Ivan IV consults his elite subjects

Abstract

The relationship of the ruler to his advisors was a central issue of sixteenth-century Muscovite political theory. This article explores how narrative sources presented the ideal paradigm of the ruler consulting his subjects to Ivan in practice by analyzing passages containing forms of the verb sovetovati (to advise, to consult with) pertaining to Ivan. Such references did not occur uniformly throughout Ivan’s reign. Two brief clusters, a smaller one when Grand Princess Elena exercised authority, and a much denser one dealing with the eventual conquest of Kazan’, were each followed by periods of only erratic and scattered references. This disparity cannot be explained by any hostility during Ivan’s maturity on the part of the compilers of narrative accounts, because those narratives, although they did not regurgitate every earlier usage of the concept, did not rewrite the past consistently to erase previous references. This chronological disparity in references to consultation cannot be attributed to content. Overall the chronicles did not lack for opportunities to allude to consultation. Though foreign policy decisions dealing with Lithuania and Kazan’ dominate passages from narrative sources before 1554 that invoke consultation, Muscovite history still was not lacking in foreign policy resolved in a consultative manner between 1538 and 1549 or 1552 and 1567. Although it is tempting to see the apparent attrition of references to Ivan’s consultations with the elite after 1552 to Ivan’s growing ‘autocratic’ pretensions to rule without interference by his elite, such a line of reasoning cannot explain the comparable ‘decline’ of references to consultation between 1538 and 1549. Therefore proposing a rational explanation for the pattern of allusions to Ivan’s consultation with the elite would be premature. Refs 19.