Khan Or Basileus: an Aspect of Russian Mediaeval Political Theory Author(S): Michael Cherniavsky Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol

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Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Mediaeval Political Theory Author(s): Michael Cherniavsky Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1959), pp. 459-476 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707886 . Accessed: 31/10/2014 12:20

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KHAN OR BASILEUS: AN ASPECT OF RUSSIAN MEDIAEVAL POLITICAL THEORY

BY MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY

Every historianinterested in Russia has to deal with one of the most vivid and fundamentalfacts of Russian history: the Tatar Yoke, when the largerportion of Russia was conqueredin the thir- teenthcentury, and remainedfor over two centuries,de jure at least, a province of an Asiatic empire. Completelywithin the area con- quered by the Tatars or Mongols was northeastRussia, the founda- tion of the later Muscovite tsardom and of Imperial Russia. The historiansof Russia generallyinterpret the Mongol conquest and yoke as a diabolus ex machina,an externalfactor, which interrupted or distortedthe natural,internal logic of Russian historicaldevelop- ment. As such the Tatar Yoke was mainly significantfor its impli- cations in later Russian history; the chiefhistoriographic quest was to findout in what way and to what extentit actually interruptedor distortedRussian history. Underlyingthis procedurewas, of course, the particularview each historianhad of the pattern and logic of Russian historyas a whole." A corollaryof this view of the his- toriographyfor Russia's thirteenth,fourteenth, and fifteenthcentu- ries is a relative paucity of works on the Tatar state and Tatar- Russian relations;2 a corollary,because thereseems to have prevailed a vague desireto get rid of, to by-pass,the whole problemas quickly as possible,and to get back to the " natural course" of Russian his- toryno matterhow badly it had becomedistorted by the longinter- ruption. The concernof the presentpaper is to deal with only one aspect of the generalproblem of the Tatar Yoke and the changesin Russian society and life induced by it. What consequencesdid it have for 1 An excellentsummary of the opinionsof thegreat historians is givenin V. D. Grekovand A. I. Iakubovskii,Zolotaia Orda i ee padenie[The GoldenHorde and Its Fall] (Moscow,1950), 247-61. Threeviews are in evidence:that the Tatar conquestmeant a generalbarbarization (Karamzin, Bestuzhev-Riumin, Platonov in thesense of isolation,as wellas theByzantinists Diakonov and Savva); thatthe Tatars contributedto the politicaland administrativeunification (Kliuchevsky, Kostomarov,the juristSergeevich and the MarxistPokrovsky); finally, that the Yoke was of littleimportance (Soloviev, Rozhkov, and, in particular,the great Rus- sian historianof the 20thcentury, Presniakov). 2The firstserious study was the collectionof sourceson the GoldenHorde in- cludingits Russianrelations edited by BaronV. G. Tizengausen,Sbornik materialov otnosiashchikhsiak istorii Zolotoi Ordy [Collection of Sources Referring to theHis- toryof the GoldenHorde], I (St. Petersburg,1884), II (Leningrad,1941). B. Spuler'sDie GoldeneHorde (Leipzig,1943) doesnot concentrateon Tatar-Russian relationsprimarily; the three major works known to me are all veryrecent: A. N. Nasonov,Mongoly i Rus' [The Mongolsand Russia] (Moscow,1940); Grekovand Iakubovskii,op. cit.; and G. Vernadsky,The Mongolsand Russia (New Haven, 1953). 459

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 460 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY Russia's image of her ruler,the Grand Princeand later Tsar of Russia? To answerthis one muststart by askingwhat was themed- iaeval Russianimage of the ruler? What modelsof rulershipwere available? The traditionaland largelycorrect interpretation has been that, formediaeval Russia, the supremeimage of absolutepower and rule was the Byzantineemperor, the basileus,the " tsar." Fromthe mo- mentof St. Vladimir'sbaptism the Russian state enteredthe Uni- versalChristian Empire, living under one holy emperor,the image of God on earth,the sourceof orthodoxyand law and thusof salvation. Duringthe ensuingcenturies, whatever the politicalrealities mightbe, Russiansacknowledged the legitimacy of at leastthe spirit- ual or eschatologicalsovereignty of the basileus.3 The dialecticof this acknowledgmentwas finallycompleted after the fall of Con- stantinopleand the deathof the last Roman Emperoron its walls, whenMoscow (the ThirdRome) and its orthodoxruler acquired, in Russianeyes, the prerogatives of the formerEmpire.4 3The problemof determiningin detailjust whatimage the Russians had of the emperorand howmuch of it theyaccepted at differenttimes is a verycomplex one. Much of Byzantinepolitical theology was unknownto the Russiansor, if known, incomprehensible.The letterof the EmperorJohn Cantacuzene in 1347to Grand PrinceSimeon the Proud,quoting the latter,probably expressed the generaland rathervague Russian view of the role of the emperor: " Yes, as youwrote, the Em- pire of the Romansand the mostholy great Church of God are the sourcesof all pietyand the schoolof sanctityand lawgiving."F. Miklosichand I. Muller,Acta patriarchatusConstantinopolitani (Vienna, 1860), I, 263. Despiteall the attempts at ideologicalrebellion, Basil II, as late as 1451-2,after the Union of Florence, whichmarked the apostasyof the Byzantines,and on the eve of the empire'sfall, acknowledgedin detailthe supremacyof the emperorimplied in Simeon'sstate- ment. Cf. letterof Basil II to EmperorConstantine XI, RusskaiaIstoricheskaia Biblioteka(St. Petersburg,1880), VI, no. 71, p. 575. On the generalproblem of Russian relationswith and views of Byzantium,see F. Ternovskii,Izucheniie vizantiiskoiistorii i eiia tendentsioznoeprilozhenie v drevneiRusi [The Studyof ByzantineHistory and Its TendentialApplication in AncientRussia] (Kiev, 1875); M. A. Diakonov,Vlast' Moskovskikh Gosudarei [The Powerof theMuscovite Sov- ereigns](St. Petersburg,1889); V. Val'denberg,Drevnerusskie ucheniia o predelakh tsarskoivlasti [Old-Russian Teachings on theLimits of TsaristPower] (Petrograd, 1916); A. A. Vasiliev," Was Old Russiaa Vassal Stateof Byzantium?" Speculum, VII (1932), 350-360; C. Chernousov," K voprosuo vlianiivizantiiskogo prava na drevneisheerusskoe" [" On the Problemof the Influenceof ByzantineLaw on the Earliest Russian"], VizantiiskoeObozrenie (Iurev, 1916), II, 303-322; I. Rev'enko," A NeglectedByzantine Source of MuscovitePolitical Ideology," Har- vardSlavic StudiesII (1954), 141-181. 4 The amountof literature on thissubject is considerableand repetitive.See H. Schaeder,Moscau das DritteRom (Hamburg,1929); V. Malinin,Starets Eleasorova monastyriaFilofei i ego poslaniia[The Elder of theEleazar Monastery,Philotheus and his Epistles] (Kiev, 1901); I. Sev'enko,"Intellectual Repercussions of the Councilof Florence,"Church History, XXIV (1955), 291-323; M. Cherniavsky, " The Receptionof the Councilof Florencein Moscow,"ibid., 347-359.

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Though the basileus determinedthe image of rulershipfor mediaeval Russia, this did not necessarilymean that the Russians also acknowledgedhis sovereigntyover them; on the contrary,time and again, Russian princes usurped the privilegesof the emperor. In Kievan Russia, princeswere sometimesportrayed as Byzantine pa- triciansor despots,hierarchic members of the universalChristian society,and sometimesportrayed in the garb and with the regalia of the emperorsthemselves.5 The coins of Kievan Russia, patterned on Byzantine money, show the Russian prince in the place of the basileus.6 Finally, in the liturgyof the eleventhand twelfthcentu- ries the name of the Russian prince frequentlyreplaces that of the emperorin the diptychs-the commemorationlists-where the priest prays forand glorifiesthe rulerand all Christendom.7But this very usurpationof the formaland basic attributesof rulership-regalia, coinage, liturgy-is in itselfthe best proof of the power emanating fromthe image of the basileus. Recogniitionand usurpationcreated, withinthe image of the ruler,a tension which found its expression in the inconsistencyof the Russian view itself. The same inconsistencyappears perhaps even more crudelywhen the Russian acknowledgmentcould be exploited after 1453, when there no longer was a Byzantine-Romanemperor, while the vacant thronewhich remained" foras long as the world lasted " demanded a basileus.8

5 See N. P. Kondakov,Izobrazhenie Russkoi kniazheskoi sem'i v miniaturakhXI veka [The Representationof a RussianPrincely Family in Miniaturesof the 11th Century](St. Petersburg,1906); Kondakov,Russkie Klady [Russian Treasure- Troves] (St. Petersburg,1896), I, 61f.; Russlkiedrevnosti v pamiatnikakhiskustva [RussianAntiquities in Monumentsof Art],ed. I. A. Tolstoiand N. P. Kondakov, vol. III, fig.166, vol. IV, 35f.; A. Grabar,"Les fresquesdes escaliers'a Sainte- Sophie de Kiev et l'iconographieimperiale byzantine," Seminarium Kondakovia- num,VII (1935), 103-119. 6A. V. Oreshnikov,Denezhnyie znaki domongol'skoi Rusi [Moneysof Pre-Mongol Russia], TrudyGos. Istor.muzeia (Moscow,1936); see also Oreshnikov,Russkie Monetydo 1547 goda [RussianCoins till 1547], Imp. Ross. Ist. Muzei,Opisanie PamiatnikovI (St. Petersburg1910), 1-5,pl. I., hereafterreferred to as Monety. 7 Diakonov,op. cit.,24, note2, argues,on the basis of threepre-Tatar missals, that the name of the emperorwas usuallyomitted from the liturgy;cf. also A. Gorskiiand K. Nevostruev,Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei Moskovskoi sinodal'noi biblioteki[Description of Manuscriptsof the MoscowSynodal Library] (Moscow, 1894), III: 1, p. 2f.,p. 250f. Consideringthe laterhistory of the diptychs,however,this argument from silence is not veryconvincing. On diptychsin Eastern liturgy,see I. M. Hanssens,Institutiones Liturgicae de RitibusOrientalibus (Rome, 1932), III, 1340-1,1354-5. 8The monkPhilotheos, ideologue of Moscowthe ThirdRome, expressed this idea mostclearly; cf. Malinin, op. cit.,Appendix, 50f. et passim. For theByzantine conceptionof the emperor, see 0. Treitinger,Die OstromischeKaiser- und Reichsidee (Jena,1938). The Russiansnever acknowledged the imperialrole or positionof

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 462 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY The steps whichthe Russian Grand Prince took towardthis thronewere slow and hesitant. Far morefrequently than in the Kievan perioddo theprayer-books contain a prayerfor the emperor whenin factthere was no enmperor;and onlywith the coronationof Ivan IV as Tsar,in 1547,does the confusionin the diptychscease.9 Titulatureshows the same ambivalence. It is true,Dimitrii Donskoi is calledtsar in praisefor his victoryover the Tatarsat Kulikovoin 1380,but the titlerefers to his tsarlikequalities and achievements ratherthan to his actualstatus.10 The fallfrom Grace of theByzan- tineEmpire at the Councilof Florenceand its finalfall in 1543does notresult in a consistentadoption of theimperial title on thepart of the GrandPrince. Onlywith the reignof Basil III (1505-1533)do Russian "schoolmen,"writing for internalconsumption, begin to call the Grand Prince "tsar" with any regularity;"1and, again, only by the coronationof 1547 was the Russian rulerestablished, theWestern emperors, awarding to themthe subordinate role of caesar(tsesar); cf. D. I. Prozorovskii," 0 znacheniitsarskogo titula do priniatiiarusskimi gosudariami titulaInperatorskogo " [" On the Meaningof theTitle of 'Tsar' tillthe Adoption by RussianSovereigns of the Title of 'Emperor"'], IzvestiiaImp. RusskogoArk- heologicheskagoObshchestva, VIII (1877), 449f. 9 In a servicebook of 1457,for example, twice the prince is mentionedinstead of the emperor,and thentwice again the emperoris referredto: Gorskiiand Nevos- truev,III: 2, no. 501,pp. 266-7,273-4, in Chteniiav ObshchestveIstorii i Drev- nosteiRossiiskikh (1917), 4. Whilea missalof ca. 1500enjoins the priestto "me- morialize. . . our princesand not the tsar,for there is no tsardomhere in our Russia" (IzvestiiaImp. ArkheologicheskogoObschestva, V, 138), a servicebook of aboutthe same date speaksonly of the tsar (Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III: 1, 48). The emperoris memorializedin prayerbooks of 1462 (Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III: 1, 46), 1481 (Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III: 1, 199) and in a numberof codicesof the late 15thand early16th centuries (Gorskii and Nevostruev,III: 1, 66; II: 2, 182; I. Sreznevskii,Svedeniia i zametkio maloizvestnykhi neizvestnykh pamiat- nikakh[Studies and Notes ConcerningUnknown and LittleKnown Sources], no. LXXIX, in Sbornikotdeleniia russkago iazyka i slovesnostiImp. AkademiiNauk, XX: 4, 558). On the otherhand, the princeis mentionedin a numberof service books(Gorskii and Nevostruev,III: 1, 37; III: 1, 53; III: 2, 259; III: 1, 45 where both princeand tsar are mentioned;Pamiatniki Drevnei Pismennosti, III, 1880, Protokolzasedaniia Komiteta, April 4, 1880) and even in one missalof 1551 or later,i.e., after the coronationof Ivan IV as tsar (Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III: 1, 60). It is probable,however, that, by themiddle of the 16thcentury, the distinc- tion between"tsar" and prince(" kniaz'") was slowlyobliterated; see, for example,the Minea of 1567 wherethe emperoris called prince,in Kh. Loparev, OpisanieRukopisei Imp. Ob. Liubiteleidrevnei Pismennosti [Description of Man- uscriptsof the ImperialSociety of Loversof AncientLiterature] (St. Petersburg, 1892),45 et passim. 10Cf. PolnoeSobranie Russkikh Letopisei, VI, app. " B " 90f.; S. Shambinago, "Povesti o Mamaevompoboishche" [" Tales of Mamai's Battle"], Sb. otd. russ. ias. i slov.,LXXXI, no. 7. Hereafter,P.S.R.L. refersto the firstwork. 11Cf. Prozorovskii, op. cit.

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universallyand formally,as tsar. Even this coronation,however, presents us with problems. The firstimperial coronation12 was anticipated with what seems to be typical ambiguity,when Grand Prince Ivan III, in 1498 crownedhis grandsonDimitrii as co-ruler and Grand Prince. A glance at the coronationceremony shows that it was a copy of the Byzantine coronationritual for a caesar only, a junior co-emperor.'3 This implies that Ivan III, as Grand Prince, performedthe role of the senior emperor,the augustus,the basileus. What all this amountsto is that Russian receptionof the basileus image oscillated between the need to acknowledgeand the desire to usurp this very image. The process of assimilatingthis image, of identifyingthe Russian ruler with the basileus took a long time.'4 12CompareIvan's coronationrite (E. V. Barsov,Drevne-russkie pamiatniki oviashchennagovenchaniia tsarei na tsarstvo[Old-Russian Sources for the Sacred Coronationof the Tsars], Chteniia,1883: I, 42-90) withConstantine Porphyro- genitus,Le Livre des Ceremonies,ed. A. Vogt (Paris, 1939), II, lf., and Codinus Curopalates,De OflicialibusPalatii Constantitopolitani,ed. I. Bekker,C.S.H.B., XIV (Bonn,1839), 86f. Cf. Val'denberg,op. cit.,275f.; G. Olsr," Chiesae Stato nell'incoronazionedegli ultimiRurikidi," Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XVI (1950), 290f.suggests that the coronationrite included the ceremonyof unction; howeverthe statementabout unctionin the chroniclewas probablyadded after the coronationof MichaelRomanov in 1613 (cf. " TsarstvennaiaKniga" [" The ImperialBook "], P.S.R.L.,XIII, 452,note 1). 13 Olsr,op. cit.,285f., argues that the coronationordo forDimitrii differs sig- nificantlyfrom the Byzantineimperial coronation, and explainsit by the greater religiosityof the Russianswho therefore assigned a greaterr8le to the clergythan was donein Constantinople.The coronationordo of Dimitrii,however, is a trans- lationof a Serbianmanuscript of the 14thcentury, which in turnwas a translation of the Byzantinecoronation ordo for a caesaror junioremperor. Cf. Barsov,op. cit.,for the coronationof Dimitrii,33f.; forthe Serbian and Byzantinerites, 25f. 14 The title" By the Graceof God " was introducedby Basil II stillwithin the "Byzantine" period,in 1449,in his diplomaticdocuments (Dukhovnye i Dogo- vornyeGramoty Velikikh i Udel'nykhKniazei XIV-XVIIvv. [Testamentsand Treatiesof Grandand AppanagePrinces of the 14th-16thCenturies], ed. L. V. Cherepnin[Moscow, 1950], 160, 163, hereafter referred to as Gramoty). The title " tsar" appearsin diplomaticdocuments (Pamiatniki Diplomaticheskikh Snoshenii DrevneiRossii s DerzhavamiInostrannymi (St. Petersburg,1851), I, 46, 47, 59-61, 87, 96,98, 114),but, for internal consumption, the title of " Tsar " is usedto signify spiritualqualities (cf. Paschaliafor the year 7000,Russkaia Istoricheskaia Biblio- teka,VI, no. 118,795f.). DespiteIvan's marriage(1472) to theByzantine heiress, SophiaPaleologus, which is supposedto haveinfluenced Russian political thought pro- foundly(cf. G. Olsr," Gli ultimiRurikidi e le basi ideologichedella sovranitadello statorusso," Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XII [1946],322-73), Byzantine court rankswere introduced very gradually, beginning with 1495; V. Prokhorov,Khris- tianskiei russkiedrevnosti i arkheologia[Christian and Early RussianAntiquities and Archeology](St. Petersburg,1872), 36f. The problemof the newRussian seal withthe two-headed imperial eagle on it is a verycomplex one. Thereis no doubt that the eagle stoodfor the statesymbol of the empire(cf. A. V. Soloviev," Les

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So much so that forover a centurythe throneof the ideal " universal empire" remained vacant before the Russian Grand Prince was crownedas tsar and autocrat. If the central,supreme image of rulershipfor the Russians was the basileus,what was the significancefor Russian political theoryof the fact that after 1240 another concreteimage of rulershipwas available-that of the khan,who ruled over a vast empireof whichnorth- easternRussia was only a province? What modifications,nuances or distortionsin the Russian ruler-imagewere induced by this fact? From the beginningof the Mongol or Tatar period in Russia, the Tatar rulerwas always referredto in the chroniclesas " tsar." 15 Rus- sian pet names forthe Tatars are hardlypolite,'6 but even when used as epithetsfor the ruler,the khan,'7they are used in conjunctionwith the title of tsar. This is to say that the Russians assigned to their conquerorand his heirs the title which, both before and after the Tatar Yoke, was reservedfor only one ruler-the universalChristian emperor.'8 Some proofthat the Russians used this title deliberately and with full awarenessof its implicationslies in the carefuldistinc- tions they drew between the various titles: the khan of Chingizide blood, was always tsar; his heir and co-ruler was referredto as "tsesar," i.e., the caesar or junior emperor. Members of the khan's emblemesheraldiques de Byzanceet les Slaves,"Seminarium Kondakovianum, VII [1935], 149f.). A. V. Oreshnikovargues that Ivan III beganto use the double- headedeagle in 1472,immediately after his marriagewith Sophia (" Materialyk russkoinumizmatike do-tsarskogo perioda " [" Sourcesfor Russian Numismatics of the Pre-TsarPeriod"], TrudyMoskovskogo Numizmaticheskago Obshchestva, II [1901],12), butthe first known use ofthe new seal datesfrom July 1497; Gramoty, no. 85, p. 341. 15It is curiousthat despitethe long associationswith the steppenomads the Sophia chroniclerdid not recognize" khan" as a titlebut thoughtit part of the nameof theTatar leaders;P.S.R.L., V, 175 et passim. 16P.S.R.L., XXV, 126-7,143, et passim. However,the Russianswith great im- partialityand goodlogic assigned the same epithetsto Germans,Catholics in general, and Lithuanians(ibid., 150, 193, et passim). On the popularview of the Tatars see I. U. Budovnitz," Ideinaiaosnova rannikh narodnykh skazanii o tatar- skom ige" [" The IdeologicalBasis of Early Popular Tales About the Tatar Yoke"], TrudyOtdela DrevnerusskoiLiteratury Akademii Nauk, XIV (1958), 169-175. 17 P.S.R.L.,XXV, 136. See, however,the veryinteresting study of R. Jakobson wherehe showsthat the epithet" dog" (sobaka) was not reallya denigratingone but derivedfrom Tatar tribenames (O. Jansen," SobakaKalinTsar," Slavia, XVII [1939-40],82-89). (Jakobsonwrote under the pseudonym of 0. Jansen.) 18 For the Russianattitude toward the titleof " tsar" see Prozorovskii,op. cit. For the generalEuropean view of the title and its significance,see E. Stengel, " Kaisertitelund Suverinitiitsidee,"Deutsches Archiv, III, 1939,1-57.

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family were "tsarevichi."19 But Mamai and Edigei, powerfulde facto rulersof the Golden Horde in the 1380s and the 1410s respec- tively,but not of the blood, were called only princes; Mamai par- ticularlywas consideredto be a usurperof the tsar's authorityover Russia.20 Iconographic sources are as consistentas the chronicles about the imperialstatus of the khan. In all images,including miniatures showingRussian victoriesover the Tatars, the khan is always shown wearinga radiate crown,contrasted with the grand princein his cap.21 That the title " tsar " as applied to the khan carrieddefinite con- notationsof legitimacy,is revealed by the chroniclesin otherways as well. In 1245-6 princeMichael of Chernigovtravelled to the Horde. Upon arrival,before being admittedto Khan Batu, he was required to performa purificationritual, passing between lines of firesand stone idols. He was informedthat the khan ordered him to go throughthe ceremonybut the princewas stubborn; accordingto the chronicle,however, he prefacedhis finalrefusal with the words: " I bow to you, oh Tsar, forGod has givenyou the tsardomnand the glory 1 of this world... 22 He will submithimself to the khan,the " Tsar'" but not to the pagan gods; for this Michael gladly sufferedmartyr- dom. The Pauline note of all powerbeing fromGod and thus legiti- mate was also sounded in the summons of Batu to Grand Prince AlexanderNevski, the defenderand the " sun " of Russia, recordedin the Grand Princely chronicle: " God has subjected to me many tongues. Do you alone wish not to submityourself to my power; yet 19P.S.R.L., XXV, 151,152, 155, 238. 20 " I razgordeesiaokannyi Mami i mnia sia iako tsaria . . . ," P.S.R.L., XXV, 201. 21 See theminiatures of theNikon Chronicle, A. V. Artsikhovskii,Drevnerusskie miniatiurykak istoricheskiiistochnik [Old-Russian Miniatures as a Historical Source] (Moscow,1944), 53, 129,144, 180; fordiscussion of regaliain general,see ibid.,lllf. For representationsof Russian princely caps, see, e.g., icon of SS Boris and Gleb,P. Mouratow,L'Ancienne Peinture Russe (Prague,1925), fig.33. For Russianconception of a crown,see, e.g., the crownof King Solomonin 15th-century frescoin thecathedral of the Assumption in Moscow,ibid., fig. 41; thecrown of the Byzantineemperor in the frescoof 1500-2 in the FerapontMonastery, Istoriia RusskogoIsskustva [History of RussianArt], ed. I. Grabar,A.N. SSSR (Moscow, 1955),III, 511. An interestingideological problem is raisedby a frescoof 1508in the cathedralof the Annunciation,Moscow, showing Grand Prince St. Vladimirin a princelycap, whileIaroslav the Wise is wearinga tsar'scrown, ibid., 545. How closelythe crownwas identifiedwith tsardom can be seenin a miniaturefrom the TsarstvennaiaKniga, 1560-70s,showing the coronationof Ivan IV. The young tsaris shownin theradiate crown, just like the khans and theemperors (ibid., 601). The pointis, of course,that Ivan IV was crownedwith the " Cap of Monomachos" and Russianregalia did not includea radiatecrown. 22P.S.R.L.,XXV, 138.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 466 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY if you wishto preserveyour land, then come to me and witnessthe gloryof my reign (tsarstviia)." 23 As " Tsar " thekhan was theruler ordainedby God and he acquiredthe ideologicalfreight of Christian conceptionsof the ruler. " Fear God and honorthe prince. And whosoeveropposed the ruler will be subjectto Divinejustice, because he opposedthe commandof God " statesa thirteenth-centurytrac- tate; I to attackthe princeis to defyGod, and this sentimentis echoedin one ofthe earliest Russian epics in whichthe epic hero, Ilia Muromets,knows that one is not allowed to, that one cannot actually kill the Tatar " tsar."25 There was a fundamentaldifference, however, between the basileus and the khan. The one was the orthodoxChristian emperor ruling over all men insofaras the world was a Christiansociety; the other was a pagan or, even worse,from the fourteenthcentury on, a Mos- lem infidel. What effectdid this differencehave for the Russian image of the khan? In 1393 patriarchAntonios of Constantinople wrotehis famousletter to Grand Prince Basil I in whichhe outlined the whole doctrineof Byzantineimperial ideology. The occasion for this letterwas the disrespectsupposedly shown by Basil to the patriarch and the emperor; among other things,the patriarch wrote: " people say that you do not allow the metropolitanto mentionthe divine name of the emperorin the diptypchs,that is, you want to do somethingwhich is quite impossibleand you say: 'yes, we have the church,but we have no emperorand do not wish to know him . 28 The letterbelongs properlyto the historyof Russo-Byzantinerela- ions, of Russian ambivalencetowards the imperialidea, and as such does not concernus here. But it raises an interestingquestion: what of the imperialname in the liturgywhile Russia was part of the Tatar state? The sourcesare extremelysparse, but exceptfor the personal missal of the Greek metropolitanCyprian 27 (1374-1406) thereis no mention of the emperorduring the thirteenthand fourteenthcen- turiesin any case.28 If we consider,however, that the liturgyof the 23 P.S.R.L., XXV, 139; thiscorresponds closely with the usual Mongolimperial diplomaticcorrespondence; cf. P. Pelliot,Les Mongolset la Papaut6 (Paris,1923). 24 " Slovo sviatykhOtsov, kako zhitikrestianom " [" The Sayingsof the Holy Fathers,On How Should ChristiansLive "1, ZhurnalMinisterstva Narodnago Prosveshcheniia(1854), no. 12; also see Sreznevskii,op. cit.,307; " IzbornikSviato- slava,"Obshchestvo Liubitelei Drevnei Pismennosti, LV (1880),95-6. For thelegal consequencesof thisview, see " MeriloPravednoe," Arkhiv istoriko-iuridicheskikh svedeniio Rossii [An Archiveof Historico-JuridicalInformation About Russia] I: 3, 33. 25 Jakobson,op. cit.,95. Cf. supra,n. 17. 26Actapatriarchatus, I, 190. 27 Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III: 1, no. 344,p. 14. 28I excludethe 15thcentury here because of the extremedifficulty in dating the MSS. accurately,i.e., in the firstor secondhalves of the century.For the

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Kievan periodfrequently omitted the emperorin the diptychs,Basil's defianceseems to be the floggingof a verydead horse,unless it was in responseto an attemptby the Greekmetropolitan to re-introducethe basileus into the liturgy. Could this long omissionlasting two centuries have been affected,then, by the existenceof the khan? The Russian mediaevalistGrekov gives a verydefinite answer: " The pub- lic prayerof the clergyfor the khans inculcatedin the masses the idea of the necessityof submissionto Tatar power."29 The khan's name does not actually appear in any of the missals and servicebooks, but thereis impressiveevidence to supportGrekov. This evidenceis containedin a numberof iarlyksor chartersgiven by various Tatar khans to the Russian churchin the person of the metropolitanof all Russia.30 The contentsof these chartersare vir- tually identical: all of them are immunitygrants, exempting the metropolitanand the entireclergy with all theirpossessions from all civil duties and taxes. The khans based this immunityon the tradition establishedby the law code of Chingiz-khanhimself,31 and it was grantedagainst the officialsof the khan and against all Russian offi- cials and princes,including the Grand Prince himself.32The Russian churchwas placed underthe immediatejurisdiction of the khan-tsar, retaininga universalrather than a national-territorialcharacter under a rulerof many states and peoples. In returnfor all these privileges the churchhad but one duty-to pray forthe khan: " That theymay pray God in peace . . . and pray to God for Us and Our House (plemiia) fromgeneration to generation."83 And, as if anticipating possible reservations,charter after charter warns: " If any clergyman prayswith mental reservations, he commitsa mortalsin." 34 Even though the service books of the liturgyare silent on this question, it is difficultto escape the conclusionthat in practice the prayerfor the khan did replace the memorialfor the basileus. The fact that this did not enterinto the missalsis comprehensible,consid- diptychs,see Diakonov,op. cit.,24, note 2; Gorskiiand Nevostruev,III; 1, no. 347, p. 29; no. 371, p. 130; no. 431, pp. 555-564,here the word"tsar" is replaced, throughout,by the words" GrandPrince "; no. 350,p. 46 wherethe fifthoffering is forthe " tsars,princes and all laics" but in the remembrancesand prayersonly princesare mentioned.Compare this with Serbian missals of the early15th century,when, under the Turks,Stephan (1389-1427) is calleddespot and tsar (no. 373,p. 154; no. 374,p. 168). 29 Grekovand Iakubovskii,223. The statementdoes go too farin its definitive- nessconsidering the lack of proof. 3OThebest editionis by M. D. Priselkov,Khanskii Iarlyki Russkim Mitro- politam[The Khans' Chartersto RussianM1etropolitans] (Petrograd, 1916). 31 Priselkov,83, 92, 96. 32 larlykof khanTuliak, ibid., 91-2, redaction " a." 33Ibid.,92, 93, et passim. 34Ibid.,58, 97.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 468 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY eringthat the rulerfor whom one prayedwas an infidel,a " godless one." As suchhe couldnot be enteredinto the officialcult, he could notbecome part of the commemoration ofall Christians,but he could, and did,occupy the traditional r81e of the ruler who is fromGod, ap- pointedby God and thereforeprayed for to God. It is notnecessary hereto arguethe need for consistency on thepart of the Russians, nor to imposeon themthe need for a clearchoice between the basileus or the khan. In fact,such a clear-cutchoice would be impossibleand ideologicalastigmatism could and did occur. Whatdid existwas yet anotherkind of tension,an atmospherewhere the imageof the khan overlappedthat of the basileus, vaguely fused with the latter; exactly becauseit did notreplace the latter, the image of the khan could bor- row the attributesof the imageof the basileusand could become identifiedin thepopular and in theofficial mind with it. All thisis to say that,through the encounterof politicalreality and ideological tradition,the khan as " tsar" acquired,in theliturgy as in titulature, theattributes of the universal and uniqueemperor. One morearea withimplications and possibilitiesof image-making remains-thatof numismaticiconography. Russian coinageof the Kievanperiod, patterned on Byzantinemodels, appears to haveceased towardsthe middle of the twelfth century.35 For the next 250 years or so Russianprinces did notmint any coins. The mintingof coinswas resumedsometime between the sixtiesand the eightiesof the fourteenthcentury, in Moscow.36A purelyeconomic cause forthe re- sumptionof coinageis not veryconvincing.37 Of politicalcauses, threeare suggested:desire on thepart of theTatars for another con- creteacknowledgment by the Russiansof Tatar sovereignty;desire on the partof DimitriiDonskoi, the GrandPrince, in the 1360sand 1370sto expressnascent Russian nationalism which culminated with thebattle of Kulikovoin 1380; and (forthose who suggest the 1380s as the startingdate) desireto celebratethe new nationalconscious- ness won on the fieldof Kulikovo.38The evidencewhich we shall

35Oreshnikov,Denezhnye znaki, 76f.; G. B. Fedorov,"Den'gi Moskovskogo Kniazhestvavremeni Dimitriia Donskogo i Vasiliia I " [" Coins of the Moscow PrincipalityDuring the Reignsof DimitriiDonskoi and Basil I "], Materialyi Issledovaniiapo ArkheologiiSSASR, Akademiia Nauk, Moscow,XII (1949), 145 (hereafter referred to as Fedorov). 36 Fedorov,156f.; V. L. Ianin and S. A. Ianina," Nachal'nyiperiod Riazanskoi monetnoichekanki" [" The Beginningof Riazan Coin-Minting"],Numizmatich- eskiiSbornik, Moscow, I (1955), 116f. 37 In orderto be able to pay thetribute. Cf. A. A. Il'in,Klassifikatsia russkikh udel'nykhmonet [The Classificationof RussianAppanage Coins] (M.L., 1940),32, in Fedorov,157. The Russians,however, had beenpaying tribute for over a cen- turyby thistime. 38 For theliterature on thisproblem, see Fedorov,158-9, Ianin, op. cit.,121f.

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now examineappears to supportthe firstof the politicalcauses. Briefly,Russian coinage from the reign of DimitriiDonskoi till 1480, theformal end of the Tatar Yoke, falls into two periods: the first con- sistingof the reigns of Dimitrii, Vasilii I, and theearly years of Vasilii II; 39 and the second,of about50 years,made up of the greaterpart of VasiliiII's reignand of the firsttwenty years of Ivan III's. The coinageof thefirst period shows a consistentpattern: on the obverse of the coinsis the name of the reigningGrand Prince and one of a limitednumber of symbols,usually animals or birds;on the reverse thereis, in Arabic,the nameof thereigning khan, sometimes accom- paniedby the slogan: " May he live long"; sometimesby a profiled head whichwas, in all probability,a portraitof the khan.40Only infrequently,on thecoins of this first period is therefound, on thereverse,an inscriptionwhich is justa scribbledesigned to imitateArabic lettering-atbest an attemptto copyArabic by someonewho did not know the language.41The second period presentsus with coins on whichthe meaninglesscopy of an Arabicinscription is the rule ratherthan the exception; 42 in addition,a numberof coins of Basil II carry,on the reverse,instead of the nameof the khanin Arabic,the inscriptionin Russian: " GrandPrince Vasilii of all Russia."43 What significancecan be attachedto the evidenceof Russian coins? In 1383,at thebeginning of the greatstruggle between Tam- erlane and the ruler of the Golden Horde of the Tatars, Khan Tokhtamysh,one of Tamerlane'sgrievances was theminting of coins withTokhtamysh's name in Khwarezmwhich Tamerlane considered to be partof his own empire.44 In 1399,during the course of negotia- tionsbetween the Golden Horde (led byprince Edigei) and Lithuania (under Grand PrinceVitovt), the Russian chronicletells us that " . Vitovt desired that in all the Horde, there should be on the moneyof the Hordehis mark,his sign (or image),"while Edigei de- mandedthat: "In all yourprincipality, on yourLithuanian coins thereshould be myHorde mark." 4 Thereis littledoubt then, that theTatars, the Lithuanians, and, considering the origin of thechron- icle,the Russians,recognized the inscriptionof a ruler'sname on a

39This periodizationis suggestednot onlyby the greatchanges in the political situationin the 1430s,which are mentionedbelow, but also by the virtualimpossi- bilityof distinguishingbetween most coins of Basil I and Basil IL. The dating suggestedis based on the premisethat there is a regularpattern of diminutionof weightof the coinsthroughout the reignsof Basils I and II. 40 Monety,nos. 320, 321, 367, 329, 749, 327; Fedorov,pl. 1, 16; pl. 2, 23, 27, 28. 41 Monety,nos. 32a, 336; Fedorov,pl. 2, 21. 42Monety, nos. 374,375-8, 383. 43Fedorov,pl. 2, 19, 22. 44Vernadsky,269. 45The NikonChronicle, P.S.R.L., XI, 173.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 470 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY coin as a signof sovereignty.46The existenceof the coinswith the distortedArabic inscription has givenrise to theargument that it was placed on the coinsfor purely economic reasons, in orderto present Orientalmerchants with familiar looking objects. The argumentfor " familiarity,"however, does not really negate the political content of thecoinage. It is clearthat the name of the Khan on theearly Rus- sian coinagesignified his sovereigntyover Russia. With the civil warof the 1430sand 1440sin Moscow,nationalist, anti-Tatar slogans beganto be used; 47 this,at thesame time that Tatar powerdeclined perceptibly.Coupled with the declineof Byzantineprestige and in- fluencedue to the Unionof Florenceand the finalityof 1453,this situationled to an ever-greaterdisregard for the khan's privileges and to attemptsto indicatea newand independentstatus on the coinsof Basil II and Ivan III. That thiswas thepattern of Russianthought during the century and yet that the coinssymbolized the sovereigntyof the khan was mostclearly expressed after 1480. Afterthis formal liberation from the Tatar Yoke by Ivan III a new cointype appeared in Muscovite Russia. The coinscan actuallybe dated ratheraccurately and re- markablyfrom 1480, i.e., from the very same year of theliberation.48 On the obversethey display a crownedhorseman, spearing a dragon or a snake,with the inscription-"Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich"; on thereverse, in Arabic,is thename " Iban,"with a Russianinscrip- tion aroundit-" Sovereignof all Russia."49 The iconographyof thesestriking coins has beeninterpreted in termsof requirementsof easterntrade with Kazan and otherTatar states, the need for familiar lookingcoins; as withthe imitation Arabic coins, this is irrelevantfor our argument.What is relevantis the implicitrecognition of coin- iconographyas symbolof sovereignty,and the explicitpronounce- mentnot so muchof the independenceof the RussianGrand Prince fromthe khan, as thereplacement of the khan by the Grand Prince of all Russia.

46 It is interestingto notethat this acknowledgment of sovereignty is not found on theRussian Grand Princely seals. I wouldargue that this was becausethe seals were personalones, not state seals, and perhapsdeliberately so. The Grand Princelyseals up to the timeof Ivan III werepersonal in the sensethat each had on it theimage of thepersonal saint of the prince. Ivan III introduceda newseal, witha statesymbol of the double-headed eagle, only after the liberation from Tatar sovereignty(cf. Gramoty,567f.). 47P.S.R.L. VI, 172f.; XXV, 263f.; cf. N. M. Karamsin,Istoriia Godudarstva Rossiiskogo[History of theRussian State] (St. Petersburg,1892), V, 160f. 48Fedorov, " MoskovskieDen'gi Ivana III i VasiliiaIII " [" MoscoviteCoins of Ivan III and Basil III "], KratkieSoobshcheniia, I.I.ME., XXX (1949), 71-2. 49Ibid., 72. Monety,no. 495.

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One finalconsideration remains. The sourcesindicate quite clearly thatthe consent of thekhan and theparticipation of his representa- tive were necessaryand customaryfor the coronationof Russian GrandPrinces during the Tatar period.50Thus, part of the ritual in- volvedthe formal and ceremonialrecognition of thesuzerainty of the khan. Moreover,the testament (1339) ofthe founder of the Moscow dynasty,Ivan I Kalita,mentions for the first time the " goldencap" which,from the earlysixteenth century on becameknown as the cap of Monomachos.5"The consensusof scholarlyopinions seems to be thatthe cap or crownof Monomachosis not of Byzantineorigin but is CentralAsiatic, perhaps a giftfrom khan Uzbek to GrandPrince Ivan 1.52 What becamewith the centuriesthe main regaliaof the Russianstate was originally,in thiscase, an expressionof the sov- ereignposition of the Tatar khan. My purposehas notbeen to documentthe obvious-that for over twocenturies the Tatar GoldenHorde and its rulerexercised more or less effectivepolitical control over Russia. The evidenceI have ad- duced presupposesthe politicalrealities of the Tatar Yoke. The GrandPrince of Moscowhad to be crownedwith the participation of the Tatar envoy,no matterwhat the Russianideological rationale may have been. The churchnecessarily depended on the supreme politicalpower for its rightsand possessions,and, in the realmof politicalrealities was so muchaware of this,that as late as 1500it usedthe khan's iarlyks in orderto defenditself against the expropria- tions of the Russian ruler.53No matterwhat Russian ideologists wouldhave liked to think,the image of the Russian prince was limited by thepolitical situation, by theneed to pay tributeand acknowledge suzerainty.My presentpurpose, rather, is to demonstratethe consequencesof the politicalrealities in the realmof ideas. What these

50 TroitskaiaLetopis' [The TrinityChronicle], ed. M. D. Priselkov,Akademiia Nauk (1950), 434; P.S.R.L., V, 264; P.S.R.L., XXV, 211. Moreover,with the deathof the reigningkhan, a newconfirmation was necessaryfor the Russian prince (P.S.R.L., XXV, 181); see descriptionof miniatureshowing the coronationof Basil I, Artsikhovskii,op. cit.,130. 51Gramoty, 8. 552Forthe Byzantine origin of the cap, see Kondakov,Russkie Klady, I, 7Sf.; for the oppositeview, see Vernadsky,386, and the summaryof the literatureon the problemby K. V. Basilevich," ImushchestvoMoskovskikh kniazei v XIV-XVIvv" [" The Propertyof the MoscowPrinces During the 14th-16thCenturies "], Trudy GosudarstvennogqoIstoricheskogo Muzeia (Moscow,1926), III, 20-21. 53Cf. A. S. Pavlov," Istoricheskiiocherk sekuliarizatsii tserkovnykh zemel' v Rossii" [" A HistoricalSketch of the Secularizationof ChurchLands in Russia"], ZapiskiImp. NovorossiiskogoUniversiteta, VII (1871), 41f.; V. Zhmakin,Mitro- politDaniil i ego Sochineniia[The MetropolitanDaniel and his Writings](Mos- cow,1881), 196f.

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consequenceswere during the Tatar Yoke itself,has beenshown: the imageof the Tatar khanas tsar,replacing or mergingwith the image of the basileusin respectto the prerogatives-coronation,liturgy, titulature,iconography. With the fall of Constantinoplethe Russian rulerbegins to emergeas the Christiantsar, in the image of the basileus. Whatdid theimage of theTatar khansignify for the Rus- sianGrand Prince and tsarafter 1480, after the lifting of the Yoke? That the khan'simage could not be dismissedcasually, that the politicalrealities created a strongtradition of Tatar sovereignty,54 can be seenfrom a ratherdramatic piece of evidence:the immediatere- actionof Ivan III, in 1480,to the invasionof khanAkhmet was ap- parentlya desireto abandonMoscow and retirewith his familyand treasureto thenorth. To forestallthis, to inducethe Grand Prince to fight,archbishop Vassian of Rostov wrote his famous" Epistleto the Ugra [River] ." The letterbegins: " To the pious and Christ-loving, noble and God-crowned,confirmed by God, in pietyshining to the ends of the universe,certainly the most gloriousamong tsars, the GloriousSovereign Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich.... 155 Suchis the imageof the Russianruler that Vassian tries to create;it is in this r'le ofa God-crownedtsar, a basileus,that Ivan III oughtto facethe enemiesof his stateand faith. The GrandPrince is the shepherdof the flockof Christ,and the archbishoppoints out the responsibility assumedby past leadersof theflock, the great Grand Princes of Rus- sia who foughtfor the Christianpeople. He triesto anticipateany possiblearguments on the partof the advisersof Ivan III: " And if somewill argue that you are underthe oath of yourancestors not to raiseyour hand againstthe tsar; listenGod-loving tsar! If an oath is made becauseof necessity,we are allowedto forgivethe breaking of it and to bless forit, the metropolitanand we, the wholeGod- lovingsynod, [the oath being] not to a tsarbut to a brigandand sav- age andfighter against God.... Andwho of the prophets of the proph- ecies or who of the apostlesor saintshave taughtyou to obeythis God-shamedand mostevil so-called tsar, you, the great Christian tsar of the Russianlands? " " The archbishopis tryinghere to destroy the imageof thekhan-tsar by raisingthe imageof the tsar-basileus; onlyone tsaris possible,the orthodox Christian one, and theother is an impostor.Yet in orderto fightthis impostor it is necessary,Vas-

54Cf.D. Likhachev," K voprosuo teoriiRusskogo gosudarstva v kontseXV i v XVI vv." [" On theProblem of theTheory of the RussianState at theEnd of the 15th and Duringthe 16th Centuries"], IstoricheskiiZhurnal, 1944, no. 7-8, pp. 31-39. This traditionaccounted, in part,for the late date of theofficial liberation consideringthe declineof Tatar power. 55P.S.R.L., VI, 225. 56Ibid., 228.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KHAN OR BASILEUS 473 sian felt,to raise the Grand Prince to the role of tsar himself. What Vassian was tryingto do was to solve an ideologicalproblem. Ivan III's reluctanceto face the khan in battle was caused by political and militaryfears, not by his awe beforehis sovereign. Yet, politically and militarily,the Tatars remaineda most seriousdanger for Russia not only duringthe 15th but also duringthe 16th century.57Vas- sian's problem,the ideological problem,was not just to defeat the Tatars in battle-it was to destroythe imnageof the khan as tsar. The fall of Constantinople,by making available, suddenly and immediately, a whole new world of the " Byzantine heritage" for Russian political theology,forced the issue and, at the same time,provided a solution: the basileus versusthe khan. That thissolution was at least partiallyadopted, can be seen in the case of the cap of Monomachos. The fourteenth-centuryTatar crown was drawn into the legend of Russia's Byzantineheritage in the earlysixteenth century; 58 in accord- ance with the Vassian solution,with the birth of the Russian tsar- basileus,the Tatar periodshould come to an end,the continuityshould be broken. The thesis that the continuitywas not brokenwas the great con- tributionof the " Eurasian " schoolof Russian historiansin the 1920s, and particularlyof the distinguishedmediaevalist, Professor George Vernadsky. But if Russia became heir to the empire of Chingiz Khan,59it remainsto be seen in what sense this was true. What does seem clear is that, forRussians of the sixteenthcentury, the title of " tsar" was firmlyconnected with the image of the khan; more so than with that of the basileus. A Russian diplomaticnote of 1556 to Poland and Lithuania justifiedIvan IV's title not only throughthe Byzantine heritage but also throughhis possession of Kazan and Astrakhan,and " the throneof Kazan and Astrakhanhas been a tsar's see fromtheir origins."60 The seventeenth-centurywriter Gregory

57Cf. K. V. Basilevich, VneshniiaPolitika Russkogo Tsentralizovannogo Gosudarstva[The ForeignPolicy of the Russian CentralizedState] (Moscow, 1952),36ff. 58BaronS. Herberstein,Zapiski o moskovitskikhdelakh [Memoirs of Musco- viteAffairs], A. I. Malein,trans. (St. Petersburg,1908), p. 32, citedin Vernadsky, 386. 59I. R. (prince E. Trubetskoi)Nasledie Chingiskhana[The Heritage of ChenghisKhan] (Berlin,1925), 27f. et passim. 0 SbornikRukkkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva, LIX, 437; 452. For a most strikingillustration of this,see Ivan's letterto the patriarchof Constantinoplein 1557,asking for confirmation of his imperialcoronation and statuson the part of the Greek orthodoxpatriarchate and clergy,Sobornaia gramota dukhovenstva Pravoslavnoivostochnoi tserkvi [The SynodalLetter of theClergy of theOrthodox EasternChurch], ed. M. Obolensky(Moscow, 1850), 32-33.

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Kotoshikhinexplained that: " GrandPrince Ivan Vasilievichof Mos- cow,the Proud... wentto war againstthe tsardomsof Kazan and Astrakhanand Siberia; and withGod's willhe capturedthe tsarsof these tsardoms,together with theirstates and lands.... And from thattime on he becameGrand Prince over the Moscow State and over the conqueredtsardoms and overformer principalities, [he became] tsarand GrandPrince Ivan Vasilievichof all Russia,in thisway did tsardomoriginate in Russia."61 The titulatureof the Russiantsar confirmedthe special role of the Tatar successor states: " GreatSover- eign,Tsar and GrandPrince of all Russia,of Vladimir,of Moscow, of Novgorod,Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan,Sovereign of Pskov, GrandPrince of Smolensk,Tver .. 62 It is significantthat the coronationof Ivan IV as tsartook place shortlybefore his campaign againstKazan, in 1547,and whileKazan had been fought,defeated and controlledalready by Ivan III and VasiliiIII, Ivan IV had him- selfcrowned tsar before setting out on a campaignnot just to defeat but to conquerKazan, the firsttsardom to belongto the Russian state. DuringIvan IV's reign,Tatar Chingizideprinces retain a par- ticularlyhigh status,03 and therecognition of the very high ranking of Chingizideblood remained alive at theRussian court throughout the nineteenthcentury.' ProfessorVernadsky ends his monumentalwork with the state- mentthat autocracy was partof theprice Russia had to pay forsur- vival underthe Tatars and in the periodimmediately following.65 Autocracyas such,however, is nota veryrigid or definite form of gov- ernment.The autocracyof the basileuswas, afterall, rule under Law, therule of theChristian emperor. Russian autocracy was most clearlyexpressed by what was in effect,Basil III's beliefabout his subjects: " All are slaves(Vse kholopy)." 86 If thisdoes not derive from

61 G. Kotoshikhin,0 Rossiiv tsarstvovanieAlekseia Mikhailovicha [On Russia in theReign of Alexis Mikhailovich] (St. Petersburg,1884), 1; cf.Vernadsky, 387. 62PamiatnikiDiplomaticheskikh Snoshenii, I, 500-1. 63 See, forexample, the descriptionof a banquetat the courtof Ivan IV, in 1557, by the Englishmerchant Anthony Jenkinson. Jenkinson wrote that the highestplace nextto the Terribletsar was occupiedby the ten-year-oldcaptive heirto thethrone of Kazan' (Izvestiiaanglichan 0 Rossiivo vtoroipolovine XVIv [EnglishMemoirs on Russia in the SecondHalf of the 16th Century],ed. and trans.S. M. Seredonin,Chteniia, 1884: 4, p. 32). Also see analysisof Gosudarev Rodoslovetsof 1555in N. P. Likhachev,Razriadnye d'iaki XVI veka [The Clerks of theRazriad in the 16thCentury] (St. Petersburg,1888), 415-6 et passim. 64See PrinceP. Dolgorukov,Rossiiskaia Rodoslovnaia Kniga [The Book ofRus- sian Genealogy](St. Petersburg,1857), vol. I, forthe numerousCentral Asiatic families,such as theprinces Chingiz, who received from the emperorNicholas I the statusof imperialprinces. 65 Verinadsky,290. 66 Cf. Herberstein,op. cit.,74.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KHAN OR BASILEUS 475 the imageof the basileus,it may well derivefrom the imageof the khan. Psychologically,the exaltationof one's own conqueroris quite understandable.67If Russia was to be subject,let herbe subjectto a greatruler, a legitimatetsar. The consequenceof this,of course,is the exaltationof the Russianprince who could successfullyoppose thetsar. This noteis alreadyquite clear after the victory of Dimitrii Donskoiat Kulikovoin 1380. Contrastedwith the powerand glory of the Tatarsis the powerand gloryof the leaderof all Russia,who in realitywas onlythe GrandPrince of Moscow.68This note,too, is soundedand proclaimedin 1480by the new coinage of Ivan III where the name" Ivan " replacesthe name of thekhan. Whattakes place is not so muchthe liberationof Russia as a changeof dynasty,the conquestof Russia from its formerlegitimate ruler by thenew legitimatetsar, the GrandPrince of Moscow. The Arabic" Ivan " on the coin may have been addressed,for economic reasons, to the eastern subjectsof theHorde; but to them,or to theRussians, it also meant that in additionto the RussianGrand Prince on the obversethere was a newkhan, still, traditionally, on thereverse side. I am notprepared, of course,to arguethat ideas determinemate- rialconditions and reality;but evoked by thoseconditions, ideas have a logicand lifeof their own and carrytheir consequences into reality. That the idea of conquest,of the Russianruler as the khanexisted, implicitlyat least,is suggestedby theslogan of Basil III's timemen- tionedabove. It was made quite explicitby Ivan IV the Terrible, whenofficial mythology departed from the traditionalKievan origin, fromthe emphasison St. Vladimir,and createdthe fantastic descent of theRussian rulers from Prus, the brother of Augustus.69Ivan IV himselfpointedly disclaimed any Russianblood in his veins.70It is doubtfulwhether the conquestidea expressedthrough the Roman descentever gained much currency. The imageof the khanin that context,however, did receivean expression,both sickly and fantastic thoughit was,when Ivan IV " abandoned" thestate, divided Russia intotwo parts, taking one himself under a guiseof great humility, and givingthe other,the greaterand traditionalpart a ruler,a Grand 67 For themost vivid expression of this phenomenon one has onlyto thinkof the Englishattitude towards William the Conqueror. 68 Cf. A. V. Soloviev," Avtor' Zadonshchiny' i ego politicheskieideii " [" The Authorof the' Zadonshchina' and his PoliticalIdeas "], T.O.D.R.L.,XIV, 196f. 69Skazanie o kniaziakhvladimirskikh [The Tale Aboutthe Princes of Vladimir], ed. R. P. Dmitrieva,ANSSR, (M.-L., 1955), 162f. 70See, for example,Giles Fletcher,0 GosudarstveRusskom [Of the Russian Commonwealth],trans. 0. M. Bodianskii(St. Petersburg,1905), 19.

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:20:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 476 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY Prince,in the personof a Tatar tsarevichfrom Kasimov, Simeon.7 The ironywas notin thedivision, or in theuse of a Tatar prince,but in the reversalof roles. For it was the traditional,orthodox Chris- tian Russia that got the Chingizideprince, and the new absolutist secularRussia that got the God-crownedtsar. Speculationson the Asiatic-barbaricelement in Russianhistory have beeninnumerable in the courseof the last two centuries,yet I shouldlike to add one more. Barbarism,of course,is not the issue; Westernhistory has shownsufficiently that barbarism can be attained withoutan Asiaticimage or myth. If theimage of the basileus stood forthe orthodoxand piousruler, leading his Christianpeople toward salvation,then the imageof thekhan, perhaps, was preservedin the idea ofthe Russian ruler as theconqueror of Russia and ofits people, responsibleto no one. If the basileussignified the holy tsar,the " mostgentle " (tishaishii)tsar in spiritualunion with his flock,then thekhan, perhaps, stood for the absolutist secularized state, arbitrary throughits separationfrom the subjects.72 The twoimages were not reallysynthesized; both existedseparately, if in a state of tension whichthe first Russian Tsar, Ivan IV, exemplifiedso tragically:kill- ingby day and prayingby night. WesleyanUniversity.

71On thedivision of Russiainto the Oprichnina of Ivan IV and theZemshchina and its meaning,see V. 0. Kliuchevsky,Kurs RusskoiIstorri [Lectures on Russian History](Moscow, 1937), II, 199f.and his BoiarskaiaDuma [The BoyarCouncil] (Moscow,1883), 334f. 72 Carryingthis speculation further, one might argue that the ideal of the orthodox rulerof theorthodox people was theone retainedby themasses (cf. my study " Holy Russia: A Studyin theHistory of an Idea," AmericanHist. Review,LXIII [1958], no. 3, 617-637),while the governmentof imperialRussia reliedupon the practiceof the conqueringkhan.

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