Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359-1584 by A. M. s> Kleimola G. D. Lenhoff (review)

Abstract

338 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 generally. The reader comes away with an appreciationfor the rich diversity of Soviet Union's culturalexperiments, a diversitythat was lost as the country descended into the Cold War. Department ofHistogy LYNNMALLY University ofCalfornia atIrvine Kleimola, A. M., and Lenhoff, G. D. (eds). Culture andIdentityin Muscovy, I359-I584. UCLA Slavic Studies,New Series, 3. ITZ-Garant, Moscow, I997. 6o8 pp. Tables. Notes. $24.00. THISbibliographically curious volume (UCLA Slavic Studies, published in Moscow, without explanation)is a substantialand stimulatingcontributionto Early Modern Russian studies. Emerging out of a conference held in 1994, the twenty-six articlesexplore a range of perspectiveson the broad theme of 'identity'. The Russian version of the title page sells the volume short by rendering identity as istoricheskoe samosoznanie. 'Historical' identity barely registers. Instead, whether by design or by chance, the book highlights the sheerdiversityof 'identities',the multiplemodes of self-definition,community affiliation and differentiation.Though each contribution is distinctive, with little overt sense of writing 'to order', nevertheless there is an overall (if not quite total) sense of thematic cohesion. The underlying issue, sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, concerns the cultural dynamics of Muscovite expansion, the tensions between the promotion of integrated Muscovite (or pan-Russian)identitieson the one hand, and the more diffusenon-centralized identitieson the other hand. Although the contributions are arranged in alphabetical order by author, they might equally well have been presented in thematic clusters,for it is the thematic reinforcement which creates the links and the tensions. Thus, for example, the analysesof monastic land-holdingby PierreGonneau and S. M. Kashtanov in themselveseffectiveexpositionsof economic and institutional history,with no very obvious linkto the 'cultureand identity'label -acquire additional resonance through the presence of David Miller'spiece on donors to the Trinity-Sergiusmonasteryas a 'communityof venerators',as a network cutting across external divisions in the nobility. Or: Carol B. Stevens's administrativeand legal investigationsof gubainstitutions(set up to deal with banditry) is nicely balanced by Maureen Perrie's observations on serviceidentity among Cossacks(almostthe archetypalbandits).Or: while Giovanni Maniscalco Basileexploresthe intellectualworldof FedorKarpovfromwithin and, perhapswith a dose of over-interpretation,positsa systemiclinkbetween Karpov's astrology and his political views, Valerie Kivelson considers the external charge of 'sorcery' which was from time to time levelled against political advisersin the sixteenthcentury. Local identities preoccupy several of the contributors. Daniel H. Kaiser analyses the Tula cadastersto show that this frontiersettlement rapidlygrew into a 'real' town, for many of whose inhabitants local, urban identity supplanted service-identity.Ann M. Kleimola looks at how the Riazan elites tried to establish or invent ancient genealogies for themselves. Ruslan REVIEWS 339 Skrynnikov sees the anti-Judaizerpolemics as partly a product of tensions between Novgorodian and Muscovite conventions and identitiesat the end of the fifteenth century, while B. M. Kloss and V. D. Nazarov set a theological argument of I48i (concerning the direction of the procession at the consecrationof a church)in much the samecontext. Michael B. Khodarkovsky contributes a lucid analysis of various modes of integration and nonintegrationof non-Christiansin the Muscovite state, while Richard D. Bosley followsaprocessof integrationwithin Christianity,aslocal liturgicalcalendars become consolidated over the course of the fifteenthcentury.As for the rulers themselves, Thomas S. Noonan makes the most of the numismatic evidence to show the fluctuating self-presentationsof Moscow's princes vis-a'-vis both the khans and the regional princes in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, while Gail Lenhoff, looking from the perspective of the ruled, examines 'unofficial'veneration of the Daniilovichi princes. Formost of the contributors'identity'is assumedto be a culturalconstruct, mutable and context-specific. One 'pair' of articles, however, comes at the issue from a quite differentangle, discussingEarlyModern Russiannessas an object, seeking to 'identify' Russian characteristicsfrom an external standpoint . Richard Hellie assertsthat Russian culturewas (and to some extent is) 'right-brained' -not as metaphor but as neurological fact. ForHellie a lack of left-brain development, attributableto low levels of literacy, is the key to understanding a certain lopsideness in Russian culture and even character. Viacheslav V. Ivanov's equally robust riposte derides Hellie as a naive neophyte in the art of neurophysiological explanation, but then proceeds to outline an alternativemodel which isin manywaysno lesscrudelyspeculative. Whether one seekslight or heat, this...