The Origins of Autocracy

11. G. V. Plekhanov, Sochineniia, vol. 20, pp. 87-88.

30. Solov'ev, Istoriia otnoshenii. . . , p. 597.

33. S. B. Veselovskii, Issledovaniia . . . , p. 336. True, in moments of repentance, the tsar ordered that the names of those of his victims who could be remembered be writ­ten down. But this was by no means always possible. Hence notations in the Sinodik of the type: "Remember, Lord, 50 [or 40 or 100] souls who perished in such-and-such

ceeded by new attacks of royal fury and, consequently, new hecatombs of nameless

victims.

34. Solov'ev, Istoriia Rossii. . . , bk. 3, p. 713.

38. Cited in E. V. Tarle, Padenie absoliutizma, p. 99.

45. Iu. Samarin, "O mneniiakh Sovremennika istoricheskikh i literaturnykh," p. 163.

49. Ibid., p. 412; D. S. Likhachev, "Ivan Peresvetov i ego literaturnaia sovremen- nost'," p. 35; I. I. Smirnov, p. 18. Emphasis added.

53. Ibid., p. 71.

68. V. O. Kliuchevskii, Boiarskaia duma . . . , p. 296.

69. V. O. Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia (1st ed.), vol 2, pp. 192-93. Emphasis added.

71. Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia (1st ed.), vol. 2, p. 197.

9. Platonov's Argument With Kliuchevskii

In nothing else, perhaps, does the dualism of Russian political life ap­pear so strikingly as in the events of the first Time of Troubles, which followed the death of the tyrant and reached its height in the national crisis of 1605-13. And in nothing else has the transfixing of Russian historiography in the hypnosis of the "myth of the state" manifested itself so vividly as in its inability to explain these events. I cannot dis­cuss the Time of Troubles in detail here. Let us merely consider one example.

When the new tsar, Vasilii Shuiskii, ascended the Russian throne on May 19, 1605, the first thing he did was to make a public declara­tion in the cathedral Church of the Holy Virgin: "I kiss the cross be­fore the whole world that I will take no action against anyone without the approval of the assembly; and that if the father is guilty, I will take no action against the son; and if the son is guilty, no action against the father." One need only remember the Sinodik of Tsar Ivan, with its requests to remember the soul of so-and-so, killed "along with his mother, and his wife, and his sons, and his daughters," for it to be­come entirely clear what the new tsar is promising the people. He

6. Pokrovskii, vol. 1, p. 313.

12. Platonov, Ocherki . . . , p. 157. Emphasis added.

13. Platonov, Ivan Groznyi, p. 122. Emphasis added.

14. Platonov, Ocherki . . . , p. 157. Emphasis added.

17. Pokrovskii, vol. 1, pp. 271-73.

18. Ibid., p. 313. 19. Ibid., p. 307.

20. Ibid., pp. 317-18. Emphasis added.

21. Ibid., p. 319.

25. R. Iu. Vipper, p. 3. On the importance of the legitimizing function of historical studies in the Soviet context, Nancy Whittier Heer notes correctly: "Historical writings in the Soviet Union have come to perform vital sociopolitical functions of a degree and scope perhaps unique and certainly beyond those found under other political systems" ("Political Leadership in Soviet Historiography," p. 12).