sobor emerged as the highest authority in the country, it proved only too eager to hand over full power to a new tsar. In the seventeenth as in the sixteenth century, membership in a zemskii sobor continued to represent obligation and service to the sovereign, rather than rights or privileges against the crown. At most the participants could state their grievances and petition for redress; the monarch retained full power of decision and action.

A different view of the situation has been emphasized by Tikhomirov and other Soviet historians, as well as by certain Western scholars such as Keep. They point out that the zemskie sobory, after all, dealt with most important matters, and often dealt with them decisively: the succession to the throne, war and peace, major financial measures. The most famous zemskii sobor, that of 1613 which led Russia out of the Time of Troubles and established the Romanov dynasty on the throne, deservedly received great attention. It should also be noted that during a large part of Michael's

reign no subsidy was levied or benevolence extorted without the consent of zemskie sobory; thus they had a hand on the purse strings, if they did not actually control state finances. Many edicts carried the characteristic sentence: 'By the desire of the sovereign and all the land.' Again, such epoch-making decisions as the extension of the tsar's jurisdiction to the Ukraine depended on the opinion of a zemskii sobor. Besides, particularly in the seventeenth century, with the elective principle persisting after the Time of Troubles and asserting itself in the composition of several of the zemskie sobory, these assemblies acted by no means simply as rubber stamps for the tsars. For example, it has been argued that the Ulozhenie of 1649 represented the decision and initiative of a zemskii sobor that it forced on the government. In fact, the argument proceeds, the tsars and their advisers in the second half of the seventeenth century began to convene the zemskie sobory less and less frequently precisely because of their possible threat to the position of the monarch. The assertion of tsarist absolutism in Russia against the zemskie sobory corresponded to parallel developments in a number of other European countries, such as France, where the Estates General did not meet between 1614 and 1789, and England, where the seventeenth century witnessed a great struggle between the Stuarts and Parliament. But, whether the story of the zemskie sobory resembles its Western counterparts only faintly or rather closely, the net result in Russian social conditions consisted in arrested evolution at best and in the continuing sway of autocracy.

The expansion of the Muscovite state brought with it centralization and standardization, whether sudden or gradual. First the Sudebniki of 1497 and 1550 and later the Ulozhenie of 1649 became the law of the entire land. In the course of time uncounted legal peculiarities and local practices of appanage Russia disappeared, as did such foreign imports as the so-called Magdeburg Law, German in origin, that was granted to western Russian towns by their Lithuanian and Polish rulers. This interesting law - although oligarchical in nature and often applied in a selective manner, for instance, with discrimination against the Orthodox - had effectively supported the self-government of towns in Poland and Lithuania. Autocracy and legal and administrative centralization in Muscovite Russia were to help immeasurably Peter the Great's far- reaching reforms.

The central administration of Muscovite Russia represented a rather haphazard growth of different departments and bureaus. In the seventeenth century these agencies, which came to be known as the prikazy - singular prikaz - already numbered about fifty. Many prikazy developed from the simpler offices and functions at the court of Muscovite rulers; others, for example the prikaz dealing with the pomestiia and the one concerned with Siberia, reflected new activities or acquisitions of the state. The authority of a prikaz extended over a certain type of affairs, such as foreign policy

in the case of the ambassadorial prikaz; certain categories of people, such as the slaves and the streltsy; or a certain area, such as Siberia and the former khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Overlapping and confusion increased with time, although some scholars see in the unwieldly Muscovite arrangement the wise intention to maintain mutual supervision and checks. Bureaucracy continued to proliferate on both the central and the local levels.

Local government constituted one of the weakest parts of the Muscovite political system. The problem, of course, became enormous as the state grew to gigantic size. As a ruler of Moscow acquired new territories, he sent his representatives, the namestniki and volosteli, to administer them. The appointments, known as kormleniia, that is^eedings, were considered personal awards as well as public acts. The officials exercised virtually full powers and at the same time enriched themselves at the expense of the people, a practice which could not be effectively stopped by customary and later written restrictions on the amount of goods and services which the population had to provide for its administrators. y

However, as already mentioned, local self-government developed in the sixteenth century, with earlier