Keenan. Muscovite Political Folkways
Keenan. Muscovite Political Folkways
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TheRussianReview,vol. 45, 1986, pp. 115-181
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways
EDWARD L. KEENAN
I. Introduction. Methodology
I attempt in what follows to identify and to describe what appear
to be fundamental features of Russian political culture,1 and to provide
community. Other communities now found within the boundariesof the Soviet Union
have their own politicalcultures, which will not here be discussed. The extent to which,
as a result of Russian dominationof Soviet politics, "Soviet" might be substitutedfor
"Russian" in the followingdiscussionis problematic.
By the term "politicalculture" I mean to designatethat complex of beliefs, prac-
tices, and expectationsthat has, in the minds of Russians, given order and meaning to
politicallife, and has provided, or permittedits bearersto generate, both the underlying
assumptionsand patternsof their politicalbehaviorand the forms and symbols in which
it has been articulated.
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 117
Like the village political culture, the political culture of the clans
was conservative, risk-averse,and designed to assure the politicalstabil-
ity that was, for the political clans, the analog of the agrarianbalance
sought by the village culture. Under environmental conditions that
precluded the acquisition of a permanent economic base, and within a
political system that would tolerate no securely independent political
units, and, finally, in accordance with an indispensable tradition of
princely inheritance, the purpose of this political system-and its
achievement-was to preserve the viability of a small but growing
hereditarymilitaryelite. Like the village culture, it developed mechan-
isms that submerged individual interests and forestalled the worst
consequences of economic and biological chance; like that culture, it
had a corporate and unanimity-producingprocedure for decision-
making in the unchallengedauthorityof the elder of the clan, who nor-
mally representedthe clan in councils of state.
Unlike the village culture, however, the political culture of the
clans interactedwith, and to an extent determined, the high-level poli-
tics of the Muscovite state, through the workings of an elaborate sys-
tem that incorporatedmany of the features of clan politicalculture. We
shall turn to an examination of this system after a brief examination of
the third component of Russian politicalculture, the politicalculture of
the bureaucracy.
was determined by seniority.) Thus these court ranks, while not linked
hierarchicallyto militaryor other structures,signified a politicallymuch
more importantrelationship-proximity to the grand prince. And such
proximity-physical access guaranteed by blood or marriage relation-
ships, in most cases-was both the warrantand the objective of political
activity.
Individualsin this inner ring served as links to the outer rings of
the political system per se, which included in early times a tiny propor-
tion of the society, and through them to the society at large, which was
outside politics. Successive outer rings were composed of client groups
and/or other constituencies of the members of inner rings. In pre-
Petrine times, these groups were primarily clan and family groups;
later, they were socio-economic groupings; eventually, in modern
times, they were to become bureaucraticand other interest groups.
Like the atom that we have imagined, this system maintained a
dynamic equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces. The grand
prince, whose position was by definition unaffected by power politics,
kept those individuals who occupied the innermost ring constantly in
movement, toward or away from his "luminous presence" (cseTjibie
oxm). Similarly, they tended to impel one another away from that
center, while their clan/client groups thrust them towards it. There
were limits: oligarchscould not hope to enter the center of the system
and become grand prince; the slightest indication of such ambitions
would lead to their destructionby the grandprince or, more commonly,
by their peers. Nor could they be pushed too far towardthe periphery;
if they were, they would lose "face" (ecTb) and their status as leader
of their clan or client faction.
Now how did this system function in a dynamic sense-how did it
operate so as to assign, regulate, and effectuate the power of those who
comprised it? And how did it act to resolve the conflicts generated by
their strivings to increase their own power?
We may begin our examination of the dynamic features of the
Muscovite political system at this center. That one became grand
prince only through the accident of birth, and surrenderedthat status
only at death's door, is an apparentlytrivial fact whose functional and
symbolic meaning to the Muscovite political culture was of transcen-
dent importance. From this central convention there flowed a number
of conceptualand behavioralrules whose results are familiarfrom stan-
dard histories, but whose underlyingdynamic has not been adequately
described.
The establishment of this practice, which we may call "political
primogeniture," in the Muscovite dynasty was a significant departure
from both previous practiceand from the general custom of the native
political elites, and at the same time marked a crucial stage in the for-
mation of the court politicalculture. The Riurikidfamily traditionhad
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 141
through a series of astute fictions, for while the system could operate
under weak or incompetent grand princes-and even under mad
ones-it could not tolerate "tsarlessness" (6ecuapcTBue),nor could it
tolerate the factional struggles that would attend the decision to replace
an ailing or incompetentgrandprince.
Least of all could this system tolerate struggle over the throne
itself. There is abundant evidence that a kind of "taboo" was
developed in this regard, since Fate sorely tested the system many
times, "anointing" in both the progeny of Vasilii II and later in the
Romanov house a large number of unfit individuals. But in spite of
this almost constant problem, and notwithstandingthe perpetual in-
trigues among factions at court, and, finally, despite the relatively easy
access of the members of the court elite to the person of the tsar, no
"lethal compacts" were formed from within the ruling circle against a
legitimate tsar, however helpless in mind and body, however "tyranni-
cal." His untouchabilityand "groza" (roughly "clout") were clearly
too importantto the preservationof the stability of a system of which
the boyarelite was the beneficiaryand controllingstockholder.
And, when Fate played the cruelest trick of all, the extinction of
the royal line with the death of the mentally incompetent Fedor Ivano-
vich in 1598, this system filled the vacuum at the center, first by the
"election" of Boris Godunov, then with "miraculous return" of first
one False Dmitrii, then a Second, and finally with a sixteen-year-old
nonentity. In each case the boyar oligarchs, in changing and turbulent
coalitions but ultimately unanimously, were willing to confer upon
these replacements not only mythical "royal lineage," but all the
powers and hereditaryprivileges that had belonged to previous, "real"
tsars. Further, both in this period and generally, it was the oligarchs
themselves, contraryto what might be considered in Western terms as
their own political and constitutional interest, who fostered the con-
tinuation of myths about divine ordination, about the absolute power
and despotism of the tsar, and about their own "slavish" submission to
his will.
For it was the idea of a strong tsar that was essential both to the
princely clans and to the non-princely bureaucratsas the warrant of
their own power and of the legitimacyof their position-and as protec-
tion against one another. And it was their own need for a strong tsar
that led them to deceive others-particularly foreigners-about the true
extent of the power of the grand prince, whom we know often to have
been a minor, or sickly, or uninterestedin rule, but who is describedas
"the most powerfulprince in the universe," etc. Most of these ambas-
sadors, of course, were carefully secluded by means of the peculiar de
luxe house arrest traditionally imposed upon official visitors in
Muscovy, but they did, on occasion, have moments of personalcontact
with leading boyars. From them, however, the visitors learned next to
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 143
powerful, and in any case himself beyond the play of politics in the
most basic sense, and if many matters of rank and position were to an
extent determined by the system of mestnichestvo,in what did the
dynamics of this political competition consist? Again, Margeret pro-
vides just a clue: "The principalnobles ... are the dukes, then those of
the council who are called dumnye dvoriane .... There is in the council
no fixed number, for it is up to the emperor to appoint as many as he
deems proper .... The privy council is customarily made up of those
most closely related to the emperor ...."
The way to power, to membershipin the inner circle was, then, to
be related to the "emperor." But, as we have mentioned, those related
by birth to the grand prince-his uncles and brothers-were systemati-
cally exiled or incarcerated. Those related to him by marriage,
however-his wife's male relatives-were the "principal nobles" of
whom Margeret speaks. That such was the case made the Muscovite
system, for all its genealogical conservatism, dynamic and flexible:
those able to manage affairs so as to become "related" to the grand
prince were, presumably,among the most astute and effective members
of the larger court circle. As a consequence, it was in this area-in
marriagepolitics, the politics of kinship-that the play of politicalforces
took place, until the time of Peter ... and beyond.
We cannot go into a description of this matter in detail, but I
believe it can be shown that for roughly two centuries-during the for-
mative period of the Muscovite political culture (1500-1700)-the poli-
tics of betrothalsand marriageswas in fact the politics of power in the
Kremlin. It was during the process of betrothal of an heir or royal
daughterthat one heard the thud of limp bodies in the Kremlin; it was
the brothers, uncles, and fathers of the lucky brides who formed the
innermost circle of power.
There are many kinds of evidence, in addition to the facts of
poisoned brides, broken betrothals, and the well-known but commonly
disregardedrole of in-laws, that confirm this view. The protocols of
marriagesin the royal family were, for example, among the most ela-
borate and carefully preserved of all grand-princelyrecords. Principal
members of great clans were permitted to marryonly with the permis-
sion of the grand prince and indeed could be prohibitedentirely from
marrying. And the grand prince himself was not at liberty to marry
whom he pleased. (The myth of an extensive "search for a bride,"
allegedly involving thousands of the most beautiful girls in the realm,
was but a part of the self-protective deception practicedby the court.)
Attempts by a reigning prince to "break out" of the system by marry-
ing foreigners, or betrothing a child to one, repeatedlycaused political
turmoil. The practice-in the "political" classes only-of seclusion of
women was a part of this system that guaranteedthat the primary-i.e.,
political-reasons for marriage, and not personal choices, would
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 145
Indeed, one could argue that, this political system, the vernacular
politics of the Muscovite court, had no ideology, in the more modern
sense of the term. And it is the very absence of public statements
about itself that reveals its essential features: its seeming formless-
ness,3 its "corporateness," its conspiratorialnature. Historians have
sought in vain to find written recordsfrom this period that might expli-
citly identify factions or individuals with political positions taken in
some critical debate, reveal the course of the debate and the range of
opinions, the proceduresof decision, and the precise nature of the final
compromise. No such record will be found, because to keep it would
have been totally alien to the nature of Muscovite politics. It is, of
course, beyond question that factions did exist, that ultimate decisions
were collective and unanimous, and that they were made in the circle
of oligarchs disguised in the literatureas the "Boyar Duma." But the
very nature of this corporationand its modusoperandiconceal its actual
operations from historians, as they concealed them from outsiders in
Muscovite times. No one, least of all some vulnerable clerk, carried
"rubbish" out of thathut.
It should not be surprisingthat Muscovy, preeminent practitioner
of pragmaticpolitics, remarkableinventor of administrativesystems in
an environment unsuited to the growth of a centralized and far-flung
state system, elaboratedno functionally significantor coherent secular
political ideology or theory of government. It was not until late in the
seventeenth century that any attempt at a statement of explicit political
principlesappearedin Muscovy, in the form of the "Correspondence"
attributed to Ivan the Terrible and Prince Kurbskii (especially Ivan's
First Letter) and the "History" attributed to Kurbskii. And it was a
foreigner, JurajKrilanic, who wrote the first explicit treatise on "poli-
tics" in Russia, a work that seems to have had few readers in that
country, partlybecause it was written in a kind of Slavic Esperantode-
vised by its Croatian author. Later, other foreigners made more
influential contributions of a theoretical nature-one thinks of the
Ukrainian Feofan Prokopovich or his Greek ghost-writer in Peter's
time, Montesquieu in Catherine's, and others, notably Karl Marx,
much later on. Russians paid varying degrees of lip-service to these
theoretical statements, but seem never to have accorded them much
influence in the practical and pragmatic politics in which, like their
Muscovite forebears,they had become so adept.
3 Not
"informality"in the usual sense, of course: the documentaryrecord provides
abundantevidence that, as in other "shame-and-honor"societies, honor (IecTb), disho-
nor (6ececTHe), disgrace (onana), and status (BepcTa)were acknowledgedand articu-
lated in meticulouslyobserved traditionalforms.
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 149
their politicalculture. They were interested not in the forms and limits
of power but in its just and moral use; not in institutions but in the
relationshipsthey expressed; not in the rights of the individual, but in
his perfection (of which they despaired).
Such was-and is-the dissident tradition within the Muscovite
politicalculture. That it was-and is-an integralpart of that largercul-
ture seems to be indicated by the fact that its dominant features are
identifiableas extensions or negations of the system within which it has
evolved.
Let us summarize our observations about political culture in the
Muscovite state as that culture took its final pre-modern form, just
before the time of Peter the Great:
There were, as we have pointed out, three rather distinct political
cultures: that of the court, that of the bureaucracy,and that of the vil-
lage.
The cultureof the courtrevolved around the person of the tsar,
who was a kind of non-combatant and dominant referee in power
politics. Participationin this culture was determined by heredity and
organized accordingto kinship; status by birth order within a clan and
proximity to the tsar. Marriagewas a mechanism of change in indivi-
dual and clan political status and, in the case of grand-princelymar-
riages, a means of gaining politicallycrucialproximityto the tsar.
Government (in its political, not functional sense) was conspira-
torial: clans conspired against one another to expand their power; they
conspired with other clans to preserve the political system against the
potentially destabilizing consequences of their competition; they con-
spired against elemental natural and human forces to preserve their
control over territoryand people. Their mode of decision-makingwas
informal: few clear divisions of responsibilityor institutional preroga-
tives were recognized. It was collective or collegial: one strove for a
workableconsensus among members of an inner circle whose dynamics
were controlled by tradition, a balance of interests, and the "regulat-
ing" fiction of the tsar's unlimited power. Those who refused to
adhere to a decision of the group were forced out of it, and usually out
of the system as a whole. Personal or individualinterests, including, a
fortiori, those of the tsar, were subordinatedto those of the clan, the
inner circle, or the need to preserve the system as a whole.
The bureaucraticpolitical culture, rapidly developing by Peter's
time, was in many respects similar to the court culture, but did differ
from it in some significantfeatures. While the bearer of this culture,
the clerk class, had become in large measure hereditary (indeed, by a
law of 1640, it had become an estate closed to the low-born), its inter-
nal organization permitted far more individual mobility than did the
mestnichestvosystem that regulated the seniority of the warriorclans.
While family connections were, as elsewhere in Muscovite society,
MuscovitePoliticalFolkways 157
leap the apparentfact that few essential new elements were introduced
into Russian vernacularpoliticalculture during this period.
Several importantchanges in the relationshipamong the variants
of the politicalculture did take place during this period, however, and it
will serve our later purposesto review them.
We may begin with the general observation that the village politi-
cal culture changed little in most essential respects during these centu-
ries. It is true, of course, that the village commune was over time
forced to adapt its externalities-and even some of its regularmechan-
isms of counterpoise-to deal with the challenges posed by an increas-
ingly aggressive and long-armed government, and by ambitious
landlords, but it seems to have preserved its "deep" structures, as is
clear from the nineteenth-century descriptive accounts and from the
modern scholarly literature. That is, the political culture of the vast
majorityof Russians (perhaps5/6 of the total) as they entered this cen-
tury was not significantlychanged by the experience of the preceding
two centuries; put in another way, the rate of culturalchange was rela-
tively low.
With regard to the two other cultures we have examined, the
record of these centuries is somewhat more complex: on the one hand,
several of the most importantfeatures of these cultures were preserved,
mutatis mutandis, through the period; on the other hand, certain
significant changes in the general political structure, changes that
affected the court and the bureaucraticcultures, did occur.
These changes, as one might anticipate,were the results of socio-
economic and demographicgrowth of the society as it evolved toward
what we might call a modern configuration. But for our purposes it is
important to view these changes not from the modern vantage point,
but in terms of the categories and conceptual continuities established
earlier. As seen in this light, the most importantprocesses of the pre-
modern period appearto have been the following:
1. The social and cultural merger and integrationof the two cultures
that might be called "cultures of the ruling elites," i.e., the court
and the bureaucracy. The resultant political culture took on many
features of the two components where these were compatible, and
discardedthose that generatedinternalcontradictions.
The underlyingdynamic of this merger was provided primarily
by the growth of the state itself, and the change in the nature of its
political, administrative,and particularlymilitary activities. As its
capacityand appetite for increasinglychallenging tasks of adminis-
tration and mobilization grew, it became increasingly dependent
upon the bureaucracy,whose growth mechanisms of recruitment
(ratherthan, or in addition to, biological reproduction)and simple
replicationof units permittedit to grow to keep pace with the new
needs of the state, a feat that the court elite, limited by its rules of
160 TheRussianReview