34 directly with the dignity of boiare. Of the twenty-three families that formed the highest boiar stratum in the Duma, eighteen (78 °/o) held princely status, while the other five were old Muscovite boiar families. Although, during the seventeenth century, representatives of families other than those of the high nobility made their way into the Duma through the favor of the tsar or through ties with his family, the aristocratic families retained their leading positions in the Duma throughout the period. The membership of the Duma was not fixed at a certain number and varied a great deal over time. Over the course of the seventeenth century, the number of dumnye dvoriane coming fromthe common service nobility increased; in 1678—79, for example, the Duma had ninety-seven members, of whomforty-two held the rank of boiar, twenty-seven that of okoVnichii, nineteen that of dumnyi dvorianin, and nine that of dumnyi d'iak.^ The privileged position in the state apparatus enjoyed by the Muscovite service elite, which in addition to the dumnye chiny also included a lower group of so-called moskovskie chiny (the upper service class) consisting of those holding the ranks of stoVnik, striapchii, moskovskii dvorianin, and zhilets, was protected against inroads by other groups through a complicated system of ranks, the so-called mestnichestvo, according to which a person’s position {mesto) in the service hiearchy was determined by his birth (rodoslovnosd), his service position {chinovnosf), and his and his ancestors’ service careers {razriadnost'). When the tsar made an appointment, therefore, he had to consider both the rank relationships among the different families and the internal rank relationships among members of each individual family.^ In political terms, the Duma represented the interests of the Russian magnates more than those of any other group. Whatever changes its membership and areas of competence underwent, the Duma basically remained an assembly of great landowners and serfowners during the seventeenth century. In 1678—79, eighty-eight of its ninety-seven members together owned somewhat more than forty-five thousand peasant households. By way of comparison, the crown estates {dvortsovye zemli) which the tsar had at his disposal numbered some eighty-eight thousand peasant households at this time.^ The landholdings of the magnates consisted primarily of votchiny, or hereditary estates, which could be sold or mortgaged * Bazilevich et al., 348—350. S. O. Shmidt, “Mestnichestvo I absoliutizm,” in N. M. Druzhinin et al., eds., Absoliutizm v Rossii {XVII—XVIII v.). Sbornik statei k 70-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia i 40-letiiu nauchnoi i pedagogicheskoi deiatel’nosti B. B. Kafengauza (Moscow, 1964), 172—173, and Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (London, 1974), 97. ® A. A. Novosel’skii, “Rospis’ krest’ianskikh dvorov, nakhodivshikhsia vo vladenii vysshego dukhovenstva, monastyrei I dumnykh liudei po perepisnym knigam 1678 g.," Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 4 (1949), 88.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=