State Power and Community in Early Modern Russia: The Case of Kozlov, 1635-1649 by Brian L. Davies (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 155 (I905) by Samuel Turner, is an interesting study of a certain social class of British entrepreneur who combined hard heroic tourism with shrewd observationsof technique and technology. Volume twelve, TheLifeandVoyages ofjoseph Wiggins (I907), is apologetically introduced by the editor since it is a biography. However it fits well in the collection being the account of an advocate of the extension of Britishtradethroughthe Eniseivalley. In comparison to other scholarlywork on travel literature, this collection distinguishesitselffor its focus primarilyon central Siberia and on the startof the twentieth century. The inclusion of industrial and developmentalist accounts provide an interestingbalance to the Soviet literatureon the region which is also predominantly modernist but from a different ideological position. The years proceeding the Civil War and the Revolution are still poorly understood by historians, and this collection helps to give students access to valuable English language accounts of this period. In my reading it would have been interestingto have had referenceto some workbetween 1798 and I90 i since there is a definite qualitativeleap between the work of Brand and those to follow in the twentieth century.It would be interestingto knowif these early twentieth-century pioneers had any consciousness of travel or businesspracticein the nineteenth century. All of thevolumes arepublishedon high-qualitypaperand in firmhardback bindings. The reader should be warned that these are facsimile editions. In some cases, as with the Ides and Brand volumes, the qualityof the copying is poor given thepriceof theedition. This isfeltmost acutelyin thereproductions of the engravings.The edition also has no index otherthan those which might have been provided in the original editions (since the original pagination is reproduced). Department ofAnthropology D. G. ANDERSON University ofAberdeen Davies, Brian L. StatePowerandCommunity in EarlyModern Russia:TheCaseof Kozlov,I635-I649. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2004. x + 308 pp. Maps. Appendices. Notes. Archival sources. Index. [55.00. THIS illuminatingwork is a valuable addition to the growing number of local studies in Russian history. Based largely on archival materials from the Military Chancellery, it traces the history of the garrisontown of Kozlov, on the southern steppe frontier of Muscovy, from its foundation in I 635 to the introduction of the I649 Law Code. Brian L. Davies describes the establishment of the fortressat a point of strategicimportance on the Nogai invasion route, and chroniclestheprocessof recruitmentof colonists.Separatechapters are devoted to the garrison'seconomy and to its system of governance. The final chapter examines forms of protest and resistance, culminating in the mutiny of I648. Throughout the book the author highlights the distinctive features of the urban communities of Kozlov and other southern frontier towns, compared with those of central Muscovy. The 'middle service class' of Kozlov the I56 SEER, 84, I, 2006 petty servicenobility,or detiboiarskie were mostlyodnodvortsy, yeoman smallholders withoutpeasanttenants, whoheldtheirlandallotments asshares in communalblocgrants,ratherthanasindividual estates.Theyweremore firmlysubordinated to the statethanweretheircounterparts in theRussian heartland,but Daviesdemonstrates thattheystillhad roomto manoeuvre andnegotiatein theirrelations withthetowngovernor, withvarioustypesof community organization playing an important role. The author makes a convincingcase that Kozlovexemplifieda distinctpoliticalcultureon the southernfrontier, whichdifferedsignificantly fromthatdescribed byValerie KivelsonforthecentralMuscovite provinceofVladimir. Thesubsequent fate oftheKozlovservicemen wasalsoverydifferent fromthatofthepomeshchiki of theheartland: afterI649 thesouthernodnodvortsy wereincreasingly subjected totaxes,andeventually becameeffectively servilized. Davies'sstudyis in manywaysa modelexercisein localhistory.Through all his detailedreconstruction of the experienceof the firstgenerationof colonistsin Kozlov, the authorneverloses sight of the broadernational context,or of the web of powerrelationsin which the southernfrontier garrisonswere enmeshed.He provides a perceptive,sophisticatedand nuancedaccountof the interactionbetweenone specificlocalityand the centre, at a key time and place for the developmentof the expanding Muscovitestate. His discussionof corruption,and the problemof distinguishing betweenanillegalbribeandaninnocentgift,isespecially thoughtful, as is his examinationof the roleplayedby the conceptof 'the Sovereign's business' (gosudarevo delo) intheKozlovrevoltof I648(wherehemakesauseful comparison with the events in Tomsk in I648-49, as described by N. N. Pokrovskii). In spiteof its manymerits,however,thisbookis not an easyread.The author'sstyle of writingis very dense and compressed,and his choice of terminology sometimesobscuresmorethanit illuminates: hisconceptof the 'theodicyof bureaucraticmalfeasance'(pp.213-I6), for example,seems simplytomeanthatRussians tendedtoblamecorrupt officials rather thanthe tsaror the tsaristsystemfor failingsof administration andjustice. Other concepts,suchas 'techniques of primitivecentralization' (pp.9, 27) remain largelyunexplained.Davies'stranslations of Russiantermsare also often puzzling,when they are not accompaniedby the transliterated originals. 'Middleserviceclass'isafairlystandard rendering ofdetiboiarskie, but'menof draft'fortiaglye seemsodd,asdoes'liturgical...