Community Tradition in Pre-Romanov Russia

Abstract

The understanding of the basic laws of the political history of Russia will be obviously incomplete without a scientific understanding of the role of the community (agricultural, rural, peasant) in the development of national statehood at each appropriate stage. The unity and continuity of the national history up to and including the Soviet period was ensured by the reproduction of the community in its various concrete historical forms. The way out of the most significant points of bifurcation in the history of Russia is inextricably linked with the communal tradition: the revival of the national statehood both after the overthrow of the Horde yoke, and during the overcoming of the Troubles of the beginning of the XVII century. The article is devoted to the consideration of community tradition as a long-term factor in the history of national statehood. The markers of the civilizational specificity of Russia associated with the community (attitude to private property, neighborly character) are emphasized. The view of the politogenesis of the Eastern Slavs and the statehood of the lands of pre-Mongol Russia as the formation and development of a system of subordinate communities is consistently substantiated. The inclusion of the estate self-government of the tyagly posadsky and volost worlds in the system of state administration of Moscow Russia as a grassroots administration is revealed.

Keywords

• communal tradition
• communal self-government
• peasant community
• territorialneighboring and blood-related communities
• volost and village worlds
• politogenesis
• system of subordinate communities (“land”)
• public administration system