The Origins of Autocracy

He considers as normal only a structure of the state which is based not on the personal will of the sovereign, but on the participation of a "col­lege"—a council of boyars—in the administration. . . . Furthermore the sovereign should share his royal concerns not only with highborn and just councillors: Prince Kurbskii also favors the participation of the people in the administration, and stands for the usefulness and ne­cessity of an Assembly of the Land. . . . "If the tsar is respected by the kingdom ... he must seek good and useful counsel not only from his councillors, but also from men of all the people, since the gift of the spirit is given not according to external wealth or according to power, but according to spiritual rectitude.". . . The prince stood for the gov­erning role of the Council of Boyars and for the participation of the Assembly of the Land in the administration of the state. But he is dreaming of yesterday. . . . Neither the governing role of the Council of Boyars nor the participation of the Assembly of the Land in the ad­ministration was an ideal at that time, nor could it be a political dream. [They] were at that time political facts. . . . Thus, Prince Kurbskii stands for existing facts; his political program does not go beyond the limits of the existing structure of the state . . . while sharply critical of the past of Muscovy, [he] cannot think of anything better than this past.[135]

The reader might well conclude from this, as dozens of the most experienced experts have concluded before him, that Kurbskii stood for the status quo, and even for the past, which implies that his oppo­nent, the tsar, was advancing something new, going "beyond the limits of the existing structure of the state." Logically this should be so. Oth­erwise, what would they have to argue about? But