Consensus Politics: The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered

Abstract

The political conflict of the 1490s at the Muscovite court has generated numerous interpretations; inherent in each is a particular understanding of Kremlin politics. Despite the high stature and meticulous research of the scholars who have addressed the problem, their attempts to ascertain what the crisis consisted of, and who gained and lost what from it, have not been convincing. The interpretation that follows derives from my conviction that the fundamental issue in most such crises in the Muscovite period was the creation of a power and status hierarchy among leading boyar families based on succession in the ruling dynasty and in particular on the marriage of the dynastic heir.1 I will begin by offering a survey of dominant trends in the literature on this topic, preceded by a summary of the events of the crisis and the political context in which they took place. The question of dynastic succession determined the course of the crisis. When Ivan III's eldest son and designated heir, Prince Ivan Ivanovich, died in March 1490,2 the grand prince had a choice between two candidates, both eligible by the Daniilovichi's ambiguous succession principles. He might have followed a strict interpretation of primogeniture, the succession principle established by Muscovy's midfifteenth-century dynastic war; thereby he would have chosen the sixand-a-half-year-old Prince Dmitrii, son of the deceased Prince Ivan Ivanovich and of his wife Elena Stepanovna of Moldavia. Prince Dmitrii's succession might have been considered inappropriate,