"Muscovite Political Folkways" and the Problem of Russian Political Culture

Abstract

Like all important reinterpretations of the past, Edward Keenan's Muscovite Political Folkways makes us sit up and take notice. Keenan presents a sweeping overview of the Russian past distinguished his characteristic rhetorical flair and iconoclastic elan. He links the Soviet Union today with Russia's history, and connects current political behavior with patterns originating at the beginnings of the Russian state. It is in Muscovy that Keenan discovers the structure of political attitudes and responses that continued through the imperial, or early modem period, the present. Keenan analyzes Russian history within the framework of a model of political culture elaborated political scientists during the 1950s and 1960s. He strives to discern the 'deep patterns' of political behavior, and discover fundamental congruity between the content of a society's processes of socialization (including long-term historical experience) and its 'rules' and institutions (p. 116). His approach is systemic. The elements of Russian state and society are interrelated and fit into a unified system that describes and also limits the possible types of political behavior. This system embraces the culture of the common people as well, what Keenan calls vernacular political culture. Since secrecy was a governing principle of the political culture at all levels, the system discouraged disclosure of information about its own operations, and evidence must be discovered by unconventional means. The political-culture model enables Keenan present a compelling description of the emergence and persistence of peasant political attitudes, which penetrated the elite culture as well. This culture, dominated the overwhelming problems of survival, gave rise responses that were riskaverse and favored the group over the individual. The Muscovite view of man was pessimistic; it emphasized fear over hope, and led attitudes that can be characterized as authoritarian. Keenan's discussion of the Russian char-