Muscovite Adaptation of Steppe Political Institutions: A Reply to Halperin's Objections

Abstract

Muscovite Adaptation of Steppe Political Institutions:A Reply to Halperin's Objections Donald Ostrowski The joke goes: how many scholars does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer is two-one to get up on the ladder, the other to pull it out from under him or her. Charles Halperin wrote a book that has become a classic on the influence of the Golden Horde on Russia. He may well have felt, then, that I was trying to pull the ladder out from under him and his well-researched work on the subject. If he did, he could have merely dismissed my attempt to look at some of the issues anew. Instead, he opted for taking me up on my challenge to discuss the issues on the basis of the evidence, logical argument, and elegance (i.e., parsimonious comprehensiveness) of interpretation. In the process, however, Halperin has also adopted the role of a prosecuting attorney in seeking to demonstrate that I do not understand the evidence, that my arguments are faulty, and my interpretations weak. Halperin presents his case with verve and passion, and I must say that I am fortunate that I do not have to face him in a courtroom before a judge and jury, since my reply may appear rather pedestrian and didactic in comparison. Lawyers, it needs to be pointed out, are not required to bring in evidence that counters the case they are trying to build. It is not their job to do the work of the opposition. I feel a little uncomfortable, though, taking up the cudgels as an opposition lawyer against someone with whom I am in basic agreement concerning most of what is Mongol/Tatar influence on Muscovy. These points Halperin presents well in his Russia and the Golden Horde and succinctly summarizes them in the article here. They include a number of political and administrative principles and institutions, certain record-keeping practices and diplomatic conventions, as well as, to quote Halperin, "militar y tactics and strategy … weapons, armaments, horse equipage, and formations."1 On these fundamental borrowings, we are in accord. Our disagreement concerns whether this influence extended to other Muscovite political institutions. Halperin thinks I go too far in seeing pervasive institutional borrowing, while I think he doesn't go far enough. In what follows, I will limit my reply to offering some other [End Page 267] relevant evidence not mentioned in Halperin's article, to delineating the conceptual differences between us, and, in the interest of scholarly inquiry, to discussing a few methodological issues. Role of the Boyars Halperin suggests that there might be a "linguistic sleight of hand" in "transform[ing] a social description ['all boyars'] into a decision-making political institution ['Boyar Council' or Boiarskaia duma]" (242). The idea that the boiarskaia duma was a political institution that had a prominent governmental role is a fairly standard one.2 Zagoskin and Vladimirskii-Budanov were among the first to articulate this view to any extent, and Kliuchevskii provided the most detailed exposition of this position.3 So where does the idea come from that it is merely "a social description"? Halperin apparently adopts it from a series of articles published recently by S. N. Bogatyrev. But, contrary to Halperin's characterization, Bogatyrev does not criticize the "notion of a 'Duma' including all boyars" (241, n. 12). Instead, Bogatyrev writes that "it is better to look at the concept 'Boiarskaia duma' primarily as an instrument of sociological analysis of the four highest ranks of the sovereign's court (boiary, okol'nichie, dumnoe dvorianstvo , and dumnye d'iaki). . . ."4 For Bogatyrev, the Blizhniaia duma (which included a [End Page 268] subset of boyars, etc.) was the political council of advisers, whereas the social group known as "the boyars," a.k.a. boiarskaia duma, had no political function. So, there is no "linguistic sleight of hand" here, merely a difference of interpretation between those who hold the standard vie w and a scholar who is challenging it. The question, though, that Halperin raises concerns the exact relationship of the grand prince to the boyars and whether the boyars in council (either through a boiarskaia or Blizhniaia duma) had...