Robert O. Crummey uses the methods of collective biography to provide the first modern study of the elite group that dominated Russian government and society in the seventeenth century--the members of the Boyar Duma or royal council between 1613 and 1689. This book examines their careers in governmental service, their position in networks of family relationships and factional groupings, their values and attitudes, and their economic activities. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
An intriguing "intellectual portrait" of a generation of Soviet reformers, this book is also a fascinating case study of how ideas can change the course of history. In most analyses of the Cold War's end the ideological aspects of Gorbachev's "new thinking" are treated largely as incidental to the broader considerations of power—as gloss on what was essentially a retreat forced by crisis and decline. Robert English makes a major contribution by demonstrating that Gorbachev's foreign policy was in fact the result of an intellectual revolution. English analyzes the rise of a liberal policy-academic elite and its impact on the Cold War's end. English worked in the archives of the USSR Foreign Ministry and also gained access to the restricted collections of leading foreign-policy institutes. He also conducted nearly 400 interviews with Soviet intellectuals and policy makers—from Khrushchev- and Brezhnev-era Politburo members to Perestroika-era notables such as Eduard Shevardnadze and Gorbachev himself. English traces the rise of a "Westernizing" worldview from the post-Stalin years, through a group of liberals in the late1960s–70s, to a circle of close advisers who spurred Gorbachev's most radical reforms.
This is a comprehensive account of the rise of the late medieval Russian monarchy with Moscow as its capital, which was to become the territorial core of the Soviet Union. The legacy of the Grand Princes and Tsars of Muscovy -- a tradition of strong governmental authority, the absence of legal corporations, and the requirement that all Russians contribute to the defence of the nation -- has shaped Russia's historical development down to our own time.
This important collection of essays by a pioneer in the field focuses on the history and culture of a conservative religious tradition whose adherents have fought to preserve their beliefs and practices from the seventeenth century through today. Old Belief had its origins in a protest against liturgical reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-1600s and quickly grew into a complex torrent of opposition to the Russian state, the official church, and the social hierarchy. For Old Believers, periods of full religious freedom have been very brief—from 1905 to 1917 and since the fall of the Soviet Union. Crummey examines the ways in which Old Believers defend their core beliefs and practices and adjust their polemical strategies and way of life in response to the changing world. Opening chapters survey the historiography of Old Belief, examine the methodological problems in studying the movement as a Russian example of "popular religion," and outline the first decades of the history. Particular themes of Old Believer history are the focus of the rest of the book, beginning with two sets of case studies of spirituality, culture, and intellectual life. Subsequent chapters analyze the diverse structures of Old Believer communities and their fate in times of persecution. A final essay examines publications of contemporary scholars in Novosibirsk whose work provides glimpses of the life of traditional believers in the Soviet period. Old Believers in a Changing World will appeal to scholars and students of Russian history, to those interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, and to those with an interest in the comparative history of religious movements.
Robert F. Byrnes's distinguished intellectual biography shows how Kliuchevskii struggled with and clarified Russia's relationship with the West, delineated the roles of autocracy and the Orthodox Church in Russia's development, and shaped a Russian conception of national consciousness and identity.
Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of Western esotericism and religious studies on the importance of millenarian thought in Early Modern Europe, this study provides an innovative re-examination of Peter the Great’s Court in early eighteenth-century Russia.
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