Traditions Of Russian Popular Sovereignty From The 15th To The 17th Centuries

Abstract

This article investigates the shaping of popular sovereignty (“narodovlastie”) in Russia of the 15–17th centuries. The author presents popular sovereignty as one of the historical political traditions of Russia that ran parallel with autocracy (“samoderzhavie”). The formation of popular sovereignty is explained by a complex of historical and archival data, providing a sense of the interaction of two levels of Russian governance: centralized princely and tsarist power and institutions at the local levels (the veche and zemstvo assemblies). The interaction of two of these levels, the article demonstrates, led to the genesis of Russian statehood. On the one hand, political autonomy and institutions of multilevel representation based on traditional veche structures were developing; on the other hand, a trend toward centralization and the strengthening of statehood had also been emerging since the end of the 15th century — a trend determined by the policy of Muscovite sovereigns (“the gathering of the lands”). The author demonstrates that traditions of autocratic governance and local-estates representation mutually supplemented each other for a long period. The internal political system was thus shaped under the influence of two ideas: a strong monarchy (autocracy) and popular sovereignty (zemstvo self-government). In search of socio-political support within veche (zemstvo) traditions, Muscovite rulers actively co-operated with local zemstvo self-government, especially when this co-operation served the policy of “the gathering of the lands.”

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