Research On The Origin And Formation Of The Russian Autocratic Monarchy

Autocracy is the core of Russian political civilization,serving a key to the understanding of Russian historical progress.Academic circles paid more attention to its evolution but less to its origin and formation.Under the perspective of cultural history and from the view of new institutionalism,this thesis tries to explore when Russian autocracy originated,why it occurred,and how it formulated by putting it into the comparison of oriental despotism and west-European absolutism,thus reaching an insightful understanding of the development of Russian political history.The dissertation body is divided into four parts:The first one,based on the historical exploration of the political system of Kievan Rus',disputes the view of Ivan IV that Russian autocracy has existed since ancient times,serving as a starting point of this dissertation.Kievan Rus' is the first Kiev-centered state consisting mainly of East Slavs.Macroscopically,9th to 10th century is the formation period of Rus' state,and 11th to early 13th is the period of appearance of city-states.This thesis holds that the system of city states is the way ancient Rus stepped into civilization world.Microcosmically,by studying the political roles such as prince,bodyguard and veche,and their social composition,function and attribute,this thesis concludes that the political system of Kievan Rus'is pluralist non-autocracy.The second part analyses when and how Russian autocracy originated.Considering two and half century constraint of Golden Horde and the competition and gaming of different political powers in Rus's,the thesis tries to seek the reasons why Moscow political mode won the final victory.Factors,including political influence by Golden Horde,religious inheritance from Orthodox Christianity of Byzantium,transition of residential center and political power to the Northeastern Rus's,and the choices of prince families in Moscow,together resulted in the occurrence of Russian Autocracy.The third part explains the power organization of Moscow Rus's autocracy in two aspects.One is horizontal,including grand prince,tsar,boyar duma,zemsky sobor,prikazy;the other is vertical,including namestnik,kormilenie,guba system,zemstvo,and local governor.By analyzing two so called hierarchical respresentative institution:boyar duma and zemsky sobor,this thesis holds that they are quite different from those in western Europe and in essence,Moscow Rus's political system still belongs to autocracy.Oprichnina by Ivan IV only destroyed then state regime,but did not set up absolutism while the rule of Ivan IV left a political legacy,which provided a foundation for the legitimacy of new dynasty.The forth part deals with how Russian autocracy finally accomplished under new era background.Taking 17th century history as the background of Peter I reform,revealing the serious crisis that the autocracy encountered in the time of Troubles and ensuing new political phenomenon,the thesis analyzes why Russia still selected the autocracy and why it progressed wandering tradition and revolution.The westernization reform firmly held by Peter I seems to bring Russia into an era of absolutism;instead,this reform merely finalized the traditional Russian autocracy in the form of law.Taking the perspective of political civilization and political institution change,breaking the academic mode of using terms like "early feudal monarchy","hierarchical representative monarchy" and "absolutism" to study evolution of Russian political institution,this thesis summarizes the origin,formation and finalization of Russian autocracy,resolves the problem-"what Russian political system is" rather than"what it is similar to",and points out its historical development in line with the general logic of political institution change.Based on Russian geopolitics and historical circumstances to analyze the reasons why Russian autocracy occurred,the thesis accurately grasps its unique autocracy and its historic role,furthering the deep understanding of Russian political history and current Russian politics.