The Origins of Autocracy

[193] One honorable exception should, however, be mentioned. In a remarkable poem published the year (1968) of the Prague Spring, when the discussion of Russian absolutism analyzed above was aboil, a young poet (not a historian, a poet!) actually defended Kurbskii: "How but by infidelity can you repay the tyrant when this tyrant is ruining your state?" asked Oleg Chukhontsev, with these words ruining his own career in official literature and winning admiration from the Moscow intelligentsia ("Povestvo- vanie о Kurbskom'," p. 29). According to Grigorii Svirskii, the official response was crushing. Among other things, a group of Soviet generals wrote a letter to the Party Central Committee, asserting that Chukhontsev had "called our youth to treason." Not a single historian since has let fall a word in defense of the poet (Grigorii Svirskii, Na lobnom meste, p. 431).

[194] Poslaniia Ivana Groznogo, p. 286.

[195] Ibid., p. 47. 64. Ibid., p. 52. 65. Ibid., p. 47.

[196] S. Gorskii, p. 413.

[197] E. A. Belov, Ob istoricheskom znachenii russkogo boyarstva, p. 69.

[198] V. O. Kliuchevskii, Boiarskaia duma . . . , p. 340.

[199] Ibid., p. 195.

[200] Ibid., p. 198.

[201] Ibid., p. 198.

[202] S. F. Platonov, Ivan Groznyi, p. 19.

[203] M. N. Pokrovskii, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, vol. 3, pp. 239-40.

[204] K. Iarosh, Psikhotogicheskaia parallel', p. 28.

[205] Platonov, p. 125. Emphasis added.

[206] Platonov, p. 119. 8. Ibid., p. 133. 9. Ibid., pp. 124-25.

[207] Ibid., p. 120.

[208] Ibid., p. 121. Emphasis added.

[209] N. E. Nosov, О dvuhh tendentsiiakh . . . , p. 5.

[210] Ibid., p. 12.

[211] S. D. Skazkin, "Osnovnye problemy tak nazyvaemogo 'vtorogo izdaniia' kre- postnichestva v Srednei i Vostochnoi Evrope," p. 104.

[212] I. I. Polosin, p. 132.

[213] N. Cherkasov, Zapiski sovetskogo aktera, p. 308. The authenticity of the quote is beyond doubt, since the book was prepared for the press during Stalin's lifetime.

[214] Polosin, p. 132.

[215] N. Cherkasov, p. 380.

[216] I. V. Stalin, Voprosy leninizma (9th ed.), p. 359.

[217] Platonov, Ivan Groznyi, p. 105. 37. Pokrovskii, vol. 1, p. 302.

For P. A. Sadikov the "formation of the Oprichnina corps" was directly "depen­dent on the conditions of military defense." Furthermore, quoting the testimony of eyewitnesses, Taube and Kruze, he confirms that the service landholders were consider­ably less competent farmers than the boyars: "the lack of skill of the Oprichniki in farm­ing on their new holdings" led to the fact that "huge properties were destroyed and

plundered in such a short time that it seemed as if the enemy had passed through" (P. A. Sadikov, Ocherki po istorii oprichniny, p. 113).

[220] Pokrovskii, vol. 1, p. 319.

[221] Vipper, p. 174.