What Did Russians Mean When They Called Themselves “Slaves of the Tsar”?

Abstract

The Germans criticize the fact that here people of all ranks call themselves the “sovereign's slaves.” But they do not consider that among diem people call themselves “vassals,” and this word is not Latin, but German, and means “orphan,” and so all Germans once called themselves in their language. Similarly, the tide “knecht” was once dignified, and even today Scotsmen call their dignified cavaliers “knechts,” diat is, “slaves.“ —Iurii Krizhanich, Politika , 1663-66 The analysis of ritual plays an important role in efforts to reconstruct medieval mentalities. Often mute and always cryptic, medieval cultures rarely provide historians widi the rich programmatic texts that facilitate the study of political ideas. In response to this relative dearth of treatises and manifestoes, scholars have turned to various forms of symbolic behavior for clues concerning the character of the medieval mind. Students of Muscovy are certainly no exception. Recognizing that Old Russia was particularly “silent” (as George Florovsky put it), historians of late have turned their attention to the iconography of Russian life in an attempt to divine the nature of Muscovite ideology, and particularly political ideology.