The Origins of Autocracy

In regard to political and physical calamities, it must be noted that for the regions which Ivan inherited from his father, his reign was the calmest and happiest: the Tatar incursions involved only the border­lands; but these incursions were very few and the harm caused by them reasonable and quite insignificant; the uprising of the grand prince's brothers only frightened the people; and the other wars were offensive on the part of Muscovy: the enemy did not show himself within the bor­ders of the triumphant state.[68]

Whom are we to believe?

If, in fact, the Muscovy of this period was a garrison state strug­gling convulsively for its existence, as the stereotype has it, it is hard­ly likely that people from more favored and less militarized places would have emigrated there. The position of the Muscovite govern­ment in the matter of emigration is also indicative. After all, it is un­thinkable that the government of Brezhnevist Russia, for example, would issue loud declarations defending the rights of citizens to emi­grate. On the contrary, it declares emigres to be traitors to their coun­try, and regards any help to them as interference in its internal af­fairs. And there is nothing surprising in this: in our day, no one flees into Russia; they flee from it.

But there was a time when they fled into it. And this was precisely during the reign of Ivan III.

Ivan's Lithuanian neighbor, the Grand Prince Kazimir, was a great diplomat. By a series of profound and brilliantly thought out in­trigues, he managed matters so that after his death his sons, the Ka- zimirovichi, one after another took possession of the four Central European thrones—the Polish, the Czech, the Hungarian, and the Lithuanian, which was ascended by the future son-in-law of Ivan III and the future king of Poland, Aleksandr. This was the high point of Lithuanian history. Lithuania had its troubles—and who did not?— but in any case, no one would have dared to call it a garrison state, and its life and death did not rest upon the toss of a card.

Nevertheless, the current of migration for some reason ran clearly toward Muscovy. Who demanded the punishment of the emigres— the "runaways"—and branded them "traitors" or "scoundrels"? Who, by threats and entreaties, sought the conclusion of an agreement which would juridically specify the illegality of boyar "flight" ? The

Lithuanians. And who defended civil rights, and particularly the in­dividual's right to choose his country? The Muscovites.

The flower of the Russian aristocracy, the princes Vorotynskii, Viazemskii, Odoevskii, Bel'skii, Peremyshl'skii, Novosil'skii, Glinskii, Mezetskii—their names are legion—were all of them successful ref­ugees from Lithuania into Muscovy. There were also those who were not successful. In 1482 the great Lithuanian boyars Ol'shanskii, Olen- kovich, and Bel'skii prepared to flee to Muscovy. The king heard of it: "Ol'shanskii and Olenkovich were seized," and Fedor Bel'skii fled alone. In 1496 the Lithuanian ruler bitterly complained to the Mus­covite sovereign: "The princes Viazemskii and Mezetskii were our servants, and betrayed their oath to us, and slipped into your land, like evil people, and if they had fled to us, they would have gotten from us what such traitors deserve."[69] But they were not fleeing to him.

The Muscovite government, on the contrary, welcomed the royal "traitors," did not give them up to the Lithuanian king, and evidently saw no treason in their actions. For example, in 1504 Ostafei Dashko- vich defected to Muscovy with many nobles. Lithuania demanded their extradition, citing the treaty of 1503, which supposedly re­quired that "both sides not accept turncoats, runaways, and evil peo­ple." Muscovy craftily and mockingly replied that the text literally read, "a thief, a runaway, a bondsman, a slave, a debtor should be handed over to justice"—and could a great lord be a thief or a bonds­man or an evil person? On the contrary, "Ostafei Dashkovich was a person of note at the court and had been a general, and nothing evil had ever been heard about him, and he had great cities under his control, and he came to serve us voluntarily, without causing any harm."[70]