The political rituals that realised most directly the myth of the Muscovite ruler and his realm were either contingent, prompted by circumstance, or cyclical, governed by the ecclesiastical calendar. They were direct, requiring the presence of the ruler, or indirect, referring to his office. In addition to the actual protocols of ceremony, the locus of performance, whether inside or outside Moscow and its golden centre, provided significant points of reference that guided and enriched the message intended. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the etiquette involving foreign diplomats, from whom we have quite extensive responses.21
Viskovatyi Affair of 1553-54: Official Art, the Emergence of Autocracy, and the Disintegration of Medieval Russian Culture', RH 8 (1981): 298, 308, 314-20; Michael S. Flier, 'K semioticheskomu analizu Zolotoi palaty Moskovskogo Kremlia', in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Russkoe iskusstvopozdnego srednevekov'ia:XVIvek (St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003), pp. 180-6; Daniel Rowland, 'Two Cultures, One Throneroom: Secular Courtiers and Orthodox Culture in the Golden Hall of the Moscow Kremlin', in Kivelson and Greene (eds.), Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice under the Tsars, pp. 40-53.
19 Michael S. Flier, 'Fillingin the Blanks: The Church ofthe Intercession and the Architectonics of Medieval Muscovite Ritual', HUS19 (1995): 120-37; Savarenskaia (ed.), Arkhitek- turnye ansambli Moskvy, pp. 54-99.
20 PSRL, vol. xxxiv (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1978), p. 202; B. A. Uspenskii, Tsar' i patriarkh: Kharizma vlasti v Rossii (Vizantiiskaia model' i ee russkoe pereosmyslenie) (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul'tury, 1998), p. 455 (n. 52).
21 Marshall Poe, A People Born to Slavery':Russia in Early Modern Ethnography, 1476-1748 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 39-81.
Contingent rituals
Foreign diplomatic rituals
In a report that resonates with others from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers, Herberstein commented on the indirect but nonetheless elaborate ritual etiquette that faced foreign embassies upon approaching Muscovite territory.[295] Each part of the protocol - initial contact, local interview, delay for instructions from Moscow, escort, entrance into Moscow, sequestering and audience with the Muscovite ruler - confirmed relative status. Ritual gestures such as dismounting from horses or sledges, or the baring of heads in anticipation of verbal exchange, were carried out in a specific order, designed to place the prestige of the Muscovite representative, and indirectly that of the grand prince, above that of the foreign visitor and his master.
Royal escorts rode ahead of and behind the embassy along the entire route, allowing no one to fall behind or join the entourage. Symbolically the royal reach extended to the very borders ofthe realm, envelopingthe foreign element and drawing it towards the centre. At each station new representatives were dispatched from the centre to receive the members of the embassy and greet them in the name of the ruler until at last, after several days or even weeks of waiting outside the city, they were escorted into Moscowpast crowds of people intentionally brought there. Entering the Kremlin on foot, they encountered huge numbers of soldiers and separate ranks of courtiers - enough people, so Herberstein reasoned, to impress foreigners with the sheer quantity of subjects and the consequent power of the grand prince. The closer the envoys came to the site of the grand prince, the more frequent were the successions of ever more highly placed ranks of nobility, each rank moving into position directly behind the embassy as the next higher one waited to greet them.
Once ushered into the throne room itself, the envoys descended several steps to the floor. From this position they were obliged to look up at the sumptuously attired ruler on a raised throne. Additionally they confronted his numerous courtiers, clad in golden cloth down to their ankles, the boyars resplendent in their high fur hats, and all seated on benches above the steps against the other three walls in an orderly array.[296] The English merchant Richard Chancellor reported that 'this so honorable an assembly, so great a majesty of the emperor and of the place, might very well have amazed our men and have dashed them out of countenance. . .'[297] The papal legate to
Ivan IV, Antonio Possevino, judged that in the splendour of his court and those who populate it, the tsar 'rivals the Pope and surpasses other kings'.[298]The English commercial agent Jerome Horsey noted with admiration Ivan IV's four royal guards (ryndy) flanking the throne, dressed in shiny silver cloth and bearing ceremonial pole-axes.[299] The carefully arranged hierarchy of courtiers dominated by the tsar was all-encompassing and meant to impress visitors with the size, authority and immeasurable wealth of the Muscovite court. All petitioners were required to repeat the ruler's lengthy series of titles, a list based on rank and geographic spread. Omission of any title on the list was not tolerated.[300] The most important ceremonial act during the audience was the diplomat's kissing of the tsar's right hand, if it was offered.[301] Ritual enquiries about health were then followed by the formal presentation of gifts by the diplomat.
Royal progresses
As a complement to the ritualised travel of diplomats towards the centre, the royal progress from centre to periphery allowed the ruler himself to promulgate Muscovite ideology by travelling to cities, towns and monasteries in elaborate processions, with icons and other ecclesiastical accoutrements.[302]Such a ritual stamping out of territory and creation of royal space tied the land to the ruler through contiguity. Participating in impressive ceremonies of entrance (adventus) and departure (profectio), the ruler was able to take possession of the site physically and spiritually by means of an awe-inspiring display of the sort demonstrated by Ivan IV when he captured and entered Kazan' in 1552 and then returned to Moscow in a triumphant procession.[303]
Bride shows
The authority of the ruler was represented directly or indirectly in rituals intended to preserve harmony and balance among the court elite. Marriage arrangements, for instance, helped maintain a tenuous power network among specific clans at court. The intricate organisation of bride shows, performed ritually before the ruler, guaranteed him and his family firm control over the selection process and the relationships to be strengthened, weakened or ended.[304]
Surrender-by-the-head ritual
The indirect ritual of surrender by the head (vydacha golovoiu) was intended to confirm the hierarchy among elites established by the rules of precedence (mestnichestvo) and is described in Kotoshikhin's seventeenth-century account of the Muscovite court.[305] Violators ofprecedence were sent in disgrace on foot instead of on horseback from the Kremlin, a metonym of the tsar's power, to the house of the offended party, where the tsar's representatives announced the ruler's decision to the winner as he stood on an upstairs porch. The semiotic oppositions of low and high were complemented by the loser's permission to insult the winner for emotional release without retaliation. The ritual reinforced the image ofthe ruler as charismatic and autocratic, and that of the noble elite as accommodating and supportive advisers committed to preserving the order and stability that made government by consensus possible.[306]
298
Antonio Possevino,
299
Sir Jerome Horsey 'Travels', in Berry and Crummey (eds.),
p. 303.
301
L.A. Iuzefovich,
302
Nancy Shields Kollmann, 'Pilgrimage, Procession, and Symbolic Space in Sixteenth- Century Russian Politics', in Michael S. Flier and Daniel Rowland (eds.),
304
Russell E. Martin, 'Dynastic Marriage in Muscovy, i500-i729', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University 1996, pp. 30-110.
305
GrigorijKotosixin,
306
Nancy Shields Kollmann, 'Ritual and Social Drama at the Muscovite Court', SR 45 (1986):
497-500.