The Formation of the Great Russian state;: A Study of Russian History in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries 1131812654

Citation preview

The Quadrangle Series in

RUSSIAN HISTORY A lfred /. Rteber, g e n e r a l e d ito r

THE FORMATION OF T H E

GREAT RUSSIAN STATE

THE F OR MA T I ON OF THE

GREAT RUS S I AN STATE A Study of Russian H istory in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries

A. E. Presniakov TRANSLATED

FROM

THE

RUSSIAN

A. E. Moorhouse INTRODUCTION

BY

Alfred J. Rieber CHI CAGO Q U A D R A N G L E

BOOKS

BY

T he Quadrangle Series in R U S S IA N H IS T O R Y A lfred J. Rieber, g e n e r a l e d it o r T h e Formation of the Great Russian State. English translation and the special contents of this edition copyright © 1970 by Quadrangle Books, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. For informa­ tion, address the publisher at 12 East Delaware Place, Chicago 60611. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library o f Congress Catalog Card N um ber: 75-48314

Designed by Vincent Torre

General Introduction to the Series

This series has been undertaken in the conviction that translations of the great works of Russian history written дS K in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can still perform a valuable and unique service for those laymen, students, and scholars who seek to broaden their understanding of Russia’s past. From the beginning of the last century to the 1920’s, Russian historians occupied a prominent place in the intellectual life of their country. Although they never achieved the international fame of their literary compatriots, their best work easily stood comparison with the leading Continental scholars of their day. But due to a widespread unfamiliarity with the Russian language and a lack of good translations, only a very limited audience read them outside Russia. Consequently, their reputation suffered to the point where they were slighted even in the most thorough surveys of European historiography. Yet, ironically, their work retains much of its original importance. Severe handicaps have prevented their successors both within the Soviet Union and abroad from matching their achievements. Stalin almost wrecked the historical profession. Even after Stalin­ ism was publicly condemned, a single interpretive scheme, though increasingly flexible, continued to monopolize the writ­ ing of history in the U.S.S.R. Meanwhile, in the English-speaking world since the Second World War, scholarly monographs and surveys of Russian history have literally poured forth. But, not surprisingly, many of these studies were aimed largely at un­ covering the antecedents of Soviet power, and the natural fas­ cination with the revolutionary movement resulted in less atten-

viii

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

tion toward other aspects of Russian history. Until very recently the impossibility of carrying on sustained research in the great Russian archival collections has further hampered foreign schol­ ars. For these reasons, many of the classics of Russian history remain to this day, despite corrections of detail and emphasis, the standard interpretations of their subjects. The purpose of this series is to present in English, either for the first time or in modern translation, a representative sampling of the most significant of these works. An introductory essay to each volume seeks to evaluate the contribution of the historian. When completed, the series will offer not only some of the best examples of Russian historical writing, but also a broad survey of Russian historiography over the past century. This volume is an unabridged translation of A. E. Presniakov’s Obrazovanie velikorusskogo gosudarstva, originally published in Petrograd in 1918. The extensive footnotes in the original have been omitted due to considerations of cost and space. The trans­ lator has supplied a map, genealogical table, and explanatory notes.

Note on Transliteration

The question of transliterating Russian proper names has never been resolved in a way to suit everyone’s taste. In X S S A order to standardize spelling in the translations in this series, I have adopted, sometimes to the despair of the translator, a uniform system based upon the Library of Congress model. The modifications include the use of a single i at the end of given names (Vasili) and a у at the end of family names (Kliuchevsky). By and large I have retained the Russian forms of given names (Vasili instead of Basil), but have given English equivalents to the less familiar ones, such as Metropolitan Job (instead of Iov). Common usage and the absence of exact equivalents in English have also determined the choice of Russian terms such as Zemsky Sobor (Assembly of the Land) instead of translating them wherever they occur. An attempt has been made to keep these to a minimum, even at the cost of employing rather unsatis­ factory translations, such as “gentry” for dvoriane. The system used by W. E. D. Allen in The Ukraine has been borrowed for Ukrainian and Russo-Lithuanian (e.g., Orthodox as opposed to Roman Catholic) names in order to distinguish them from Great Russian and Polish. A.J.R.

Contents

G e n e ra l I n tro d u c tio n to th e Series

vii

N o t e on T ra n slitera tio n

ix

G e n e a lo g y M aps

xiii xviii, xix

E d ito r's I n tro d u c tio n

xxi

Foreword

3

Introduction

6

I The Grand Principality of Vladimir and the Votchina Principalities of the Thirteenth Century ii

The Struggle Between Tver and Moscow for the Grand Princely Rule over “All Russia”

hi

121

The Moscow Votchina Under the Successors of Ivan Kalita

v

98

The Development of Grand Princely Policy Under Ivan Kalita

iv

60

138

The Tver Otchina Under the Descendants of Grand Prince Mikhail, Son of Iaroslav III

165

CONTENTS

xii

vi

The

Grand Principality of Riazan

188

vu

The

Grand Principality of Nizhegorod

212

vin

Grand Princely Policy Under the Successors of Ivan I

231

ix

The Breakdown of the Udel-Votchina System

270

x

The Gathering of Power

34o | /

Conclusions

392

Index

395

GENEALOGY

xiii

Princes o{ Kiev - Chernigov Tahiti

Approx, date IOOOA. 0.

Vladimir 1

Iziaslav

Sviatopolk/

Mstislav laroslav / Boris /

Sviatoslav GUb

1050 Ad.

Vladimir Iziaslav! Sviatoslav 11

I—

1/OOA.d.

Vsevolod 1

I

I---- 1 n

Viacheslav Igor

1-----—

I

IJ

I

GUb David Oleq laroslav ------------1

Sviatopolkll laropolk

Vladimir ft Mone»nakK

Vladimir Rostislav //50 Ad.

Vsevolod // Igor Sviatoslav iziaslav IfI

\ lari GUb

See Table 3

Mstislav

laropolk 11

Viacheslav

Andrei

lari 1 Dolgoruky See Table 2

GENEALOGY

XIV

Princes of Vladimir

—

Moscow Table Z

Approx. Date 1/50 A. D

Iu ri 1 Dolgoruky Rostislav

1200 AD

Andrei 1 Gleb Mstislav Vasili Mikhail Vsevolod lit B iqN est I Bogoliubsky

Constantine

Iaroslav 11

Iuri 11

I SeeTgbiet _

Sviatoslav

Ivan

1-----------1----------- 1----------1---------1

Constantine Andrei 11 Alexander Mikhail Iaroslav Vasili I ___ I Nevsky Khorobrit 111

1S0O ASX David

Vasili

SeeTaUeS Г Т “ |- - - - - *- - - - - - - - - '

'- - - - - - - L

Dmitri Mikhail Daniel Vasili Andrei 111 Sviatoslav^ Vasili SeeTable+

Ivan

I Afahasi \ Iuri 111

Boris

Ivan 1

A lexander

Kalita

I Semeon The Proud

Ivan 11 I

A n d re i

D mitri o f the Don

I /400 a a

Vasin 1

iuri

Ivan

I

J I

Vladimir

^

T

Andrei Peter Ivan Semeon , Andrei I Ivan Iaroslav Vasili

Vasili Dmitri Ivan Уоипдег Kosoi Vasili 11 Dmitri Blù Theг Blind Shemiaka

M ikhail

Vasili

Vasili 1500 ASX.

Ivan 111 Iu r i

Iv(^n Dmitri

T

Andrei Elder

111

Ivan IV

Iu r i

Boris

Dmitri

A ndrei Younger

T

Semeon

A ndrei

XV

GENEALOGY

Princes of Riazan Approx. Date

Table 3

1150 A.D.

1200 АП

Gleb Roman

Igor

Ingvar Ingvar

Vladimir

VsevoloA

---- 1

lu ri

Oleg Roman

I----------- 1------------- 1

1300 ASX

Feodor

I—

Ivan

Iaroslav

C onstantine

ц

M ikhail

,1

I

Vasili

I

Kwt^pol

r ~ ------------1

Iaroslav • Dmitri Vladim ir

ШО KO.

Ivan Oleg

Ivan

Feodor Ivan

Ivan 1500A.D.

Iv a n

Feodor

Sviatoslav

GENEALOGY

xvi

Princes

oi

Tver

Table A

Approx. date M ikhail

1300 A.D

Dmitri Steely-Eyed Alexander Vladimir Vsevolod

1400 A.D.

Ivan

lu r i

Mikhail

Mikhail I t rl

Ivan

Andrei

Bo

Mikhail

Vasili

Vasili

Semeon

M ikhail

Ivan

Vasili

Vasili Teodor Ivan Boris Dmitri

Г

1500 AJD.

Eremei

Andrei

Dmitri Alexander Ivan Ivan

Daniel

Constantin e

Ivan

ф/

GENEALOGY

XVII

Princes of Suzdal -N izheciorod Approx, Data

Table 5

1250 А.П

A n d rem

1300 ajx

lu r i

Mikhail

Vasili

Alexander A ndrei

Constantine Dmitri

1400 A.n

Vasili Kirdiapa

Iva n Gorbat

Boris

Semeon

Ivan

Vasili Greblonka

Daniel

A lexander

Princes o f Rostov Table в

Approx. Date 1200 ко

Constantine

Vsevolod

Vasilko Boris

Gleb

Dmitri Constantine

Mikhail

Vladimir

Vasili

1300 A.O. Teodor

Constantine

Editor’s Introduction

! The life and works of Aleksandr Evgenevich Presniakov I span the great divide of modern Russian historiography I and reveal another aspect of the basic continuity under­ lying Russian social and intellectual history. Born in 1870 and already a well-established teacher and scholar before 1917, Pres­ niakov continued to lecture during the turmoil of revolution, actively supported the Bolsheviks, and died in 1929 a highly respected and much-honored figure. His transitional role was symbolized by the publication in 1918 of his most important work, The Formation of the Great Russian State. A brilliant challenge to previously accepted interpretations of the rise of Moscow, it also represented a synthesis of the most exciting scholarship of the times. The skill with which Presniakov handled an extraordinary range of sources continues to command respect among historians who do not always share the same ideological assumptions. Presniakov’s provocative and controversial conclu­ sions still echo strongly in the work of specialists and generalists writing on the origins of the Muscovite state. The lasting influ­ ence of his work in the Soviet Union seems all the more remark­ able because Presniakov never embraced Marxism-Leninism. Like the “fellow-travelers” in literature, the tsarist officers in the Red Army, and the “bourgeois technicians” in industry, Presniakov joined that element of the prerevolutionary elite who accepted the Soviet regime on their own terms, helped stabilize it, and trained a new generation which then unceremoniously swept them aside. Within this element, mercenaries and opportunists were plentiful, but they offer little of interest to the historian.

ххи

editor ’s introduction

Presniakov was not one of them. Rather he stood with those who came to regard the Revolution as the product of certain cultural and historical forces with deep roots in Russian history. The more sophisticated among them readily detected, in the wake of vast social changes, the great potential for both good and evil. Might they not tip the balance by throwing their weight onto the scales? Traces of the intellectual process which led Presniakov tqf answer in the affirmative lie scattered throughout his early career. But he left behind so little evidence of his personal life that it is necessary in this case to adopt his own dictum as a guide: “The biography of a scholar is contained in his work.” Having com­ pleted his secondary schooling in (Tiflis) Tbilisi, where his father, a transportation engineer, was stationed, he enrolled in the his­ torical-philological faculty of St. Petersburg University. His as­ sociation with this distinguished institution, which continued uninterruptedly to the end of his life, was the dominant influence in his intellectual development. While working for his advanced degrees, he began a teaching career which brought him at one time or another into close contact with every level in the Russian educational system from schools and gymnasia to the Pedagogical Institute and the University itself, where in 1907 he became a privat-dotsent (a lecturer receiving a small salary supplemented by students’ fees). Whether by accident or design, his varied experience as a classroom teacher kindled an interest in mass education which served him well during the first decade of Soviet rule. On one occasion he admitted that his careful preparation of courses was partially responsible for his slow rate of publication in these early years.1 But far from regretting the time spent in class, he attributed much of his success as a scholar to the high standards of historical accuracy demanded by his students.2 Presniakov also benefited from a long tradition, still very much alive in Leningrad, which discourages a sharp distinction between the activist historian-writer and the passive collector-archivist. 1. S. N. Valk, “Istoricheskaia nauka v Leningradskom universitete za 125 let,” Trudy iubileiskoi nauchnoi sessii, seksiia istoricheskikh nauk (Lenin­ grad, 1948), pp. 58-59, note 2. 2. A. E. Presniakov, “Rech pered zashchitoi dissertatsii pod zaglaviem ‘Obrazovanie velikorusskogo gosudarstva,’ ” appendix, Obrazovanie velikorusskogo gosudarstva (Petrograd, 1920, 2nd ed.), p. 7.

editor ’s introduction

xxiii

Because of the close ties between Russian medieval history and archaeology, Presniakov found it natural to participate in the work of the Archaeographical Commission, where he helped to collect, edit, and publish source materials on the history of early Russia. Fluent in many Slavic languages, he was also widely read in Latin, Greek, French, and German, with a smattering of Swedish and English. Despite his heavy professional duties, Pres­ niakov demonstrated a remarkable grasp of the latest develop­ ments in science, literature, politics, psychology, and philosophy. There were very few Russian academic figures, to say nothing of medievalists, who had read and absorbed Marx, Lenin, Martov, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg.3 In addition to being well in­ formed, he possessed rare insight into the long-term significance of social movements that were just rising to the surface in his own day. For example, he regarded Russian Social Democracy as more than a small sect of extremists. A sharp mind and a gentle nature endeared him to his colleagues and students alike.4 The relationship between Presniakov’s life and work is not always clear, and gaps in his biography have given rise to some confusing speculation. For example, in an appraisal written in 1950, the Soviet academician L. V. Cherepnin was critical of Presniakov for having ignored the student movements in the 1880’s and 1890’s, aligned himself with elements of the conserva­ tive wing of the teaching faculty at St. Petersburg University, and accepted without a murmur the Stolypin “reaction.” 5 Cherepnin does not support his view with direct evidence, and makes no effort to provide any proof from Presniakov’s work. Thus it became something of a problem for him to explain 3. See Presniakov’s analysis of their views on revolution in “Obzory perezhitogo,” Delà i Dni, 1920, No. 1, pp. 348-352. 4. The details of Presniakov’s biography are drawn largely from the brief death notice written by his former teacher, the distinguished historian and academician S. F. Platonov, Izvestiia Akademii Nauk SSSR, Otdelenie Qvmanitarnykh nauk, 1930, pp. 83-86. Curiously, none of Presniakov’s col­ leagues or students have written a reminiscence about him. The Presniakov archive in the Academy of Sciences contains 175 letters used by Valk, “Istoricheskaia nauka,” and N. L. Rubinshtein, Russkaia Istoriografiia (Mos­ cow, 1941). I have not seen this collection. 5. L.V. Cherepnin, “Ob istoricheskikh vzgliadakh A. E. Presniakova,” Istoricheskie Zapiskif XXXIII, 1950, 206, 212. It was unfair of Cherepnin to attempt to tar the entire faculty of St. Petersburg with the brush of reaction, especially by giving a foreshortened and misleading account of the

XXIV

editor ’s introduction

Presniakov’s subsequent attitude toward the Bolshevik Revolu­ tion and his highly successful career in the first decade of Soviet rule. Since Cherepnin published his authoritative article on Pres­ niakov, neither he nor any other Soviet scholar has tried to clear up this apparent contradiction. Instead, Presniakov’s contribution to Soviet education has been glossed over.*6 Before attempting to throw some light on this perplexing mat- . ter, it is important to set the record straight. Shortly after ther end of the Gvil War, Presniakov defended in print the guiding role of the Communist party in raising the cultural level of the masses. In a forthright way he paid his respects to Marx as a brilliant analyst of nineteenth-century revolutions and praised the main leaders of Russian Social Democracy, especially Lenin, for their keen understanding of modern revolutions.7 While continu­ ing to serve as professor at Leningrad University, Presniakov assumed additional teaching and administrative responsibilities as professor and later as dean of the Archaeographical Institute and director of the institute of history in ranion (Russian Association of Scientific Institutes for Research in the Social Sciences), Lenin­ grad Section. He lectured at the Pedagogical Institute and con­ tributed to such semi-popular historical series as “The Images of Mankind,” designed for use in the professional schools. On the eve of his nomination as academician, Izvestiia singled him out for praise in a long article. Although he had become “in the eyes of the broadest range of Soviet society one of the most outstanding scholars of our time,” he also demonstrated his sense Semevsky incident. But he wrote this in the wake of the “Leningrad affair,” when the cultural institutions of that city were under sharp attacks for cosmopolitanism, especially by their Moscow rivals. For a strongly con­ trasting view of the faculty, see Valk, “Istoricheskiia nauka,” a good example of the kind of “city patriotism” that lay at the heart of the entire dispute. 6. See Soviets kata Istoricheskaia Entsiklopediia, XI, 534. 7. Presniakov, “Obzory,” pp. 346-347. Cherepnin cites the article briefly but omits Presniakov’s comments on Marxists and gives insufficient biblio­ graphical information to identify and locate the journal in which it was published. He admits that Presniakov tried sincerely to serve the Soviet regime, but concludes that his bourgeois background prevented him from doing so. In all fairness it should be noted that Cherepnin has written a more recent and more generous evaluation of Presniakov the scholar in his major work Obrazovante russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva v X I V - X V vekakh (Moscow, i960), pp. 92-95.

editor ’s introduction

XXV

of civic responsibility by having taken up a “heavy load of teach­ ing even at the expense of his research.” 8 Within a year Presnia­ kov was dead of cancer. His prestige was still high at the time of his death, but his future reputation was uncertain in the light of mounting attacks by communist historians against their “fellowtraveling” colleagues. Presniakov has had few defenders since that time, but the influence of his ideas upon the generation of Soviet scholars he helped to train cannot be denied. Although Presniakov’s interest in mass education and his insti­ tutional loyalties suggest some reasons for his decision to remain in the Soviet Union, a deeper understanding of his motives must be sought in his historical method and philosophical outlook. If he could not accommodate the Revolution to his intellectual life, then he could not accept it at any level. But it is not a simple matter to discover the sources of his thinking about history. The author of numerous historiographical essays on other historians, Presniakov never made explicit his own views. Nevertheless, by drawing upon the total corpus of his work, including mono­ graphs, lectures, articles, and reviews, a substantial, if still incom­ plete, outline of them can be reconstructed. Presniakov came of age in a decade of great intellectual fer­ ment. During the 1890’s in Russia, as well as in Western Europe, thinkers strove to reconcile the warring but discredited schools of positivism and German idealism. In the Russian setting the con­ troversy gave rise to theories which had no precise equivalent in the West. Such was the case with giants like Lenin and Vladimir Solovyev, and with historians like Presniakov who were sensitive to the main currents of Western thought, yet preoccupied with the formative period of their own nation’s history. For Presnia­ kov, as for the others, the overriding problem ultimately became how to explain the relationship between the peculiar historical evolution of the Russian people and the general course of Euro­ pean civilization. But his first concern as a student was more practical and immediate: to set down the guidelines and limita­ tions of the historian’s craft. Early in his career Presniakov recognized that “we [historians] do not have a satisfactory methodology, not even an established 8. lzvestiia, October 14, 1928, No. 240.

XXVI

editor ’s introduction

definition of historical science.” 9 As Presniakov saw it, the con­ fused situation was the result of a general loss of faith in previous philosophical systems upon which historians had traditionally drawn for their theory-building. Post-Kantian idealism had crumbled under the attack of the empiricists, but positivism had proved barren of any practical significance for historiography. Lacking a firm organizing principle, historians confronted a mass of accidentally surviving data which threatened to overwhelm them. Presniakov identified two distinct approaches to this prob­ lem. One sought to recreate the past “objectively” in all its be­ wildering variety, with an end to establishing the wholeness of “historical reality.” Another attempted, through a comparative study of the past, to uncover similar phenomena in different so­ cieties which might serve as the basis for a sociology of historical causation. Presniakov rejected both schools as unscientific, the first because it depended in the final analysis upon intuition or artistic flair, and the second because it represented nothing more than an accumulation of empirical evidence held together by superficial similarities of form. Neither revealed the basic modes of human behavior which to him represented the true objective of scientific investigation. He further questioned the artificial distinction often drawn between history as an accumulation of raw data and sociology as a formulation of laws of causation. If the historian merely provided the facts for the sociologist to systematize, he remarked, then they did not represent different disciplines but two related aspects of the same discipline.10 A more fruitful approach to historical method, in Presniakov’s view, might be fashioned out of the connection between social change and discoveries in psychology about the nature of human needs. Accepting the then prevailing views of psychologists, Presniakov regarded the substitution (or displacement) of the drive to “sense life” as the underlying motive for the external acts recorded by the historian. He further recognized that up to the mid-1890’s psychological theory had been able simply to 9. A. E. Presniakov, “Novyi trud po teorii istoricheskoi nauki,” Zhurnai Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (hereafter ZhMNP), V. 297, pt. 2 (January 1895), 188. This was a review article of P. Lacombe, De Гhistoire considérée comme science (Paris, 1894). The greatest care has been taken to separate Presniakov’s views from those of Lacombe. 10. Ibid., p. 194.

editor ’s introduction

XXV11

show, in his words, “general motives for action without provid­ ing a real basis for the causal explanation of all events.” He re­ gretted that the present state of theoretical work in psychology did not meet the needs of historians; only when psychologists succeeded in breaking down this yearning for a greater intensity of life into specific logical forms of consciousness could historians in turn work out their own scientific methodology. Until that time, however, it was possible to gain insights into human motiva­ tions by studying them at their lowest common denominator, the group. The interaction within a group of individuals seeking satisfaction of their personal needs created a new level of de­ mands which could only be met by collective action in the form of institutions. Institutional change resulted, in turn, from in­ creasingly higher levels of expectations. Thus, in Presniakov’s mind, the study of institutional change was a history of the col­ lective consciousness of a people. How could the historian make certain that his descriptions and analyses of this secondary level of human experience would be accurate and balanced if the columns of the ground floor had not yet been firmly set in place? This was the question to which Presniakov found no reassuring answer in the prescriptions of the past. Out of this doubt he began to fashion his own rigorous empirical method without, however, ever renouncing the hope that a scientific underpinning would be elaborated at some future time. For the sources of his method he selected judiciously from a rich variety of intellectual currents in the lively atmosphere of St. Petersburg at the end of the nineteenth century. By enrolling in the university there, Presniakov never came under the direct influence of Kliuchevsky, whose magnetic personality inspired a generation of students at Moscow University to emulate him. By temperament, Presniakov was attracted to the contrasting style of the so-called St. Petersburg school—less artistic but more precise, solid rather than flamboyant, deeply rooted in an exhaus­ tive analysis of sources. The tradition found its earliest expression in the work of Professor M. S. Kutorga, the first real Russian specialist on ancient Greece, who taught at St. Petersburg in the 1830’s. His constant reminder that “where there is no criticism, there is no history” became something of a motto for the his­ torical-philological faculty. As early as the 1850’s, marked differ-

xxviii

editor ’s introduction

ences of emphasis divided professors at Moscow University, who stressed general history of social significance, from their Peters­ burg colleagues, who defended monographic studies of detached scholarship.11 Over the next century the rivalry flared up from time to time, and Presniakov contributed as much as anyone to keeping it alive. His first contact with the St. Petersburg style came in the classy of K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin, the grand old man of the faculty. Although a former student of Solovyev in Moscow, BestuzhevRiumin turned his back on the master, shied away from general­ izations and systems, and concentrated on amassing great quanti­ ties of factual material with which he filled his course in Russian history. Presniakov recalled Bestuzhev-Riumin’s reluctance to raise the large questions in seminar and his insistence that students be trained thoroughly in textual analysis.12 Under S. F. Platonov, Bestuzhev-Riumin’s successor, and V. G. Vasilevsky, the well-known Byzantinist, the trend gathered mo­ mentum. Platonov, who was to supervise Presniakov’s advanced work, began his authoritative studies of the Time of Troubles with a critical investigation of early seventeenth-century manu­ scripts. It became a model for the study of such literary-political sources as chronicles and legendary tales (skazanie). Vasilevsky, for his part, emphasized the analytic method to the point that even in his lectures he rejected the traditional survey course in Medieval Europe in favor of a systematic explanation of the texts upon which the standard interpretations were based. Con­ sequently, the full cycle of his course took four years instead of one as was customary, causing, incidentally, much annoyance on the part of some of his colleagues.15 By incorporating advances 11. Valk, “Istoricheskaia nauka,” pp. 6-7, 12-13. In the sharp polemic be­ tween T. Granovsky and M. M. Stasulievich, the latter insisted that “science is always science, and its character is not defined by any location,” a senti­ ment which Presniakov clearly shared. 12. Presniakov also noted that Bestuzhev-Riumin once defined his histori­ cal ideal as an attempt to show “the wholeness and unity of popular life” by revealing the connections between its various aspects, but then never pursued this ideal in his work. A. E. Presniakov, “K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin,” Delà i Dni, 1922, No. 3, pp. 169, 170, 172. Later Presniakov made this ideal his own. 13. I. M. Grevs, “Vasili Grigorevich Vasilevsky, как uchitel nauki; nabrosok vospominanii i materialy dlia kharakteristiki,” ZhMNP, V. 324, pt. 5 (August 1899), P- 41.

editor ’s introduction

XXIX

in numismatics, diplomatics, philology, and archaeology into their research methods, historians at the end of the nineteenth century broadened the material base of their inquiry and shifted their at­ tention more and more to identifying, verifying, and classifying concrete data. From Presniakov’s own intellectual development it becomes clear that the implications of these techniques for larger interpretive problems were only gradually perceived. In his student thesis on the origin and composition of the Tsarstvennaia Kniga, which won a gold medal and was pub­ lished in 1893, Presniakov showed signs of having moved beyond a formal exercise in textual analysis by raising questions about the original political purpose of the documents. Another article, “The Moscow Historical Encyclopedia of the Sixteenth Cen­ tury,” provided valuable insights into the ideological motives of the anonymous compiler.14 It was not, however, until 19001901, when A. A. Shakhmatov published the first of his brilliant philological-historical studies of the Russian chronicles, that Pres­ niakov found the methodological master key to the rich source material which up to that time had resisted persistent attempts by historians to clarify often obscure language, unravel the intricate lines of inter-princely relations, and trace accurately the political unification of Great Russia. To Presniakov, Shakhmatov represented the third and most advanced stage in the study of the chronicles begun by A. L. Schlötzer and continued by Bestuzhev-Riumin. By placing a study of the chronicles against the historical background of the times in which they were com­ piled, and then subjecting them to a minute philological study in order to uncover the internal development of the text, Shakh­ matov showed that each succeeding redaction of the chronicles was a reworking of a previous compilation, often with additions, sometimes with excerpts from several other compilations. A care­ ful and skilled researcher could determine which were the orig­ inal sections and thereby disclose in pure form a contemporary source of much earlier date than any of the surviving copies. Although the results were often speculative and questionable, as Shakhmatov was the first to admit, the importance of his dis­ coveries for the history of early Russia can hardly be exaggerated. 14. lzvestiia otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovest?wstiy V (1900), No. 3.

XXX

editor ’s introduction

For Presniakov the method yielded a major conclusion for his subsequent work; “the existence of all-Russian metropolitan col­ lections of chronicles following one another in succession from the first decade of the fourteenth century to the final compila­ tion in 1423 of the Vladimirsky Polikhron . . testified to “a general Russian interest in the unity of the Russian land at a time when this idea was only beginning to emerge in the political dreams of the Moscow rulers.” 15 ^ Turning from philology to law, Presniakov found a third source of inspiration in V. I. Sergeevich, another towering figure at St. Petersburg University, who first set Russian legal history upon a firm theoretical foundation and enthroned a study of law as the dominant element in early Russian history. What could be more natural than for his student to apply the new critical methods acquired from others to the very subject matter which Sergeevich argued must occupy a central place in the historical process? In the curious fashion by which scholars pay a debt to their masters, Presniakov refuted Sergeevich’s first important work, Veche and Prince (1867), in his master’s thesis, Princely Law in Ancient Russia (1909). Rejecting Sergeevich’s idea that the princely administration in Kievan Rus was “an unstable super­ structure” over the communal form of the people’s life, Presnia­ kov went on to demolish the interpretation of dual power. A thorough analysis of sources on the veche in the towns showed that no evidence existed (with the possible exception of Nov­ gorod and Pskov) to support the tradition that ancient Russian cities could be described as self-governing communes. The prince’s control of justice and administration rested upon com­ plex familial and social relationships. Presniakov denied that the princely family accepted the seniority principle as a formal and fixed method of organizing its social life. Rather, he interpreted the principle as nothing more than a survival of the ancient family-kinship tradition. Just as there had been no firm order of inheritance by seniority, so there was no clear definition of the political or sovereign rights of seniority. The actual strength of 15. A. E. Presniakov “A. A. Shakhmatov v izuchenii russkikh letopisei,” Izvestiia otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti, Rossisiskaia Akademiia Nauky XXV (1920), 167-169.

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the prince did not derive so much from his governing powers as from the social groups supporting him.16 As his master’s thesis had grown organically from his previous studies of sources, so Princely Law in Ancient Russia served as the springboard to the most significant work of Presniakov’s life. Thoroughly trained in history, law, and philology, and equipped with the most sophisticated research methods of his time, Presnia­ kov now undertook the preparation of his doctor’s dissertation, which in Russia was a major study written in a scholar’s mature years. Historical syntheses are not spun off by youthful vir­ tuosos. Published when Presniakov was forty-eight, The Forma­ tion of the Great Russian State remains to date the single most impressive and original contribution to an understanding of the long and complex process that led to the creation of the Mus­ covite autocracy. The result of twenty-five years of accumulated research, it challenged the dominant school in Russian historiog­ raphy founded by S. M. Solovyev. Perhaps the last Russian doc­ toral dissertation whose methodology arose generically from historical sources, this work capped the end of a great tradition. Yet in both method and interpretation it served as a model for young historians in the transitional phase of the Soviet regime. In the face of attempts by Marxist vulgarizers, such as M. N. Pokrovsky, to scrap all previous historical training, Presniakov’s work played an important role in conserving and transmitting the best in prerevolutionary historiography to the new generation. In the defense of his dissertation Presniakov caught some of the larger significance of the study. He freely admitted, to be sure, his own intellectual debts, first to the master of them all: “following Solovyev all subsequent historical writing derived from him and returned to him.” But he regarded as “unaccept­ able” Solovyev’s attitude toward historical sources. Careful study of his early works convinced Presniakov that Solovyev’s main purpose had been to uncover a constructive principle upon which to build a theory of historical process leading from a clan organ­ ization to a centralized state. Once the scaffolding had been 16, “Rech pered disputom pri zashchite magisterskoi dissertatsii ‘Kniazhnoe pravo y drevnei Rusi,’ 19 aprelia 1909,” appendix 1, A. E. Presniakov, Lektsii po russkoi istorii, “Kievskaia Rus,” I, 241-245.

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erected, Solovyev “subjugated” to his design the great mass of evidence he had marshaled in his monumental History of Russia from the Earliest Times. In comparison with rival schools of interpretation, such as the Slavophil “obshchina theory,” F. I. Leontovich’s principle of association, or the contractual scheme of B. N. Chicherin and Sergeevich, Solovyev’s History substi­ tuted another philosophical doctrine. It was buttressed, to be sure, with an unprecedented mass of detail, but it offered nosignificant innovation in methodology. As a result, Presniakov con­ cluded, the source material available for a study of early Russian history “has not been examined thoroughly and fully” in such a way as to affect the traditional outlook. Even Kliuchevsky, Solovyev’s most distinguished student, while attempting to trans­ form the system, could not break free of it. He permitted his sense of aesthetic form to corrupt his handling of sources.17 As an alternative point of departure, Presniakov argued, “scien­ tific realism demands that questions be posed which reflect the peculiarities of the material being studied . . .” The sources them­ selves should become for the historian the subject rather than a reservoir of illustrative examples, no matter what dramatic func­ tion they might fulfill. To reach this conclusion Presniakov con­ ceded that he had fought hard to resist “the undeniable charm of Kliuchevsky.” By attributing his victory to “the living com­ munion with the younger generation of historians,” Presniakov paid tribute to the intensely critical and skeptical attitudes widely prevalent among university students in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The logical outcome of his reasoning would have been a study devoted simply to the collections of chronicles, but Presniakov insisted that historians, in contrast to philologists, were bound to place the sources in a wider context where additional evidence drawn from treaties, church records, deeds, and wills could be used to verify and enrich the historical narrative. Taken together these sources yielded a “more complex texture of historical life,” which forced a réévaluation of previous interpretations sketched in much broader strokes.18 For example, Presniakov’s painstaking 17. A. E. Presniakov, “Rech pered zashchitoi dissercatsii . . . , appendix, Obrazovanief pp. 3-6. 18. Ibid.y pp. 7-8.

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reconstruction of the udel-votchina appanage system completely undermined Kliuchevsky’s elegant theory of colonization in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As Presniakov showed, the udelvotchina developed later than this, and colonization had its roots in an earlier period. So too, in contrast to Chicherin’s static inter­ pretation, Presniakov demonstrated how the main features of the udel-votchina changed in response to different socio-political conditions. What it retained as its essential characteristic, Presnia­ kov maintained against Kliuchevsky’s views, was the quality of family property as opposed to individual ownership. Thus it re­ sembled more the peasant than the boyar form of landholding. Consequently, the political struggle in northeast Russia was not resolved by gathering lands but by gathering power, that is by enhancing the authority of the grand prince over the military forces, fiscal resources, and disposition of lands within the com­ mon patrimony. The break-up of the larger udel-votchina into ever smaller parcels did not precede the growth of the Mus­ covite state, as Kliuchevsky stated. Instead, the two closely re­ lated processes ran parallel to one another with the grand princely power draining strength from the steadily weakening minor princes. Although this dual process developed organically within society, the driving force behind it came from the outside. Presniakov pointed out how the sharp contradiction between the need for national unity against external enemies and the fragile socio-political structure was finally resolved by a violent civil war from which a strong, new form of government emerged— the hereditary Moscow autocracy. Based on an unprecedented mastery of sources, these stimulat­ ing and original conclusions could not be dismissed lightly. But Presniakov’s reputation rests mainly upon his ability to sift the sources with great sensitivity for nuances of meaning, and to reconstruct the sequences and interrelationships of political events without resort to the artificial linkages and speculative flights that often characterized both his predecessors and his successors. He came as close to the purely inductive method as the nature of his materials would allow. Presniakov did not pretend, to be sure, that a study of history was possible without some sociological and historical assump­ tions. Nor did he deny that his work was held together by some-

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thing more than the relation of one event to the next.19 Because he avoided stating those assumptions, however, the full range and power of his scheme has remained largely unappreciated. When The Formation of the Great Russian State is placed in the more general context of his teaching and writing, it becomes clear that Presniakov undertook an ambitious reinterpretation of the origin and nature of the Russian nationality, defined in the broadest way to include the three major groups—Great Russian^ Ukrainian, and Belorussian. For all the importance Presniakov 2rctributed to the evolution of grand princely power, he fully recog­ nized that its ultimate success depended upon the social forces at its disposal. In the grand princely power he discovered the conscious organizing element of society. Its institutional behavior was susceptible of empirical analysis. But underlying this level of experience he perceived deeper currents in the form of com­ pelling but unorganized national aspirations. In a great trio of works, Kievan Rus, West Russia and the Lithuanian State, and The Formation of the Great Russian State, Presniakov orchestrated the subtle and dynamic relationships be­ tween the growth of power and national consciousness into a general synthesis of the historical development of the Russian people, a process which he believed “had not yet been com­ pleted” in the early twentieth century. Setting aside the question of the original unity of the Slavs and beginning with Kievan Rus, Presniakov’s basic assumptions become clear: “the state emerged earlier than the people who inhabited its territory made them­ selves into a nation.” In fact, the level of national consciousness is directly proportional to the degree of political organization and independence. On the other hand, nationality itself is a “culturalpsychological” phenomenon, the real bearer of which is not the people but “the individual personality.” 20 Thus the unconscious, subjective feelings for the “complex of factors” which create nationality are heightened and focused by the conscious, objec­ tive power of the state. The institutional change leading from the early elective organ­ ization of the veche to the emergence of the monarchical prin­ ciple in the form of the prince grew out of the increasingly 1 9 . Ibid., p p . 5 , 9 . 2 0 . Presniakov, Lektsii, I, 7-9.

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complex functions of government (defense of territory against aggression from the steppe nomads, and creation of law flex­ ible enough to regulate diversified socio-economic conditions). Princely power became “the necessary organ of ancient govern­ ment for the satisfaction of innate social needs of the population —external defense and domestic order.” 21 Rejecting the notion that inheritance by the eldest relative was the chief institutional obstacle to unification, Presniakov explained the failure of Kiev to unite the country in terms of the power struggle between rival princes (the sons and grandsons of Iaroslav the Wise) who believed they all had a stake in the common heritage. Since no one prince was able to secure firm control over all Rus, each one fought to secure at least a part of the patrimony where he carried out his administrative-judicial functions as sovereign ruler. With the decline of Kiev as a political and commercial center in the twelfth century, the princes shifted to the West and North their efforts to build a power base around which to unify the country. They acknowledged the difficulty of defending Kiev by denying its traditional role as the political center. What emerges clearly from Presniakov’s account is the outline of an all-Russian interpretation of the Kievan period. He sought to refute Ukrainian national historians, such as M. S. Hrushevsky, and champions of the Great Russian school, such as P. N. Miliu­ kov, as well as the older scheme of Solovyev-Kliuchevsky. While the traditional view depicted a linear development of Russian unity in the equation Kiev-Vladimir-Moscow, the newer schools emphasized the discontinuities between Kiev and Muscovy. For Hrushevsky, Kievan history was the prologue to Ukrainian his­ tory, which gave his nation the longest political pedigree of all the Eastern Slavs. In Miliukov’s eyes, Northwest Russia developed into a great state independently of all other regions, which he relegated to the position of underdeveloped areas, gradually ab­ sorbed by Muscovy. In the overheated atmosphere that followed the revolution of 1905, the controversy between these two inter­ pretations resounded with ominous political overtones. When the revolution of March 1917 thrust Hrushevsky and Miliukov into political leadership in the Ukrainian Rada and the Provisional Government respectively, they applied practical lessons drawn 21. Ibid.y p. 174.

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from their historical theories in a clash over Ukrainian autonomy. Although Presniakov stood well outside the arena of active politics, his views also carried strong political implications. In contrast to his colleagues, he perceived a dynamic relationship between the three distinct but interconnected political and cul­ tural centers of the Eastern Slavs, destined to be united into an all-Russian state. In the south, he agreed with the Ukrainian his­ torians, the Mongol invasion had not completely swept away th