Contenu du sommaire : Noblesse, État et société en Russie XVIe - début du XIXe siècle

Sigurd О. Schmidt, The sense of nobility in Russia from the sixteenth till the first third of the nineteenth century. The article takes up the problem of the noble identity since the instauration of absolute monarchy till the beginning of the nineteenth century. The opposition between the hoiare and the dvoriane as used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries does not take into account finer subdivisions, in particular between princely and non-titled lineages. As to the Imperial period, the domain of the moral life of the nobility, the part it played in the formation of Russian intelligentsia or in the affirmation of ethic norms have not been sufficiently studied. The idea of the historical part played by the nobility inspired some of its members with interest for its history and for the preservation of documents, since Tatishchev, and up to the « young archivists ». The suppression of the service obligation and the charter of 1785 resulted in a new definition of the part assigned to the nobility whose mission was no longer the obligation of service but devotion to the tsar and to fatherland, the nobles acting as representatives of all the subjects of the Russian Empire. Such is for instance Karamzin's conception. As viewed by the best representatives of the nobility, the struggle for public welfare constituted the practical expression of the « soul's nobility » of Russian gentlemen. In this, they were different from the nobility « without ancestors or birth » as Pushkin puts it.

Marc Raeff, The nobility and the political discourse in the reign of Peter the Great. The debate over the question of whether the reign of Peter the Great was innovative, nay revolutionary, or a more or less organic outcome of an evolution started under his father or earlier, has been raging since the nineteenth century. Like all questions dealing with far- reaching historical events or developments, the one concerning Peter's reign cannot be answered in a simple either/or way. The article tries to re-examine the meaning and nature of the terminology concerning the nobility - i.e. the elite service class of the Muscovite/Russian state - as well as the transformation undergone by the concept of sovereign and government, between 1649 and 1725. The author made use of Lotman 's notion of "semiosphere". He was led to the hypothesis that Peter's reign produced a set of ambiguities as to the specific nature of basic political institutions and social relationships. These ambiguities had the important effect of a shift in the valences that basic values - social, intellectual, moral - obtained in shaping the lives and outlook of the Russian elites. In due course these ambiguities acquired a dynamic force that helped shape the parameters of subsequent Russian political thought, ethical values, and cultural orientations. The very fluidity and ambivalences that defined the public role and cultural life of the noble elite under Peter initiated new institutional, as well as existential forms and habits. These had to be consciously acquired and developed under the impact of new demands made by the sovereign; demands resulting from the state's systematically adopting the presuppositions, values, and goals of a foreign semiotic sphere - that of contemporary Western and Central Europe.

Michael Confino, The Russian nobility - service, blue blood, and honor: a reexatnination and a comparison. The article attempts a re-examination of a current interpretation of the Russian nobility as "a service nobility", whose status ans prestige stemmed from the chin, and not from lineage, hereditary title, and honor. However, the attitude of the nobility indicates clearly that it attributed a foremost importance, not only to state service, but also to right of inheritance (of the title and of the landed estate), ancient origins, family distinction, and honor. The legislation and charters to the nobility, from Peter the Great to Catherine II, confirm explicitly these nobiliary norms and attitudes, and confer upon them the sanction of law and the approval of the sovereigns. Was the notion of service much stronger in the ethos of the Russian nobility than in the West ? A comparison with several European nobilities tends to indicate two main features. First, service was a central notion in the Western nobilities, and closely linked to that of honor. Second, without belittling the influence of the "blue blood" myth, many families, even of most ancient aristocracy, had received their titles from the sovereign, who kept for himself (or herself) - in the West, too - the prerogative of being the sole "fountain of honors". As in Russia, the practice of anoblissement was widespread in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and apparently even more than in the past. It appears, therefore, that in this respect the Russian nobility was quite similar to the other European nobilities, and did not represent in any meaningful way a case sui generis.

Hartmut Rüss, The so-called free departure (vol'nyi of'ezd). Freedom of movement was never an illimitée! right for Russian service nobility. The so-called "right to free departure" is a scientific myth, because changes of service were at the risk of the nobles without a legal basis. The few cases where such departures were tolerated were based on political reasons. The ot"ezd (abandoned service) must not be confused with a free circulation right of service men such as it appears in contracts between princes (hoiaram i slugam mezhdu nas vol'nym volia), the objective of which is to ensure the service of their clients even though they are geographically far away or depend upon other princes as far as their estates are concerned. The opinion according to which the right of departure had been abolished by Muscovite sovereigns is confusing two different notions. In the context of principalities, the "free departure" would have been a contradictio in adjecto contradicting the notions of faithfulness and princely ideology supported by the Church, and for which a departure would be equivalent to treason. With the extinction of appanaged principalities in the sixteenth century, the above formula disappeared as well.

Inge Auerbach, The concept of nobility in sixteenth-century Russia. Since the end of the Middle Ages, the concept of nobility is characterized by a system of values, a style of life and signs such as a blazon and a name. To enjoy the privileges attached to this estate, it is necessary to prove one's nobility by deeds, registers, genealogical trees, or solemn oaths of one's peers. Muscovy ignores all these procedures. There is certainly a hereditary knighthood recognized in the West, but nobles do not possess personal liberty (they are kholopy of the tsar) while placed above the peasants who are free. Nobility is defined by service, so that feminine descent plays but a small part. This service is that of a private person and as from the Muscovite (or Turkish) point of view it is difficult to rely on same, the elite servitor gives up his personal freedom. Privileges are connected with rank in the service, and slavery (kholopstvo) is nothing to be ashamed of. Since the elite is not free and as Muscovy as a whole is nothing but an immense private estate of the tsar (as opposed for instance to Kurbskii's Lithuanian estate), abstractions such as the state, the Crown, the Res publica are absolutely absent and estates (Stândestaat) do not emerge. But officials (d'iaki) take their cue from the military elite and that is why, instead of nobility, it is better to speak of an elite or rather, like Herberstein, of « a kind of nobility » (Art von Adel).

Ruslan G. Skrynnikov, The main stages in the evolution of the Russian nobility in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The article traces the nobiliary origins of the Time of Troubles which was not a "war of classes" as sometimes surmised, but the result of a split within the nobility: that of the south siding often with the rebel camp. When it annexed Novgorod in the fifteenth century and expropriated a great part of the local nobility, Muscovy endowetl itself with landed property which it needed in order to provide for its new service men and the deti boiarskie, whose number was growing because of the increasing demography of noble families. At the same time, the state assumed a considerable privilege anil introduced the system of pomest'e. But the demographic growth of nobles, the veakness of peasant work force - especially in the newly colonized lands in the south -, the military and domestic setbacks of Ivan the Terrible and the ruin that followed, led to a crisis of the system, always in need of new lands and blocked in its expansion. The Muscovite state could not bear the military load involved by its military policy. Further to civil war, the nobles gradually appropriated the lands that they held theoretically as pomest'ia, and the state lost little by little its lauded reserves.

Robert O. Crummey, Sources of boyar power in the seventeenth century: the descendants of the upper Oka serving princes. This paper analyzes the sources of power of the aristocratic elements within the boyar elite in the seventeenth century by examining one group of clans, the descendants of the upper Oka serving princes. Whether these clans carried any significant traces of their former independence into the seventeenth century is one of the underlying issues of this study. The article analyzes the following characteristics of those upper Oka princely clans which were represented in the Boyar Duma between 1613 and 1689 (the Mezetskiis, Mosal'skiis, Mstislavskiis, Odoevskiis, Trubetskois and Vorotynskiis): service careers, landholding, rank, marriage alliances, and self-image. In most respects, the descendants of the upper Oka princes differed very little from the other aristocratic clans, princely and non-titled, which made up the boyar aristocracy in the seventeenth century. Their position demonstrates the successful state-building activity of the rulers of sixteenth-century Muscovite Russia and the remarkable capacity of the evolving boyar elite to adjust to changing conditions and to absorb newcomers into its ranks. Moreover, in the changing patterns of their careers and lives, we begin to observe phenomena that could characterize the upper echelons of the Russian nobility in the eighteenth century.

André Berelowitch, Plea for the Muscovite nobility. In respect of affairs of honor in the seventeenth century. On basis of lawsuits for insults and the substantial damages they could yield, Muscovite nobles are often accused of being devoid of the sense of honor. Sources nearer to every-day life (informal letters for instance) show that in reality Muscovite honor is that of a "shame society" with its anthropological meaning. A careful examination of complaints for insults or precedence quarrels of Court nobility demonstrates, on the other hand, that these affairs follow a near-universal pattern: challenge, counter-challenge and redress. Physical punishments, and putting one's life in somebody's hand (vydacha golovoi) could be relics of a real or symbolic fight with the objective of defending one's honor in days of old.

John P. Le Donne, The eighteenth-century Russian nobility: bureaucracy or ruling class? The following questions are examined: 1. The term bureaucracy is applied indiscriminately to social categories that do not belong together and cannot possibly form a single socio-political formation; 2. At least four social categories were recognized by the Table of Ranks, but a fifth was kept out: the secretarial and clerical apparatus which cantiot properly be called a bureaucracy; 3. The four categories formed a political apparatus including a ruling elito, an upper and lower management level, and a reserve of officers transferred when needed to till lower management positions. These categories were in turn part of a much larger formation: the political infrastructure of the Empire; 4. This political apparatus and political infrastructure are considered in the article as the ruling class of the Empire, because it possessed a monopoly of the political function which sharply distinguished it from the dependent population; 5. The existence of the ruling class did not create attempts to limit the ruler's power, because there existed a fundamental identity of interests between ruler and ruling class; 6. The Russian Empire in the eighteenth century was thus ruled by a collective autocracy of ruling families at the head of patronage networks that divided the spoils of office for the purpose of maximizing both its privileges and military power.

Mihail M. Safonov, Imperial power, state apparatus and nobility at the end of the eighteenth century. One of the main characteristics of Russian absolutism in the late eighteenth century is the fact that it was not able to solve the problems deriving from the system constituted by economic, social and political relations based on exclusive privileges of the nobles. The Imperial power was faced with the necessity to introduce a few changes into the system and to re-examine some of the private interests of the nobility, whereas this class did not want to be deprived of its privileges. In order to reduce the nobility's opposition to the measures that were seemingly directed against it (though actually they tended to protect its interests), the Imperial power endeavored to gain the support of the bureaucracy, the upper echelons of which belonged to the nobility. Though they formed a distinct social stratum they were attached to the fundamental privileges of the nobles as much as the latter themselves. The vain efforts to solve the problems of the domestic policy by reinforcing the regime of personal power, the utmost centralization of governmental apparatus and the excessive increase of the part played by bureaucracy led to the palace revolution which stressed the desire of the nobility not only to preserve and reinforce its privileges but also to protect itself against any attempt of the Imperial power to transform the system in a way unfavorable to the nobles.

Robert E. Jones, The nobility and Russian foreign policy, 1560-1811. A persistent theme in the writing of Russian history has been the "opposition" of the nobility, or at least of important groupings of nobles, to specific monarchs and their policies. For example, the "boyar opposition" to Ivan IV and Peter I and that of court aristocracy to Peter III and Paul ; the opposition of the "traditional aristocracy" to the policies of a particular monarch was focused less upon the ruler than on a so-called "favorite" such as Patriarch Nikon, G. Potemkin, or M. Speranskii. In all such cases the members of the opposition are scions of wealthy, powerful families accustomed to political power and influences but dissatisfied with some new policy (concerning domestic reform, serfdom, or class privilege) that threatened their interests. In this paper the author argues that the issue that most frequently provoked the opposition of the established elite was foreign policy. The state repeatedly conducted a foreign policy that conflicted with the perceived interests of the established elite, most commonly the initiation or continuation of an aggressive war. With the traditional elite opposed, those policies were then carried out by favorites whom the monarch used to by-pass the elite. In general the established elite opposed expansionist wars out of class interest, whereas monarchs conducted such wars for reasons of state.

John Keep, No gauntlet for gentlemen: officers' privileges in Russian military law, 1716-1855. The article examines the following questions: I. Why this topic, contrary to appearances, is historically significant; 2. Sources - and revealing silences; 3. The system as established by Peler I, and compared to other systems; 4. The soslovie structure and its reflection in Russian military law; Catherine II's grant of corporate rights and the policies of her successors; 5. "Class justice" or two parallel institutional systems as regards a) malfeasance/abuse of authority by officers, b) procedural antl other advantages enjoyed by officer offenders, c) penal practice affecting officers and other ranks; 6. Attitudes among dvoriane to their privileges; stu i ings of legal consciousness; 7. Conclusions: the major defects are systemic and cultural rather than estate-related.

Wladimir Berelowitch, France in the "Grand Tour" of Russian nobles during the second half of the eighteenth century. The article studies Russian nobles' travels in France during the Age of Enlightenment. It is based on some examples drawn from correspondence, accounts and travelogues, memoirs and autobiographies as well as statistics of applications for passports. The article describes the travellers who are young, belong often to aristocratic families in which a diplomatic career plays an important part and for whom the voyage - even if rarely dissociated from a mission - is integrated in an educative project and generally partakes of a culture of leisure. The author endeavors to situate these travels against the background of European "Grand Tours », to present literary models, the guide books from which the Russians draw their information and to describe the centers of interest of these travellers who are more or less consciously looking to France for a model of civilization going back to the age of Louis XIV.

Matei Cazacu, Families of the Rumanian nobility in the service of Russia, fifteenth-nineteenth centuries. Three phases can be observed in the process of emigration to Russia of individuals or families belonging to the Rumanian nobility of Moldavia and Wallachia: 1. From the fifteenth to the first half of the seventeenth century, it is a period of individual contacts in which it is only marriage alliances that justify departures of Rumanian nobles to Moscow. 2. The time of Peter the Great (second half of the eighteenth century) is marked by mass departures (in the case of Moldavians in 1711, after the battle of the Prut), not excluding, however, individual initiatives. 3. Since the end of the eighteenth century, Russia occupies Polish and Rumanian provinces (Bessarabia, in 1812) where the nobility takes up service with Russia if it decides to remain in those provinces.

Paul Dukes: Contacts and integration: some Scottish examples. Russia and Scotland share a patron saint. Moreover, according to some accounts, St Andrew carried out much of his mission near the Black Sea while his relics were brought to Scotland. The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320, tells us that the Scottish people themselves originated in Scythia. Arguably, the customary translation into English of the word rod (clan) implies social affinities. The article explores these as well as more precise evidence of Scottish influences on the development of the dvorianstvo, such as the contribution of Ia.V. Bruce to Russian heraldry, and the cases of Patrick Gordon and Paul Menzies. Did they transmit to Peter the Great Scottish concepts of nobility, conceivably with some Masonie element? There is some discussion of early modern Scottish systems of landholding and inheritance, and their possible impact on the maiorat law of 1714. There is also an investigation of the early eighteenth-century proposals for a union of the Russian and Scottish Churches, and its implication for the first and second estates.

Roger Bartlett, The Russian and the Baltic German nobility in the eighteenth century. As a result of Peter I's conquest of Livonia, the Baltic German nobility brought into the Russian Empire a social structure, world view and tradition of local autonomy quite different from those of its Russian counterpart. In the second half of the eighteenth century, for the Russian nobility, Baltic privilege and particularism could be a source of resentment and hostility. On the other hand, the Baltic nobility and its institutional structures were seen by many Russian nobles as models to be emulated; and already in the eighteenth century Baltic nobles began to develop a high profile in Imperial government service. Catherine II herself drew upon Baltic practice in drafting her 1775 Provincial Reform (local government, estate / soslovie organization, etc.) before imposing its provisions on the Baltic provinces themselves. This paper charts the comparisons between the two noble groups and examines their status in the light of the developments of the seconf half of the eighteenth century. While the Russian legislation - especially of 1762 and 1785 - trought the Russian nobility significantly closer to the position of the Baltic nobles, the restoration of Baltic privileged autonomy and other measures of Paul and Alexander I enabled the latter to re-establish their separate position.

Margarita E. Byčkova, The crowning rituals of 1498 and 1547: the incarnation of ideas of monarchie power. The author describes and analyzes the ceremonials of crowning (chiny venchanii) of Dmitrii Ivanovich in 1498 - which was the first one as it appears from the documents pei laming to it -, and the one that followed: that of Ivan IV in 1547. The article endeavors to follow the progress of the monarchic idea between these two events on basis of the assembly that attended them, of the royal attributes (crown, scepter, etc.), of the colors used and finally of the ritual itself. While the first crowning has as yet a private and family character, that of Ivan the Terrible brings out the divine origin of monarchic power and has the features of a mystery play. On the other hand, the article analyzes the testamentary charters of the Muscovite grand princes of the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries to discover how the regal attributes have become fixed. Finally, it compares the rites of Muscovite crownings with those used in Poland at the end of the fifteenth century to show in what way the different conceptions of monarchic power were reflected in those rituals.

Tamara Kondratieva et Claudio-Sergio Ingerflom, "Bez Lsaria zemlia vdova". Syncretism in the Vremennik of Ivan Timofeev. The Vremennik of Ivan Timofeev stands out against the sources of the Time of Troubles because of its efforts at conceptualizing. One term occurs throughout the narrative: "the earth". It refers both to Russia and to the other meaning it has in Russian culture : "Mother - damp earth" associated with, indeed identified to, the "native" mother and the Mother of God. The dynastic rupture, the civil war and the foreign intervention that followed have the same cause: before dying the last Riurikovich had not left in the womb of earth the embryo that was entitled to reign. The tsar is therefore the husband and the son of the same wife-mother. The non-fulfilment of the incest appears as a break of the natural order. To stress his idea, Timofeev resorts to a "parable": a rhetorical device destined to express the "truth". With the accession of Mikhail Romanov, accompanied by his mother, the widowhood of the earth is ended. The new tsar is then legitimate. Timofeev's work shows that the dvoeverie - intermingled paganism and Christianity - extended to the society as a whole, cannot be ignored by the historian of Russian politics.

Dimitri Schakhovskoy, Heuristics and genealogy of the Russian nobility. The privilege of genealogy is to disclose the family connections and the social structure. It can be a justification of monarchic power as in the case of the Gosudarev rodoslovets (Official genealogical compilation), or the mainspring of a system of exercise of power (precedence). In order to study these aspects, it is essential to have a new approach to sources. Besides the study of genealogical sources properly, there must be an analysis that takes into account the acquired knowledge from Spiridov to Ikonnikov. This analysis would add up the investigation based on established indexes and data allied to a synthesis and a briefing founded on a new exploration of bibliography and archives (cf. Société et noblesse russe; Fonctionnaires et militaires en Russie au XVIIIe siècle). This implies information and communication between research-workers and public, personal and through periodical press (Istoricheskaia genealogiia), excluding any hoarding up spirit. It would allow to draw up an exhaustive account of Russian nobility faithfully reflecting its composition.