Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T23:34:16.899Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - The central government and its institutions

from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Maureen Perrie
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

For the Muscovite state, the seventeenth century was one of evolution and growth, rather than radical change. The century experienced no political revolutions of the magnitude seen during the reigns of Ivan III and Ivan IV. Russia, having recovered from the confusion of the Time of Troubles, remained a strong autocracy held firmly in the hands of a small, martial ruling class. This is not to say that there was general stasis. Things still fell apart, though only for brief moments. And one can detect a single important political trend – the remarkable inflation of honours begun under Tsar Aleksei (Alexis) Mikhailovich and radically amplified by his weak successors. Nonetheless, the general picture was one of continuity, punctuated by momentary fits of confusion and gradual change.

The case is much the same in the realm of institutions. Seventeenth-century Muscovy was administered by the same fundamental types of organisation that it had been before the great upheaval of the beginning of the century. The most important institutions remained the royal family, its court and courtiers (gosudarev dvor) and the administrative chancelleries (prikazy). Similarly, the boyar council and the Assembly of the Land – both inventions of an earlier age – continued to operate in the seventeenth century much as they had before. All of these institutions grew, but not so much as to fundamentally alter their essential character.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aksakov, K. S., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii K. S. Aksakova, 3 vols. (Moscow: P. Bakhmetev, 1861–80), vol. i.
Bakhrushin, S. V., Bogoiavlenskii, S. K., ‘Prikaznye d’iaki XVII veka’, IZ 1 (1937).Google Scholar
Bogatyrev, Sergei, The Sovereign and his Counsellors. Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Culture, 1350s–1570s (Helsinski: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2000).
Brown, Peter B., ‘Muscovite Government Bureaus’, RH 10 (1983).Google Scholar
Brown, Peter B., ‘Bureaucratic Administration in Seventeenth-Century Russia’, in Kotilaine, J. and Poe, M. (eds.), Modernizing Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).Google Scholar
Bushkovitch, Paul, Peter the Great: the Struggle for Power, 1671–1725 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Bychkova, M. E., Sostav klassa feodalov Rossii v XVI v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1986).
Cherniavsky, Michael, ‘Tsar and People: A Historical Study of Russian National and Social Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).
Crummey, Robert O., ‘The Origins of the Noble Official: The Boyar Elite, 1613–1689’, in Rowney, D. K. and Pintner, W. M. (eds.), Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Crummey, Robert O., Aristocrats and Servitors: the Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613–1689 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
Demidova, N. F., ‘Biurokratizatsiia gosudarstvennogo apparata absoliutizma v XVII–XVIII vv.’, in Druzhinin, N. M. (ed.), Absoliutizm v Rossii (XVII–XVIII vv. Sbornik statei k semidesiatiletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia i sorokapiatiletiiu nauchnoi i pedagogicheskoi deiatel’nosti B. B. Kafengauza (Moscow: Nauka, 1964).Google Scholar
Demidova, N. F., ‘Prikaznye liudi XVII v. (Sotsial’nyi sostav i istochniki formirovaniia)’, IZ 90 (1972).Google Scholar
Demidova, N. F., ‘Gosudarstvennyi apparat Rossii v XVII veke’, IZ 108 (1982).Google Scholar
Demidova, N. F., Sluzhilaia biurokratiia v Rossii XVII v. i ee rol’ v formirovanii absoliutizma (Moscow: Nauka, 1987).
Epstein, Fritz T., ‘Die Hof- und Zentralverwaltung im Moskauer Staat und die Bedeutung von G. K. Kotošichins zeitgenoessischem Werk “Über Russland unter der Herrschaft des Zaren Aleksej Michajlovic” für die russische Verwaltungsgeschichte’, Hamburger Historische Studien 7 (1978).Google Scholar
Eroshkin, N. P., Ocherki istorii gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Uchebno-Pedagogicheskoe izdatel’stvo Ministerstva prosveshcheniia RSFSR, 1960).
Filiushkin, A. I., Istoriia odnoi mistifikatsii. Ivan Groznyi i ‘Izbrannaia Rada’ (Moscow: Voronezhskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1998).
Fletcher, Giles, [Fletcher, Dzhil’s], O gosudarstve Russkom (St Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin, 1906). Of the Russe Commonwealth, ed. Fine, John V. A. and Pipes, Richard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).
Hellie, Richard (ed. and trans.), The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649. Part I: Text and Translation (Irvine, Calif.: Charles Schlacks, 1988).
Ivina, L. I., et al. (eds.), Sobornoe ulozhenie 1649 goda: tekst, kommentarii (Leningrad: Nauka, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1987).
Kantorowicz, E. H., The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).
Keenan, Edward L., ‘Putting Kurbskii in his Place, or: Observations and Suggestions Concerning the Place of the History of the Grand Prince of Muscovy in the History of Muscovite Literary Culture’, FOG 24 (1978).Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L., ‘Muscovite Political Folkways’, RR 45 (1986).Google Scholar
Kleimola, Ann M., Justice in Medieval Russia : Muscovite Judgment Charters (pravye gramoty) of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, vol. 65, 1975).
Kliuchevskii, V.O., A Course in Russian History: The Seventeenth Century (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968).
Kliuchevskii, V.O., Boiarskaia duma drevnei Rusi. Opyt istorii pravitel’stvennogo uchrezhdeniia v sviazi s istoriei obshchestva, 3rd edn. (Moscow: Sinodal’naia tipografiia, 1902).
Kollmann, Nancy S., ‘The Extremes of Patriarchy: Spousal Abuse and Murder in Early Modern Russia’, By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Kosheleva, O., and Strucheva, M. A., Gosudarev dvor v Rossii: konets XV–nachalo XVIII vv.: catalog knizhnoi vystavki (Moscow: Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia istoricheskaia biblioteka Rossii, 1997).
Kotilaine, Jarmo T., and Poe, Marshall T., (eds.), Modernizing Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).
Kotoshikhin, Grigorii, O Rossii v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovicha (St Petersburg: Tipografiia Glavnogo upravleniia udelov, 1906).
Kristensen [Christensen], Svend A., Istoriia rossii XVII v. Obzor issledovanii i istochnikov (Moscow: Progress, 1989).
Krizhanich, Iurii, Politika, ed. Gol’dberg, A. (Moscow: Nauka, 1965).
Longworth, Philip, Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias (London: Secker and Warburg, 1984).
Lukin, P.V., Narodnye predstavleniia o gosudarstvennoi vlasti v Rossii XVII veka (Moscow: Nauka, 2000).
Man’kov, A.G., Ulozhenie 1649 goda – kodeks feodalnogo prava Rossii (Leningrad: Nauka, 1980). Zakonodatel’stvo i pravo Rossii vtoroi poloviny XVII v. (St Petersburg: Nauka, 1998).
Markevich, A. I., Istoriia mestnichestva v moskovskom gosudarstve v XV–XVII veke (Odessa: Tipografiia Odesskogo Vestnika, 1888).
Michels, Georg B., At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999).
Nikolaev, S. I., ‘Poeziia i diplomatiia (iz literaturnoi deiatel’nosti Posol’skogo prikaza v 1670-kh gg.)’, TODRL 42 (1989).Google Scholar
Nikol’skii, V. K., ‘Boiarskaia popytka 1681 g.’, Istoricheskie izvestiia izdavaemye Istoricheskim obshchestvom pri Moskovskom universitete 2 (1917).Google Scholar
Novombergskii, N. I. (comp.), Slovo i delo gosudarevy, vol. 1: Protsessy do izdaniia Ulozheniia Alekseia Mikhailovicha 1649 g. (Moscow: A. I. Snegireva, 1911; reprinted Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kul’tury, 2004).
O’Brien, Bickford, ‘Muscovite Prikaz Administration of the Seventeenth Century: The Quality of Leadership’, FOG 24 (1978).Google Scholar
Ostrogorsky, G., ‘Das Projekt einer Rangtabelle aus der Zeit des Tsaren Fedor Alekseevich’, Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven 9 (1933).Google Scholar
Pavlov, A.P., Gosudarev dvor i politicheskaia bor’ba pri Borise Godunove (1584–1605 gg.) (St Petersburg: Nauka, 1992).
Pavlov-Sil’vanskii, N. P., Gosudarevy sluzhilye liudi: liudi kabal’nye i dokladnye (St Petersburg: Tipografiia M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1909).
Platonov, S. F., ‘Boiarskaia duma – predshestvennitsa senata’, in his Stat’i po russkoi istorii (1883–1912), 2nd edn (St Petersburg: M. A. Aleksandrov, 1912).Google Scholar
Plavsic, B., ‘Seventeenth-Century Chanceries and their Staffs’, in Rowney, D. K. and Pintner, W. M. (eds.), Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Poe, Marshall T., The Russian Moment in World History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
Poe, Marshall T., ‘The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy in Comparative Perspective’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996).Google Scholar
Poe, Marshall T., ‘The Military Revolution, Administrative Development, and Cultural Change in Early Modern Russia’, Journal of Early Modern History 2 (1998).Google Scholar
Rowland, Daniel, ‘The Problem of Advice in Muscovite Tales about the Time of Troubles’, RH 6 (1979).Google Scholar
Sedov, P. V., ‘O boiarskoi popytke uchrezhdeniia namestnichestva v Rossii v 1681–82 gg.’, Vestnik LGU 9 (1985).Google Scholar
Sergeevich, V. I., Drevnosti russkogo prava, vol. ii: Veche i kniaz’. Sovetniki kniazia, 3rd edn (St Petersburg, 1908).
Sudebniki XV–XVI vekov, ed. Grekov, B. D. (Moscow and Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1952).
Tel’berg, G. G., Ocherki politicheskogo suda i politicheskikh prestuplenii (Moscow: Tipografiia Imperatorskogo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1912).
Torke, Hans-Joachim, Die staatsbedingte Gesellschaft im Moskauer Reich: Zar und Zemlja in der altrussischen Herrschaftsverfassung 1613–1689 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974).
Veselovskii, S.B., Issledovaniia po istorii klassa sluzhilykh zemlevladel’tsev (Moscow: Nauka, 1969).
Volkov, M. Ia., ‘Ob otmene mestnichestva v Rossii’, Istoriia SSSR, 1977, no. 2.Google Scholar
Zimin, A. A., Formirovanie boiarskoi aristokratii v Rossii v vtoroi polovine XV – pervoi tret’i XVI v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1988).

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×