Richard Hellie Research Articles

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RUSSIAN TRADITION OF STATE POWER

ABSTRACTThe first part of this evolutionary study of the persistence of the autocratic/oligarchic variety of personal rule in Russia provides a historical overview, followed by two theories explaining why it persisted, interrupted by brief “times of troubles,” for over 500 years. Edward Keenan, on the one hand, hypothesizes successful long‐term adaptation to a demanding environment. Richard Hellie, on the other hand, develops a theory of service‐class revolutions and a cyclical pattern based on the methods of Russian elites for overcoming relative backwardness. Neither theory takes a neo‐Darwinian approach.The second part examines neo‐Darwinian evolutionary approaches. In the cosmic perspective of Big History, the human species in its relatively brief existence has had an accelerating impact on other species and the earth's environment. Biologists modeling complex systems come to a similar conclusion. Agent‐driven history, as modeled by demographer Noël Bonneuil, raises questions about the adequacy of the historian's traditional single‐trajectory narrative approach to “the time of human history” and also critiques the biases built into the mathematical models of many evolutionary thinkers. An evolutionary approach to human history does not restrict itself to organic replication, but takes into account populations of evolving human skills and also group projects that act as evolutionary forces as well as units of selection, and outlive generations of organic populations.The third part applies this approach to the Russian tradition of state power by showing how group projects operate as evolutionary forces in a variety of modern power systems. The “parable of the tribes” avers that the aggressive agent in any given power system—ideological, economic, social, military, or political—dictates the dynamics of the system. The “braided stream” approach shows, however sketchily here, how agent‐driven modern power systems interact, coevolve, and produce hybrid forms. The Russian tradition is highlighted in this evolutionary context.

Hunting for Dogs in 17th-Century Muscovy

Hunting for Dogs in 17th-Century Muscovy Ann Kleimola (bio) In their introduction to the anthology that grew out of their pioneering conference on human-animal bonds in modern and postmodern Russia, Jane Costlow and Amy Nelson position the collection within the rapidly emerging field of "animal studies," which focuses primarily on examining "how animals shape and inform the human experience in real and symbolic ways." By the imperial period, Russian intellectuals often were preoccupied with issues of identity and uniqueness, their complex relationship with the "West," and, with regard to animals and the environment, a sense that part of being Russian lay in enjoying a more "natural" relationship with the world around them than did their Western counterparts.1 While these themes first clearly emerge in 18th-century Russia and seem to indicate a sharp shift away from the concerns of Muscovite society, evidence of a cultural transition had already appeared in 17th-century Rus'. The Muscovite elite began an increasingly rapid transition toward convergence with the West European aristocracy, a shift that can be traced, if only in chiaroscuro, in the surviving fragments of documentary and material evidence. Costlow and Nelson end their introduction with the hope that the anthology's essays will stimulate further work, "turning our attention to the place of animals within human history, beginning to imagine what a history of animals in Russia might be."2 Given the millennia in which dogs have shared human existence, canines should have played a prominent role [End Page 467] in this history. Yet this species remains surprisingly invisible in 17th-century Russian sources. Richard Hellie's exhaustive compilation of price data sheds light on the market for horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other varieties of fowl but turned up no sales records for dogs and only one entry that apparently records some kind of kennel expenses, probably the sum Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich spent for dog food in 1676.3 Given the absence of such data, one might be tempted to conclude that few if any canines ever lived in Muscovy. The presence of dogs is undocumented in other sources as well. Official records do not mention working dogs' functions, such as herding livestock or catching vermin. There are no Muscovite accounts of agricultural practices or animal husbandry of the sort found among classics of the ancient world. The Romans Varro (writing c. 37 BC) and Columella (first century AD) agreed that a farmer needed dogs to guard both his property and his flocks. The Roman dog's job was not to round up and control the flock but to guard against predators, especially wolves.4 For millennia shepherds from China to Spain have generally had four or five such dogs working for them.5 Livestock, including large numbers of sheep, constituted an important part of the Russian economy. A 1676 inventory of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich's property counted 203 Tatar (ordyn) sheep and 1,690 Russian sheep.6 Wool was a major domestic textile fiber, mutton "was present in some abundance," and sheepskin was a common commodity.7 In 1605-6, for example, the Kirillov Monastery's expense book (raskhodnaia kniga) lists payments to three hired local "sheep-men" (ovchinniki) for processing 1,520 sheepskins.8 Large landholders also [End Page 468] seem to have had a substantial stock of such hides. When V. V. Golitsyn, the influential advisor of Peter the Great's half-sister Sophia, fell from power in 1689, the inventory of his confiscated property listed a cache of 518 sheepskins.9 One of the components of Moscow's Zamoskvorech'e district in 1695 was a "sheepskin-processing" settlement (ovchinnaia sloboda).10 Despite ample documentation of a substantial sheep population, however, no evidence survives to indicate that shepherds used herding dogs to help move this stock out to pastures and to market or to guard livestock, although the long-standing practices of Eurasian shepherds suggest the probability that Muscovites also relied on dogs for protecting flocks from predators. There is no entry for "sheepdog" (ovcharka) in dictionaries of old Russian.11 In one instance, however, context suggests that another term, losh'aia sobaka, may have been used for some livestock-guarding dogs. One...

Richard Hellie, 1937–2009: Monument to Early Russian Studies

Richard Hellie, 1937–2009: Monument to Early Russian Studies

The Cambridge History of Russia. Volume 1: From Early Rus' to 1689 by Maureen Perrie (review)

reviews 755 Perrie,Maureen (ed.). TheCambridge History ofRussia. Volume i: FromEarlyRus' toi68g. CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridgeand New York,2006. xxii+ 777pp. Chronology. Illustrations. Maps. Figures.Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index.£100.00:$185.00. Students and non-specialist readerswill welcomethisexcellentreference volume.It is organizedaccordingto the dynastic-political criteriawhich operatedintheperioditself, dividedchronologically intothreemainsections: 1) earlyRus' and the rise of Muscovy (c. 900-1462); 2) the expansion, consolidation and crisisofMuscovy(1462-1613); and 3) theearlyRomanov tsardom (1613-89). Centrestageispolitical history. A majorissuewas dynastic succession that, however governed (collateral, linear,sacralization oftheruler), raisedserious problemsof politicallegitimacy. There were recurring battles,including civilwars,from thefourteenth to theseventeenth centuries in whichvarious claimantsfoughtfor supremacy.The supportof the OrthodoxChurch, forexample,in thefourteenth century, betweenthe descendants of Daniil Aleksandrovich ofMoscow and MikhailofTver', couldbe a decisivefactor invictory. The relationship ofChurchand stateisanother important political themeinwhichtheOrthodoxChurchactedas a unifying factor, as a source ofnationalidentity. Conflict and tension within theChurch, between'officiar and 'popular'religious practices and theschism ofthe1660s,also receivedue attention. The dynastic principle ofdefining 'Russia' meansthatitsterritorial shape is constantly changingthroughout the periodcoveredby thisvolume.An important themeis the impact of Russia's geographicalenvironment in shapingand thenin turnbeingshapedby pre-Pe trinepoliticalinstitutions. One aspectofthisistheshifting balanceofresponsibility between central and local government in whichlocal electionscould replaceappointments only thentobe reversed backtocentral control. Territorial expansion couldincorporatenew nationalities or open steppefrontiers thatwerethenpopulated from above (statesponsored settlement) or from below(spontaneous peasant migration). In bothcases therewere new administrative challengesforthe state, notleasttherequirements ofmilitary defence. Leon Trotskii arguedthat itwas themilitary imperative, statesecurity interests internal and external, thatwas the formative influence on the Russianstate,thatled it to stand aboveand inopposition tosociety. Security needsforced thestatetomaintain a largearmyand droveeconomicand socialchange.The contributors tothis volumewouldnotgo as faras Trotskii, buttheimpactofmilitary service, as forinstancein layingthebasis oftheMuscovitepoliticalsystem or leading to the legal impositionof serfdomin the mid-seventeenth century,is highlighted. Trotskii was fascinated by how theRussianstategrewand consolidated itself on a backwardsocialand economicbase. Russiawas a predominantly agrariancountry and severalchaptersexaminepeasantlifeand economy. Richard Hellie comparesthe situationof the Russian peasant with the American farmer, and illustrates howtheperiodofthe'Agapetus state'(1462161 3) laid claimto controloverland and labour.This,he notes,'had little impacton peasantmethodsoffarming or material culture, butitlaid down 756 SEER, 87, 4, OCTOBER 2OO9 the courseforRussianhistory until1991' (p.297). The way in whichthe extraction of agricultural surpluses became increasingly coerciveacted,for Trotskii, as a brakeon the development of marketrelations. This volume tracestheexpansion oftraderoutes as a consequenceofterritorial aggrandisement .Novgorod, forexample,was enriched byitslocationfornorth-south and eastwesttrade .Denis Shaw chartsthe growth of towns,seeingthem as backwardin comparison withWestern Europeanequivalents in termsof commercial development, butalso emphasizing their administrative, religious and,in somecases,military-defensive functions. Thisvolumehas a wealthofinformation and variety ofperspectives. It is easyto use withan excellent indexand useful figures, tablesand maps.It is pleasingthatthe contribution of Sovietscholarship is noted,especially the Soviet-era practiceofcthedetailedstudyofsourcesand theirpublication in highqualityscholarly editions' (p. 12).One hopesthatthiswillalso act as an exemplar forfurther scholarship intothepre-Petrine period. Politics andHistory Ian D. Thatcher BruneiUniversity Vásáry, István. Cumansand Tatars:Oriental Militaryin thePreOttoman Balkans, 1185-1365. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge andNewYork,2005. xvi + 230 pp. Maps. Notes.Appendices.Abbreviations. Bibliography. Index.£56.00: $104.00. The extent to whichthenomadsofthesteppeguidedthepoliticaldevelopmentofEasternEuropeis partofan old and controversial debate.On the one hand thereis Muscovy'sdebtto Tatar institutions offiscalgovernance; ontheother, thecontribution to'state-formation' madeinthefirst millennium by theAvars,Onogur-Hungarians and Onogur-Bulgars. The presentwork examinestheroleoftheCumans and, to a lesserextent, theTatarsin the makingof thelate medievalBalkans.The authorpointsto therole of the Cumansin theforging oftheSecondBulgarian Empire,although conceding thatVlachs (to theextent thattheycan be unravelled at all in theexisting sources from theCumans)musthaveplayedan equallyimportant part.Allof thisisfamiliar enoughterritory andthepresent accountdoesnottakeusmuch further thanRobertLee Wolffsseminal'Second BulgarianEmpire;origin andhistory to1204'(Speculum, 1949, pp. 167-206). Hereafter, however, Vásáry's accountbreaksdownintoa discussion of thepartplayedby Cumans and Tatarsas auxiliaries and alliesin thestruggle betweenHungary, Byzantium, SerbiaandBulgaria. Vásárydemonstrates convincingly thatthenomadsmight intervene decisively infavour ofone ormoreofthecompeting sides.Likewise, he showsthata number oftheruling housesoftheregioneither rested on or wereinfiltrated by Cuman and Tatar elements: thus,theAsenids,Terterids and Sismanidsof Bulgaria,and Basarab and his heirsin Wallachia. In Hun^arvand Bvzantium. Cumansand Tatarsweresimilarlv absorbedinto the politicaland military elite.Nevertheless, in respect Wallachia,itwas surely theretreat ofCumania after the of Moldavia and thirteenth century ...

Richard Hellie (1937–2009)

The only time [Pliny the Elder] took from his work was for his bath.... When traveling he felt free from other responsibilities to give every minute to work.... For the same reason, too, he used to be carried about Rome in a chair. I can remember how he scolded me for walking; according to him I need not have wasted those hours, for he thought any time wasted which was not devoted to work. --Pliny the Younger (1) When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. --Lord Kelvin (2) A portion of Lord Kelvin's quotation adorns the bay window of the Social Science Research Building at the University of Chicago, where Richard Hellie enrolled as an undergraduate in 1954 and where he taught for more than four decades. Among the many historians who worked within these walls, perhaps no one more enthusiastically embraced Lord Kelvin's insight or more faithfully followed the prescription that Pliny attributed to his elder. Unlikely ever even to have pronounced the names of Foucault or Derrida, Richard depended upon the empirical methodologies of the social sciences, reading widely in economics, sociology, law, and classical anthropology. Until the last weeks of the illness that claimed him slowed his tempo, he was constantly at work, scornful of wasted time, hurrying on to new accomplishments. Born 8 May 1937 in Waterloo, Iowa, Richard Hellie joined a family with deep Midwestern roots. His mother, Elizabeth Larsen Hellie, was a schoolteacher and his father, Ole Hellie, a journalist who worked for a series of newspapers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa before signing on with the Des Moines Register in 1941, and later with the Des Moines Tribune, where his prowess as copy editor was well known. (3) While living in Des Moines, Richard attended Roosevelt High School, where, I was astonished to learn, he was a member of the football team. (4) After completing eleventh grade in 1954, Richard went straight to the University of Chicago. He and the university proved a perfect fit, which no doubt explains why Richard spent most of the rest of his life there, graduating with an A.B. in 1958, an M.A. in 1960, and a Ph.D. in 1965. While at work on his dissertation, he spent one year at Harvard University's Russian Research Center (1962-63) and the following year at Moscow State University. After completing his degree, Richard taught at Rutgers for one year, but in 1966 he returned to Chicago as an assistant professor and never again left. At the time of his death, 24 April 2009, Richard was Thomas E. Donnelly Professor in History and chairman of the College Russian Civilization Program. Richard's scholarship is well known and justly prized. (5) His 1965 dissertation, Law and Society: The Ulozhenie of 1649 as a Reflection of the Political and Social Development of Russia since the Sudebnik of 1589, was never published but laid the foundation for all Richard's subsequent research. His first book, Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy, won the 1972 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association. (6) Addressing a field often remarked upon--the origins of serfdom in Russia--Richard developed a surprisingly complex argument that connected enserfment to technological change in the military, the social obsolescence of the old cavalry, and governmental intervention. The success of this book led to Richard's winning a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1973-74. With Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725, Richard began to appropriate the research possibilities of computers, keeping track of slaves, their owners, sale prices, and much else, in the process providing a rich portrait of an institution that few Russian historians had thought worth their attention. (7) Deploying a wide array of comparative material and social science methodologies, Richard determined that, unlike slavery in the Americas, Muscovite slavery operated largely within the Russian ethnos and functioned most often as a form of social welfare for those brought to penury, especially during great crises in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. …

Bibliography of Richard Hellie

Bibliography of Richard Hellie

The Quality of Mercy in Early Modern Legal Practice

Those of us required to memorize works of literature in grade school will probably remember at least the first few words of Portia's speech to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice--The quality of is not strained. We might, however, have forgotten how the text goes on. For anyone interested in early modern European judicial principles, it is worth a look. The text develops into an astute commentary on the virtue of employing in judicial practice. The quality of ... is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the and of kings; But is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself. (Act 4, Scene 1) Shakespeare asserts that mercy, while benefiting the recipient, also rewards its bestower. When the merciful figure is a monarch, becomes a tool of power as potent as the dread and fear instilled by coercive force. Shakespeare praises benevolence--the ruler most closely approaches God not when he wields his scepter, but when he seasons justice with mercy. The issue of violence and has a particular resonance for Muscovite history, or perhaps for Russian history in general, since Russia has so often, and so long, been considered an excessively violent society. From 16th-century foreign travelers to modern observers and historians, attention has been drawn to the degree of brutality in private life, in revolutionary action, and in political life--that is, in the use of state-sanctioned violence in governance. In a recent issue of Kritika dedicated to violence in Russia, two Muscovite-era articles claimed that Muscovy was more violent than its West European counterparts. (1) V. A. Rogov and Evgenii Anisimov have sparred over the extent of brutality in the judicial system, and Richard Hellie has argued that all of Muscovite society was more violent than the West. Similarly, Christoph Schmidt has argued that the system of enserfment created a culture of coercion and brutality. (2) Such debates over how violent Muscovy was as a society or a polity, however, strike me as perilous. How can one measure the degree of violence in a society? For some early modern European societies one can establish crime rates as a basis of comparison, but not for Muscovy, since sources are so incomplete. (3) Can one assess the experience of violence for Muscovites when the empire was so large and socially diverse? We might, however, fruitfully explore violence in the political sphere more narrowly conceived. That judicial practice in Muscovy involved ample violence cannot be denied. Muscovy may not have engaged in public spectacles of execution as horrific as those of contemporaneous Amsterdam or London, but its judicial practice for serious offenses rested on a solid foundation of brutality. Beatings by knout were used not only as punishment but also as the principal form of torture. We can try better to understand these practices by seeing them as strategies of governance and thus asking when the judicial system employed violence and how it used it. of the various means that states have at hand to maintain control, however--coercion, material reward, and ideological indoctrination are principal strategies--violence is the riskiest. Rarely sufficient in itself, it is most effective when used consciously and sparingly for specific purposes. (4) Such a generalization is borne out by an analysis of how the Muscovite court system mitigated judicial violence by the use of the tsar's mercy in the 17th century. Here I examine how was meted out by judges and by litigants in criminal cases (those involving the most serious crimes and the sysk investigatory procedure). …

Voices of freedom: Samizdat

In the first socialist systsem culture was more than a realm of artistry and aesthetics.1 It was often another dimension of a fierce struggle—ideological and political—against the bourgeoisie (Whit...

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

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...

Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century): An Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames' and Other Documents by Dariusz Kołodziejczyk (review)

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 is a stimulatingand varied collection. Clare College SIMON FRANKLIN University ofCambridge Kolodziejczyk, Dariusz. Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (I5th-s8th Centu?y): AnAnnotated Edition ofAhdnames' andother Documents. The Ottoman Empire and ItsHeritage:Politics,Society and Economy, I8. Brill,Leiden, Boston and K61n, 2000. XViii+ 721 pp. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Maps. Photographicfacsimiles.Index. $207.00. IT is unfortunatethat the dominant image of Polish-Ottoman relationsin the earlymodern period is ofJohn Sobieski'sspectacularreliefof Vienna in I683. For, despite the fact that Sobieski spent most of his reign fighting the Ottomans, the relationship between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empirewas characterizedmore by peace than war. Despite much loose Polishtalkof the Commonwealth as Christendom'santemurale, the maintenance of peace with the Portewas centralto Polishforeignpolicy after the disastrous Varna crusade of I444. For the Ottomans, too, peace with Poland-Lithuaniawasvital, and Polandwas the firstnon-vassalChristianstate which was granted an 'eternal' peace, in I533, which held until it was undermined by the raids of the Ukrainian Cossacks in the early seventeenth century and Sigismund III's close relations to the Austrian Habsburgs. The 340 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 resultant war was brief, however, and it was only when the Ottomans succumbed to the fear of a Polish-Russian alliance after the I667 Peace of Andrusovo and the temptingofferof the Ukrainianhetman, PetrDoroshenko, to place his Cossacks under Turkish overlordshipthat they abandoned their peaceful strategy.The resultwas the long war againstVenice, the Habsburgs, Poland-Lithuania and Russia, from which both Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire emerged seriouslyweakened in i 699. Their days as the two dominant powers in easternEuropewere over. The importanceof the Ottoman-Polishrelationshiphas long been obscured fornon-specialistsby the lackof materialavailablein English.The publication of this magnificentwork of scholarshipby the young PolishhistorianDariusz Kolodziejczykis thereforeextremelywelcome. Its centrepiece is an edition of sixty-ninedocuments thirty-twoofwhich arereproducedinphotographs fromthe period I444-1790. All the most importanttreatiesthathave survived are published, with the original texts given in Turkish or Polish, alongside English translations;texts in Latin, Italian and French are rendered in the original.They are prefacedby a long introductionwhich examines the nature of Ottoman and Polish diplomacy and surveysthe relationship between the two powers. Dr Kolodziejczyk's expertise is formidable and he gives a fascinatinginsightinto theproblemsfacingtwoverydifferentculturesevolving a working relationshipdespite all the difficulties.If, for example, expertise in Turkishwas built up by specialistsin the Polish diplomatic service, language did on occasion create problems: in i 62 I, after the successfulPolish defence of Hotin (Chocim, Khotyn), the drawing-upof a treatywas hampered by the fact that Stanislaw Z6rawifiskihad to speak Polish to an intermediary,who translated his words into Romanian...

Zakonodatel′stvo i pravo Rossii vtoroi poloviny XVII v (review)

Reviewed by: Zakonodatel′stvo i pravo Rossii vtoroi poloviny XVII v Richard Hellie Arkadii Georgievich Man′kov, Zakonodatel′stvo i pravo Rossii vtoroi poloviny XVII v. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1998. 216 pp. ISBN 5-020-27344-9. This must be one of those late Soviet monographs trapped in the collapse of the Soviet system that could not be published at the time for lack of funds. The most recent work cited in Arkadii Georgievich Man'kov's volume is a decade old, and the author himself, who published before World War II, is now 88 years old and reportedly not very active. This may help to explain the "classical Soviet" character of the work: the now-obsolete, obligatory citations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, the base/superstructure and class struggle rhetoric, the endless use of the adjective "feudal" and the characterization of upper members of society as "feudals." The appearance of this "Stalinist" work in 1998 is especially surprising in light of the publication of Man'kov's memoirs in the mid-1990s, which, as noted in the editor's introduction, would have proved fatal for both the author and his entire family had they fallen into unfriendly hands.1 The volume under review vividly demonstrates the contagiously poisonous and pervasive nature of Stalinist patterns of historical thought. A professed doubter in the 1930s and in the early 1990s, Man'kov wrote at the end of the 1980s (and published at the end of the 1990s) as though he were still living half a century earlier. Soviet ways of thinking were so strong that apparently Man'kov simply could write no other way. After the introduction, most of the rest of the Man'kov monograph is more straightforward and less controversial, an intelligent and useful compendium of the legislation found in the first three volumes of the magnificent 1830 Speranskii legal codification, Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, affectionately known as the "PSZ." In addition to the PSZ, Man'kov also used some other legal materials and monographic literature as well. From time to time, however, it is necessary to take exception with some of his statements and generalizations. Chapter 1 is on the statistics and dynamics of legislative documents in the second half of the 17th century. His chief point is that the general tendency was for legislative activity to increase with the passage of time. The Ulozhenie [End Page 571] finally created the "Boyar Council" that Vasilii Osipovich Kliuchevskii invented for earlier periods in his doctoral dissertation and monograph of that name (1880–81), but which M. F. Vladimirskii-Budanov and other fact-oriented scholars immediately observed did not exist until after 1649.2 Man'kov makes much of the fact that some legislation was promulgated by the tsar alone, some by the Boyar Council alone, and most of it by both of them jointly, but I must confess that this seems to me to be a distinction without difference in meaning. There was no formal "division" of powers in Muscovite legislative practice. Chapter 2, by far the longest, is on land legislation. As is well known, Muscovy knew many types of tenures, ranging from the ancient hereditary estate (votchina) to the service landholding (pomest'e) created in the 1480s to support the provincial cavalry. The 1556 law on service removed much of the distinction between the two types of land by requiring military service from each, but Muscovite servitors preferred votchina to pomest'e. The fortunes of these two types of land varied enormously throughout Muscovy, with pomest'e nearly overwhelming votchina in Ivan IV's later years. In the first half of the 17th century the ratio of pomest'e to votchina was 60: 40, but in the second half of the century the ratios were reversed, 40: 60. There were various types of votchina (clan, purchased, granted for meritorious service), each with differing rights and rules of alienation, inheritance, and redemption. The government was insistent that there could only be one kind of pomest'e, but its fate was by no means uniform between the 1480s and its abolition in 1714. Man'kov is correctly adamant that the pomest'e was never legally inheritable or inherited...

Tseny i ikh dvizhenie v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka, and: The Economy and Material Culture of Russia 1600–1725 (review)

Reviewed by: Tseny i ikh dvizhenie v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka, and: The Economy and Material Culture of Russia 1600–1725 Daniel H. Kaiser Arkadii Georgievich Man´kov . Tseny i ikh dvizhenie v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka. Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1951. 273 pp. Richard Hellie . The Economy and Material Culture of Russia 1600–1725. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xi + 671 pp. ISBN 0-226-32649-7. Cloth. $42.00. When, almost half a century ago, Arkadii G. Man'kov published his history of prices in 16th-century Russia, Joseph Stalin was still alive, and debates about the formation of the "all-Russian market" still headlined Soviet historical journals. Richard Hellie's massive new book arrives in a different era: the Soviet Union – not to mention Joseph Stalin – is no more, and Lenin's dictum about the all-Russian market seems to be troubling no one. And yet these two books, for all the differences in their origins, deserve to be considered together. Read one after the other, they establish price dynamics for the entire early modern period of Russian history, and therefore provide vivid insight into the changes observable in the Muscovite economy, and the ways in which political, military, climatic, and social vectors affected economic performance. These two books also permit historians, in conjunction with price histories for the later periods of Russian history, to connect the early modern experience to the economic history of Imperial Russia.1 Man'kov observed at mid-century that, despite a few works written before the 1917 revolution, the history of prices in Muscovite Russia was practically unstudied, and for good reason (3). The sources were dispersed and, for the earliest period, rare, which meant that the student of prices would have to excavate data from a wide range of evidence composed and preserved for other reasons. In addition, the sources employed various units to measure the goods received or alienated for cash, itself sometimes expressed in different systems. Man'kov attempted to resolve these problems by concentrating upon one large body of sources whose similarity promised comparability: the income and expenditure books of Russia's 16th-century monasteries. Of the more than 200 books that Man'kov studied, only a handful (20) had been published, which [End Page 400] made his labor almost exclusively archive-driven.2 The 17 monasteries from which Man'kov collected data included some of the largest in Muscovy, and, since they proved to be active agents in the market, their records provided a great deal of data on prices.3 But they also presented the historian with distinctive problems: most of the price data came from the period after 1550, which made generalizations about the entire 16th century difficult to sustain.4 In addition, monasteries from the center and north were better represented than those headquartered in the south and east, delivering therefore an uneven picture of the "Russian" economy. Still another complication results from the use of monastic records. Inasmuch as some of these monasteries were authentic economic gorillas, they wielded unusual influence on the market, leading the researcher to wonder how representative their price data might be of normal market operations. Certainly monastic economies did not operate within the same constraints or under the same impulses as did small, private economies, so that the meaning of their price records is certainly open to debate. Despite these limitations, even half a century later, Man'kov's work remains an enormous achievement. More than half the book (104–237) is taken up with tables that report prices for about 100 separate goods by type, place of transaction, and year; every entry features an exact location (the great bulk of which are archival). Within the first 100 pages of text that make up the heart of the book, separate chapters examine and consider the price history of grains and bread, livestock and dairy products, handicrafts, salt, metalworking, and leather goods. In producing this unprecedented body of information, Man'kov created about 7000 price records, many of which he reported in graphs indexed against prices for the end of the 16th century (9, 13).5 Even though evidence from before 1550 was relatively scant...

Swimming With the Current

AbstractHaving accepted Richard Hellie's flattering invitation to prepare an "old geezer's memoir" for this journal, I read with special fascination those contributed in 1988-90 by Sam Baron, Bob Byrnes, Nick Riasanovsky, and Don Treadgold. They bear out what Horace Lunt said in the Summer 1987 Slavic Review: The story of the Slavic field in North America since World War II is complex as well as important, and those who know about various parts of it should publish their recollections while they can. Even we old-timers sometimes need to be reminded how much we depend today on structures that are new since we began our own professional lives: big centers of Russian studies and big libraries to back them up; foundations that care about our field; the USDE's Title VI and the State Department's Title VIII programs; the AAASS and its affiliates with their conventions; the NEH; NCSEER, IREX, the Kennan Institute; vital tools like the CDSP, ABSEES, and guides to archives; and Radio Liberty, the CIA, and other govemment and non-government agencies doing important research and publication in our field. My assignment here is to tell my own story, with particular attention to one of those teaching and research institutions in which I have had a hand: the University of Illinois's Russian and East European Center and its affiliated Slavic and East European Library, in the prairie towns of Champaign and Urbana. I hope to convey what I experienced as someone who in youth did not-unlike some of my colleagues-seem to be pointed toward academic life, but was swept along in directions he did not foresee.

The Plow, the Hammer and the Knout: An Economic History of Eighteenth-Century Russia, by Arcadius Kahan with the editorial assistance of Richard Hellie

<i>The Plow, the Hammer and the Knout: An Economic History of Eighteenth-Century Russia</i>, by Arcadius Kahan with the editorial assistance of Richard Hellie

Reviews

ALBERT HOURANI. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939. Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press, reissued with a new preface and bibliographic supplement, 1983. Pp. x, 406. $49.50 (US), cloth; $14.95 paper. Reviewed by L.E. Goodman DONALD G. BAKER, ed. Race, Ethnicity and Power: A Comparative Study. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. Pp. 243. $22.50 (US). Reviewed by Heribert Adam ELLEN G. FRIEDMAN. Spanish Captives in North Africa in the Early Modern Age. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. Pp. xxvii, 215. $27.50 (US). Reviewed by Robert I. Burns MARIAN KENT, ed. The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire. London: Allen & Unwin, 1984. Pp. x, 237. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by R.J. Crampton JAMES H. WYLLIE. The Influence of British Arms. London: Allen & Unwin, 1984. Pp. 125. $19.95 (US). Reviewed by Michael Carver J.H. ELLIOTT. Richelieu and Olivares. Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. 189. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Orest Ranum GRAHAM ROSS, ed. The Foreign Office and the Kremlin: British Documents on Anglo-Soviet Relations 1941–1984. Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. xi, 303. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by Richard K. Debo. PAUL BRIDLE, ed. Documents on Relations Between Canada and Newfoundland, Vol. II, 1940–1949, Confederation, Parts 1 and 2. Ottawa: Department of External Affairs, 1984. Pp. Ivi, 999; ix, 1106. $30.00 (Can.). Reviewed by J.L. Granatstein. MARK MANCALL. China at the Center: 300 Years of Foreign Policy. New York: The Free Press, 1984. Pp. xviii, 540. $29.95 (us). Reviewed by Michael H. Hunt. LINDA KILLEN. The Russian Bureau: A Case Study in Wilsonian Diplomacy. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Pp. xii, 202. $22.00 (US). Reviewed by John A. White WILLIAM A. HOISINGTON, JR. The Casablanca Connection: French Colonial Policy, 1936–1943. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Pp. xiv, 320. $27.00 (us). Reviewed by A.S. Kanya-Forstner CHESTER S.L. DUNNING, trans, and ed. The Russian Empire and the Grand Duchy of Moscovy: A 17th-Century French Account by Jacques Margeret. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983. Pp. 252. $21.95 (US). Reviewed by Richard Hellie WILLIAMSON MURRAY. The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–39: The Path to Ruin. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pp. xix, 494. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by Philip M. Taylor RAMON H. MYERS AND MARK R. PEATTIE, eds. The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pp. 544. $47.50 (US). Reviewed by Akira Iriye WLADYSLAW KOZACZUK. Enigma. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, Inc., 1984. $24.00 (US). Reviewed by P.S. Milner-Barry DARRELL BATES. The Fashoda Incident of 1898: Encounter on the Nile. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. 194. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by A.S. Kanya-Forstner KEITH NEILSON. Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914–1917. Winchester, Mass.: George Allen and Unwin, 1984. Pp. xiv, 338. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by D.C.B. Lieven GENE R. GARTHWAITE. Khans and Shahs: A Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Pp. xiii, 213. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by David J. Katz PROCOPIS PAPASTRATIS. British Policy towards Greece During the Second World War 1941–1944. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. vii, 274. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by David Stafford PHILIP D. CURTIN. Cross-cultural Trade in World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. xi, 352. $34.50 (US); paper, $9.95 (US). Reviewed by John S. Galbraith JAROSLAV PELIKAN. The Christian Tradition. Volume IV: The Reformation of Church and Dogma, (1360–1700). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Pp. 424. $27.50 (US). Reviewed by Gordon Leff JOSHUA A. FOGEL. Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitô Konan (1866–1934). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. Pp. xxiv, 420. $20.00 (US). Reviewed by Marius B. Jansen TERESA RAKOWSKA-HARMSTONE, ed. Communism in Eastern Europe, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, Pp. 391. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Phyllis Auty GARY A. PUCKREIN. Little England: Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics, 1627–1700 New York: New York University Press, 1984. Pp. xxi, 235. $39.5 (US). Reviewed by Michael Craton BOGDAN SZAJKOWSKI. Next to God … Poland: Politics and Religion in Contemporary Poland. New York: St Martin's Press, 1983. Pp. 264. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Anna M. Cienciala

Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725, by Richard Hellie

<i>Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725</i>, by Richard Hellie

Comments on Richard Hellie's "Recent Soviet Historiography on Medieval and Early Modern Russian Slavery"

Hellie's excellent survey of the recent literature on kholopstvo raises the question of the true meaning of kholop. Might I suggest that, for the Muscovite period, servant is a more accurate translation than slave? There is even a good precedent: the first Russian historian, Vasilii Tatishchev, suggested it over two hundred years ago. Criticizing the translators of the Bible for wrongly using to translate both sluzhitel' (servant) and (slave), Tatishchev explained that the kholop was not a slave. The rab became a slave through military conquest. The kholop was a native Russian, whose low position was only partly like that of the prisoner of war, since the master's rights over him were temporary, like those of a father over his children.'

Comments on Richard Hellie's "Recent Soviet Historiography on Medieval and Early Modern Russian Slavery"]: Reply

Comments on Richard Hellie's "Recent Soviet Historiography on Medieval and Early Modern Russian Slavery"]: Reply

S. F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible, edited and translated by Joseph L. Wieczynski, with an introductory essay by Richard Hellie, Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1974. xxxviii, 166 pp.

S. F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible, edited and translated by Joseph L. Wieczynski, with an introductory essay by Richard Hellie, Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1974. xxxviii, 166 pp.

Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Richard Hellie

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsEnserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Richard Hellie Horace W. DeweyHorace W. Dewey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 46, Number 2Jun., 1974 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/241233 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1974 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.