The Origins of Autocracy

He waited them out. The Novgoroders, in desperation, sought help from the traditional enemies of Rus'—the Livonian Order. Now the whole world could see who was defending the "old ways" and who was violating them. The grand prince marched against Novgorod and, on July 14, 1471, inflicted a crushing defeat on its army at the river Shelon'. The republic lay at his feet, disarmed and helpless. It seemed that the moment for which he had patiently waited for a whole decade had come. What now? Did he disarm Novgorod, de­stroy it politically, plunder it, kill its people? Did he at least annex its northern empire? Nothing of the sort. He entered into negotiations and agreed to a compromise. What was more, in the treaty, along with words confirming the fact that Novgorod was "our otchina," there was reference to "the free men [of Novgorod]." Fennell notes with mild astonishment: "Ivan showed remarkable clemency. . . . Why should the anomaly of an independent freedom-loving republic within the confines of what was becoming a centralized totalitarian state be toler­ated for another seven years?"[76] In fact Ivan III liquidated the grand princedom of Tver' in exactly the same way, in two stages, thirteen years later. Thus, too, he organized his pressure campaign against Lithuania—methodically, unhurriedly, and not all at once. He acted similarly in his struggle to secularize the church lands. This appears to have been the universal strategic method of the grand prince of compromise—the founding father of the absolutist tradition of Rus­sia. Fennell points out:

Of course, harsh methods at this stage would not make the task of gov­erning the city any easier; his undoubted unpopularity amongst certain members of the [Novgorod] community would be increased; leaders of the opposition would become martyrs in the eyes of the public; the merchants, whose support Ivan was only too anxious to court and maintain, might well become antagonistic to the cause of Moscow and thus disrupt its economic programme."

Not one of these considerations entered the mind of Ivan the Ter­rible at the time of his

Novgorod expedition of 1570; he mercilessly robbed the Novgorod traders without any concern for the economic program of Muscovy, still less for his reputation "among certain members of the community" (these, and others about whom we are uncertain, were simply executed on a mass scale). Certainly, the thought that "harsh methods" would hardly ease the task of governing the city did not stop Ivan the Terrible. All strata of the population, boyars, clergy, rich merchants, poor townsmen, and even the pau­pers—who were driven out in the middle of a fierce winter, to be frozen alive beyond the city walls—were exterminated methodically, mercilessly, in whole families.

It is as though for the grandson the vertical (temporal) dimension of politics did not exist. Not even the future, let alone the past ("old ways"), had any meaning for him. He thought, one might say, hori­zontally, and worked outside of the context of time. And although he traced his descent in a direct line from the Roman emperor Augustus, the sacred "old ways" were for him merely a great abstract congeries, in which Moses and the Prophet Samuel and "our forefathers" all blended together—in no sense a living, vital tradition which created a moral imperative, or an authority to which policy had to be adapted.

Let us, however, return to Novgorod. It goes without saying that the anti-Muscovite party there was unreconciled to its defeat. Once more, it entered into negotiations with Lithuania, carrying the veche

with it. Seven years later, Ivan III—armed, as always, with solid doc­umentary proofs of treachery—once again launched a campaign against the mutinous otchina and brought it to its knees. (Once again surprising Fennell: "One marvels at the patience with which Ivan conducted this [operation].") This time, Ivan settled scores with the opposition radically and cruelly: its leaders were exiled and some of them were executed; the historical autonomy of Novgorod was abol­ished, the bell of the veche removed, whole clans of potential traitors were resettled in the South and loyal people put in their place (for the decisive campaign against Lithuania, planned two decades earlier, Ivan needed the sympathy of the border population).