The Sovereign and His Counsellors: Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Political Culture, 1350s-1570s by Sergei s> Bogatyrev (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 745 The extensive bibliography a valuable and sufficientreason in itself to buy thisbook -demonstrates two thingsvery clearly.The firstis that there is a greatmassofpublishedprimarysources(and,since oftenin Latin,accessible) just waiting to be delved into by social, economic, comparative, and legal historians.Secondly, that of Rady aside, there is next-to-no scholarlywork in Englishon thisintriguingperiod of Hungarianhistory.This volume, throwing much light on some of its myriadfascinations,goes a long way to makingthis good. JesusCollege CHRISTOPHERMcNALL University ofOxford Bogatyrev, Sergei. TheSovereign andHis Counsellors. RitualisedConsultations in Muscovite Political Culture, 1350s-I570s. AcademiaScientiarum Fennica, Helsinki, 2000. 297 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliography.Index. Priceunknown. THE SOVEREIGN AND His COUNSELLORS is yet another attempt to bring some clarity and understanding to the vexed question of the Boiarskaia Duma,the body of advisersto the rulersof Muscovy. The current historiographyof the ancien regime tones down the absolutenessof the absolutemonarchiesmainly through a re-examination of the relationship between the monarch and his ministers.The author makes some mention of the trend but, surprisingly,the development of his argument is based largely on the thesis of Sir Geoffrey Elton, a Tudor historian of the pre-revisionistperiod, and on the arguments presented by Donald Ostrowski(misspeltas Daniel, p. 253) in his Muscovy and theMongols (Cambridge, I998). The firstthree chapters examine the relations between the Rus' and early Muscovite rulers and their advisors. Despite the frequently repeated 'the results of my research' and 'I think', these chapters lack originality of information and argument, take too much for granted and largely statewhat has long been agreed upon by historians.According to the Introduction, the book is a studyin the historyof political cultureand not of Muscovitepolitical history.Itsmain aims areto examine how the consultationsbetween the rulers and their advisorsmet the ideological needs of the autocracy and of the state administrationto demonstratethe importance of royal advisersin the making of statepolicy. The author'smost importantthesisis that 'theBoyarskaya Duma (inconsistently spelt as Boyarand Boyarskaya throughout) did not exist in the Muscovite state' (p. 26). Chapter four is dedicated to the expansion of this statement. The author argues that the only advisory body available to the Muscovite rulerswas the Blizhnaya Duma,translatedinto English as the Privy Council. There is some confusionwith the nomenclatureand spellingadopted by the author. Although there are only two references to Elton and one to Guy (who is omitted fromthe index), it is clearthat the author'sPrivyCouncil is not merely an English rendition of the term Blizhnaya Dumabut an attempt to draw a parallel between the Tudor institution and that of Muscovy. What followsgoes a long way to demonstrateconvincingly that no suchparallelcan be drawn on the material and argument presented by the author. The main 746 SEER, 79, 4, 2001 conclusion which could be drawn by a reader is that the termBlizhnaya Duma would reflect better the Muscovite institution previously known as Borskaya Duma. The crucial questions concerning the parameters of influence and power remain largely unanswered. It remains equally unclear whether the author regards the BlizhnayaDumaas a legislative organ of the state. The alternatingspelling of counsellorsand councillorsadds to the confusion since it gives an entirely differentposition to the advisers of a ruler. The phrase, 'ritualisedconsultations'which is used in the title and is repeated throughout the book remains unexplained, creating an understandingthat the members of the BlilznayaDumawere indeed counsellorswith merely nominalpowers. The book makes some helpful contributions, however. The chronological listsof royaladvisersforthe two-hundred-yearperiod of the volume is a useful tool. Bogatyrev's emphasis on the need to distinguish more clearly between the Royal Court and all the advisory bodies which surrounded the Tsars of Muscovy is sensible. Useful observationsare made concerning the Oprichnina of Ivan IV. The author offerssome additional proof for the thesis that while the countrywas divided into two partsit was presentedto the outsideworld as a united state, and convincingly suggests that the political rift between Oprichnina and Zemshchina was less pronounced than has been hitherto understood. On the whole, the book suffers from very poor editing. The lack of consistency in spelling, the omissions from the index and the list of abbreviations (PLDR, pp. 58-59), the alternation between the first person singular and the second person plural in which the book is...