The Origins of Autocracy

The Muscovite state in the sixteenth century was an absolute mon­archy with an aristocratic governing class, Kliuchevskii tells us. "The boyars thought of themselves as powerful counsellors of the sover­eign of all Rus'," while Ivan IV, on the other hand, rewarded them with the status of "bondsmen of the sovereign," he continues.

Both sides felt themselves in an unnatural relationship to each other, which they, it seems, had not been aware of while it was developing, and did not know what to do with when they noticed it. . . . Boyardom did not know how to set itself up and to set up the order of the state without the power of the ruler, to which it was accustomed, and the sovereign did not know how to deal with his kingdom in its new boundaries with­out the help of the boyars. The two sides could neither gel along with each other nor do without each other. Not knowing either how to get along or how to part, they tried to separate, and to live side by side but not to­gether. The Oprichnina was to be a way out of this difficulty.⁶⁴

But this attempted compromise misfired, because "in the Oprichnina, he [the tsar] felt at home, like a real ancient Russian liege lord among his serf-henchmen, and could without hindrance exercise his per­sonal rule, which was hampered in the Zemshchina by the morally obligatory respect for traditions and customs which were honored by all."[198] The tsar "assigned to the Oprichnina a task for which in the government of that time there was no special institution. The newly created appanage office was supposed to become also the highest in­stitution for protecting the order of the state from sedition, and the detachments of the Oprichnina were to be a corps of gendarmes and also an execution squad in cases of treason."⁷' As a result, "the Oprich­nina, in ridding the country of sedition, introduced anarchy, and in protecting the sovereign, shook the very foundations of the state."[199]A monstrous parody of a German knightly order—but without any conception of the code of chivalry—the Oprichnina simultaneously fulfilled the functions of a political party and a political police. Called into being, according to Kliuchevskii,

by a collision the cause of which was the system, and not persons, it was directed against persons, and not against the system. The Oprichniki were put, not in the place of the boyars, but against the boyars; by their very role, they could not be the rulers, but only the executioners of the country. . . . This means that for the direction which the tsar gave to the political encounter, his personal character is greatly to blame, and therefore it takes on certain significance in the history of our state.[200]

Thus, the premise for all of Kliuchevskii's reasoning is that "abso­lute power" and the boyardom "could not get along with each other." From this it follows that the Oprichnina, being incapable of resolving this conflict, takes on the aspect of a savage and bloody, but neverthe­less historically accidental, episode in Russian history, due primarily to the personal character of Tsar Ivan. It is this, properly speaking, which constitutes the "accidental" thrust of Kliuchevskii's conception.

8. An Impossible Combination?