The Origins of Autocracy

The grand prince then experimented with a mixture of past and future forms. In 1471 Novgorod was given a chance to try to incorpo­rate its local "old ways" into the national structure which was being created, but the compromise combination of otchina

with "free men" did not work. Ivan recognized his defeat by getting rid of the "free men," but even then he settled scores with the opposition and not with Novgorod itself. The pro-Lithuanian party was definitely rout­ed, but the city survived and prospered as before. The point is that Ivan III felt himself responsible for Novgorod. This was part of his native land, his heritage, to be attached to Muscovy, but not reduced to ashes.

When Ivan the Terrible marched against Novgorod a century later, it was still Great Novgorod, the richest, most highly developed, most cultivated city in the land, the pearl of the Russian crown. But where the Oprichnina has passed, as the saying went, grass does not grow. Never again would there be Great Novgorod. Yet, in 1570, there had for a long time been no republic, no senate, no veche,

no historical autonomy to be destroyed, no opposition to be decapitated. But we do not yet know the whole picture. In order to give the reader some idea of the bloody escapades of Ivan the grandson in Novgorod, let me quote a modern Soviet historian, R. G. Skrynnikov:

The Oprichnina judges conducted their investigations with the aid of the cruelest tortures. . . . The recalcitrant were burned at the stake . . . tied to sleighs by a long rope, dragged through the city to the river Volkhov and pushed under the ice. Not only those suspected of treason were killed, but also the members of their families. . . . The chronicler says that some Oprichniki threw women and children tied hand and foot into the Volkhov, while others went about the river in boats and with axes and spears drowned those who succeeded in floating to the surface.^H

Immediately after the trials and reprisals described above, "the sov­ereign with his men-at-arms began to ride around Great Novgorod to the monasteries," the chronicler relates. The results of this royal jaunt are also described by Skrynnikov: "The black clergy [monks] were robbed down to the last thread. The Oprichniki plundered St. So­phia's Cathedral, took the valuable church furniture and icons, and broke the ancient Korsunskii gates out of the altar."¹

' That all of this had nothing to do with the "treason" of Novgorod is illustrated by the very fact that having finished with the monasteries of Novgorod, the expedition immediately went after those of Pskov. "The Oprichnina laid hands on the treasure of the Pskov monasteries," Skrynnikov continues. "The local monks were again robbed down to the last thread. Not only money, but also icons and crosses, valuable church furniture, and books were taken from them. The Oprichniki re­moved the bells of the cathedral and took them away.""⁵

But even this did not exhaust the sufferings of once great Novgo­rod. In the interval between the plundering of the Novgorod clergy and the Pskov pogrom, the Oprichniki, according to Skrynnikov,