Проблемы определения формы правления России XI – начала XVII вв. в современной историографии

Abstract

Abstract. Introduction. The article is the first of two papers devoted to the research of concepts concerning the form of the state (mainly its two elements: form of government and political (state) regime) that existed during the Early and Late Middle Ages of the 11th-13th centuries (pre-Mongolian period) and the 16th - early 17th centuries (Moscow state). The authors give the theoretical and historical synthesis of approaches to the problem of the form of the state and its elements on the example of the organisation of state power in medieval Russia, the assessments of which are often directly opposite - from «absolute autocracy», «theocratic autocracy» to class-representative monarchy.
 Methods. By using dialectical, general logical methods, historical, comparative and hermeneutical methods of research, the authors critically analyse the approaches to the issue under consideration, which have been developed and are currently under development in modern historiography, as well as the ideas of scholars, framed in medieval political and legal doctrine, which forecast, approve and then propose some projects of improvement or even radical changes in the form of organisation of state power.
 Results. The authors make a conclusion that modern researches often incorrectly use the concepts of «sovereignty», «autocracy» and «unity of power» as identical; a lot of researches have no theoretical understanding of the form of the state and its elements; quite often the elements of the form of the state are combined or substituted for one another, or when referring to one element the other is considered; often there is an ungrounded substitution of the terms «autocracy» and «absolutism».