The Origins of Autocracy

[116] Until recently, the Muscovite government of the 1550s has been identified with the "Chosen Rada," a term used by Kurbskii in his History of Ivan IV: "And at that time those counselors of his were named the Chosen Rada; in truth according to their deeds they had this name, for by their counsel they produced all that was select and distin­guished, that is to say true impartial justice, both for rich and for poor, such as is best in the tsardom" (p. 21). This term has become so firmly established in classical historiogra­phy that many historians have even adduced lists of the members of the "Chosen Rada," although Kurbskii mentions no names other than the Archpriest Sil'vestr, Ohol'nichii (the second rank below that of boyar at the Muscovite court) Aleksei Ada- shev, and Metropolitan Makarii. For example, V. I. Sergeevich compiled the following list: Sil'vestr, Adashev, Makarii, Prince Andrei Kurbskii (a boyar since 1556), Prince Dmitrii Kurliat'ev (a boyar since 1549), Prince Semen Rostovskii, and the three Moro- zov brothers—Mikhail (a boyar since 1549), Vladimir (an okol'nichii since 1550), and Lev (an okol'nichii since 1553). M. V Dovnar-Zapol'skii also included in the Chosen Rada Maxim the Greek (who lived out his last years in a monastery), Abbot Artemii, and Bishop Kassian—that is, all the major representatives of the fourth generation of Non- Acquirers, as well as others, to a total of sixteen (Vremia Ivana Groznogo, p. 173). S. V.

[117] By "coalition," I am referring here not so much to actual political alliances as to blocs of interest groups whose goals at the given historical stage were identical. In this sense, it is more a matter of latent, or potential, coalitions. Nevertheless, a cautious hy­pothesis may be appropriate here as to the correlation between the degree of actualiza­tion of the latent coalitions and the intensity of change in the autocratic system.