The Origins of Autocracy

THE ORIGINS OF AUTOCRACY

ALEXANDER YANOV

THE ORIGINS OF AUTOCRACY

IVAN THE TERRIBLE IN RUSSIAN HISTORY

Translated by Stephen Dunn

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

© 1981 by

The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Yanov, Alexander, 1930- The origins of autocracy. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Russia—History—Ivan IV, 1533-1584. 2. Ivan IV, the Terrible, Czar of Russia,

1530-1584. I. Title. DK106.Y36 947'.043 80-39528 ISBN 0-520-04282-4

То ту wife, Lidia, to whom I owe this book as well as everything I have, and have not, written

No society in modern times has been more subject to conflicting assumptions and interpretations than that of Russia.

CYRIL E. BLACK

The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the Norman epoch, forms the cradle of Mus­covy, and modern Russia is but a metamorphosis of Muscovy.

KARL MARX

What was Russia's place in history? Was she properly to be regarded as one of the families of the Asian sys­tems, as one of the European polities and societies, a variety of either, or as entirely sui generis, belonging neither to Europe nor to Asia?

DONALD W. TREADGOLD

foreword

by Sidney Monas xiii

acknowledgments xv

introduction The Hypothesis

From Greatness to Obscurity ? 1

The Alternatives 7

On the Path to Re-Europeanization 10

The Choice 11

The Catastrophe 14

"A Riddle for the Mind" 16

Scholarship and Expertise 19

PART I

THE ADVERSITIES OF THEORY

chapter i The Language in Which We Argue

Justification of the Chapter 27

The Science of Despotology 32

Despotism 36

Absolutism 42

The Historical Function of Absolutism 48

Russian Autocracy 52

The Political Spiral 59

An Explanation to the Reader 65

The Oprichnina 67

chapter иThe Serf Historians: In Bondage to "Statements"

The Struggle With Elementary Logic 71

The Lost Paradise of "Equilibrium" 77

Under the Ice of "Genuine Science" 83

The Punitive Expedition 87chapter hi The "Despotists": Captives of the Bipolar Model

The Three Faces of "Russian Despotism" 96

The "Tatar" Interpretation 97

Opportunity, Means, and Motive 104

The "Byzantine" Interpretation 107

The "Patrimonial" Interpretation 111

PART II THE ABSOLUTIST CENTURY

chapter iv The Grandfather and the Grandson

The Stereotype 123

"Patrimonies" Versus "Patrimony" 128

A Historical Experiment 132

The Reversed Stereotype 138

The Reformation Against the Reconquista 145

chapter v Josephites and Non-Acquirers

Money Versus Corvee 147

Two Coalitions 151

The Political Function of Secularization 153

The Preparation for the Assault 155

The Arguments of the Counter-Reformation 160

Before the Assault 162

The First Assault 166

The Pyrrhic Victory of the Josephites 173

chapter vi The End of Russian Absolutism

The Heritage of the Absolutist Century 183

The Great Reform 186

At the Crossroads 191

The Anti-Tatar Strategy 197

Russia Versus Europe 201

The Last Compromise 203

The Autocrator's Complex 206

PART III IVA NIA N A

215 222

chapter vii The Dawn

Methodological Problems

At the Sources of IvanianaA Strange Conflict 225

The First Attack of the "Historiographic Nightmare" 230

"Hero of Virtue" and "Insatiable Bloodsucker" 233