From the standpoint of Russian history, the Lithuanian, or Lithuanian-Russian, princedom presents particular interest as the great, unsuccessful rival of Moscow for the unification of the country. Liubavsky and other specialists have provided thoughtful explanations of why Vilna lost where Moscow won. A fundamental cause, in their opinion, was the contrast in the evolutions of central authority in the two states. Whereas princely absolutism developed in Moscow, the position of the Lithuanian rulers became progressively weaker rather than stronger. Limited by the interests of powerful boyars and largely self-governing towns, the grand princes of Lithuania turned into elected, constitutional monarchs who granted ever-increasing rights and privileges to their subjects: first they came to depend on the sanction of their aristocratic council; after the statutes of 1529 and 1566 they also needed the approval of the entire gentry gathered in a diet. Thus, as the Muscovite autocracy reached an unprecedented high in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the authority of the Lithuanian grand princes sank to a new low. Whereas the Muscovite rulers strove, successfully on the whole, to build up a great central administration and to control the life of the country, those of Lithuania increasingly relied on, or resigned themselves to, the administration of local officials and the landlord class in general. In the showdown, the Muscovite system proved to be the stronger.
Important causes, of course, lay behind the contrasting evolutions of the two states. To refer to our earlier analysis, the princedom of Moscow arose in a relatively primitive and pioneer northeast, where rulers managed to acquire a dominant position in a fluid and expanding society. The Lithuanian principality, on the other hand, as it emerged from the Baltic forests, came to include primarily old and well-established Kievan lands. It encompassed much of the Russian southwest, and its economic, social, and political development reflected the southwestern pattern, which we discussed in a preceding chapter and which was characterized by the great power of the boyars as against the prince. Detailed studies indicate that in the princedom of Lithuania the same noble families frequently occupied the same land in the seventeenth as in the sixteenth or fifteenth centuries, that at times they were extremely rich, even granting loans to the state, and that the votchina landholding remained dominant, while the pomestie system played a secondary role. The rulers found this entrenched landed aristocracy, as well as, to a lesser degree, the old and prosperous towns,
too much to contend with and had to accept restrictions on princely power. The Lithuanian connection with Poland contributed to the same end. Poland served as a model of an elective monarchy with sweeping privileges for the gentry; in fact, it presented an entire gentry culture and way of life. While the social and political structure of Lithuania evolved out of its own past, Polish influences supported the rise of the gentry, supplying it with theoretical justifications and legal sanctions. Lithuania in contrast to monolithic Moscow, always had to deal with different peoples and cultures and formed a federal, not a unitary, state. In the end, as already indicated, it became a junior partner to Poland rather than a serious contender for the Kievan succession.
The Lithuanian-Russian princedom also attracts the attention of historians of Russia because of its role in the linguistic and ethnic division of the Russians into the Great Russians, often called simply Russians, the Ukrainians, and the White Russians or Belorussians, and its particular importance for the last two groups. While the roots of the differentiation extend far back, one can speculate that events would have taken a different shape if the Russians had preserved their political unity in the Kievan state. As it actually happened, the Great Russians came to be associated with the Muscovite realm, the Ukrainians and the White Russians with Lithuania and Poland. Political separation tended to promote cultural differences, although all started with the same Kievan heritage. Francis Skorina, a scholar from Polotsk, who, early in the sixteenth century, translated the Bible and also published other works in Prague and in Vilna, has frequently been cited as the founder of a distinct southwestern Russian literary language and, in particular, as a forerunner of Belorussian literature. The Russian Orthodox Church too, as we know, finally split administratively, with a separate metropolitan established in Kiev to head the Orthodox in the Lithuanian state. The division of the Russians into the Great Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians, reinforced by centuries of separation, became a major factor in subsequent Russian history.
Part IV: MUSCOVITE RUSSIA
XV
THE REIGNS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE, 1533-84, AND OF THEODORE, 1584-98
There is nothing more unjust than to deny that there was a principle at stake in Ivan's struggle with the boyars or to see in this struggle only political stagnation. Whether Ivan IV was himself the initiator or not - most probably he was not - yet this "oprichnina" was an attempt, a hundred and fifty years before Peter's time, to found a personal autocracy like the Petrine monarchy… Just as the "reforms" had been the work of a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the boyars, the coup of 1564 was carried out by a coalition of the townsmen and the petty vassals.
The new system which he [Ivan the Terrible] set up was madness, but the madness of a genius.
With the reign of Ivan IV, the Terrible, the appanage period became definitely a thing of the past and Muscovite absolutism came fully into its own. Ivan IV was the first Muscovite ruler to be crowned tsar, to have this action approved by the Eastern patriarchs, and to use the title regularly and officially both in governing his land and in conducting foreign relations. In calling himself also "autocrat" he emphasized his complete power at home as well as the fact that he was a sovereign, not a dependent, monarch. Nevertheless, it was Ivan the Terrible's actions, rather than his titles or ideas, that offered a stunning demonstration of the new arbitrary might of the Muscovite, and now Russian, ruler. Indeed, Ivan the Terrible remains the classic Russian tyrant in spite of such successors as Peter the Great, Paul I, and Nicholas I.
Ivan the Terrible's Childhood and the First Part of His Rule
Ivan IV was only three years old in 1533 when his father, Basil III, died, leaving the government of Russia to his wife - Ivan's mother Helen, of the Glinsky family - and the boyar duma. The new regent acted in a haughty and arbitrary manner, disregarding the boyars and relying first on her uncle, the experienced Prince Michael Glinsky, and after his death on her lover, the youthful Prince Telepnev-Obolensky. In 1538 she died suddenly, possibly of poison. Boyar rule - if this phrase can be used to
characterize the strife and misrule which ensued - followed her demise. To quote one brief summary of the developments:
The regency was disputed between two princely houses, the Shuiskys and the Belskys. Thrice the power changed hands and twice the Metropolitans themselves were forcibly changed during the struggle, one of them, Joseph,
being done to death. The Shuiskys prevailed, and three successive members of this family held power in turn. Their use of it was entirely selfish, dictated not even by class interests but simply by those of family and favour.
Imprisonments, exiles, executions, and murders proliferated.
All evidence indicates that Ivan IV was a sensitive, intelligent, and precocious boy. He learned to read early and read everything that he could find, especially Muscovite Church literature. He became of necessity painfully aware of the struggle and intrigues around him and also of the ambivalence of his own position. The same boyars who formally paid obeisance to him as autocrat and treated him with utmost respect on ceremonial occasions, neglected, insulted, and injured him in private life. In fact, they deprived him at will of his favorite servants and companions and ran the palace, as well as Russia, as they pleased. Bitterness and cruelty, expressed, for instance, in his torture of animals, became fundamental traits of the young ruler's character.