0 published how old

8/12/2019 0 Published How Old

1/23

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI ./-

Russian History 40 (2013) 428450 brill.com/ruhi

How Old Magic Does the Trick for Modern Politics

Claudio Sergio Nun-IngeromCNRS, Paris and Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Buenos Aires

[email protected]

Abstract

This article attempts to interpret the insurrection led by Razin in the seventeenth century as

the beginning of modern politics, because it was founded on the immanence of the social in

contrast to the transcendent conceptions of power maintained by the court and church.

This advance was made possible by the working of magic. Through performative speech,

magic permitted the creation of a verbal presence for the non-existent tsarevich Alexis, who,

however, was never given material form. In keeping the self-appointed heir invisible and by

declaring his fathers rule illegitimate, the rebels reduced the role of the tsar to a pure signi-

er. The proof that this uprising represented a turn toward modern politics is that it did not

rely upon the invocation of an intangible philosophical or spiritual ideal (as in the West); itwas built instead upon an armed people, expressing itself in a language that was still archaic

but already oriented toward a new representation of power as socially legitimatized. This

analysis opens an important line of argument that has power beyond this specic case.

Keywords

Razin Rebellion; self-appointment; Invisible tsarevich; magic; political expression; modern

political formation; immanence

No empty place is ever sacred.

(Variations on a Russian theme.)

I. The Topic

In the last few years, the historiographical renewal in the study of magic,including its relationship with religion and politics in Russia, has beenremarkable. Magic has been studied from many perspectives, including as

Valerie Kivelson, Patrolling the Boundaries: Witchcraft Accusations and Household

Strife in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, XIX (1995): 302-323;


2/23

C.S. Nun-Ingerlom / Russian History 40 (2013) 428450 429

a means for revealing collective representations of power and as a politicalweapon used, for instance, by individuals against the tsars. It will be consid-

ered here as a vehicle productive of political innovation, during the insur-rection led by Stepan Razin.

In August 1670, Razin asserts that Tsarevich Aleksei, the death of whomhad been announced months earlier by the court, had in fact joined theinsurrection, sent by his father to help the Cossacks in their ght againstthe traitors to the crown. It is unclear whether somebody acted as the falseTsarevich because, strangely enough, he was never publicly exposed.Researchers have expressed their inability to grasp this mystery. Yet, if onetries to elucidate this question, sources lead towards magic, which wascollectively practiced by the rebels. Hence the question the followingpages will try to answer: what was thefunctionof this massive recourse tomagic?

II. Mainstream Interpretations

Without any pretense to being exhaustive, I will recall some of the most

widespread theses advanced by previous scholarship, in order to better sit-uate my argument.

1. According to Martin Malia, this peasant uprising negates thestate. For Paul Avrich, it was an outright revolt against the state.

Ibid., Political Sorcery in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy, ed. A. M. Kleimola, G. D. Lenhof,

Culture and Identity in Muscovy 1359-1584(Moscow: ITZ-Garant, 1997); Ibid.., Male Witches

and gendered Categories in Seventeenth-Century Russia, Comparative Studies in Society

and History45, no. 3 (2003): 606-631; William F. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight. An histori-

cal survey of magic and divination in Russia, (Stroud: Sutton, 1999); A.S. Lavrov,Koldovstvo i

religiia v Rossii, 1700-1740 gg. (Moscow: Drevnekhranilishche, 2000); E.B. Smiliianskaia,

Volshebniki, Vogokhulniki, Eretiki. Narodnaia religioznost i dukhovnye prestupleniia v Rossii

XVIII veka(Moscow: Indrik, 2003).

K. V. Chistov,Russkie narodnye socialno-utopicheskie legendy(Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 84.

E. V. Chistiakova, V.M.Solovev, Stepan Razin i ego soratniki(Moscow: Mysl, 1988), 54-55.

Martin Malia, La Tragdie sovitique. Histoire du socialisme en Russie 1917 1991 (Paris:

Seuil, 1995): 98. For a critique of this formulation, see Michael Khodarkovsky, The Stepan

Razin Uprising. Was It a Peasant War?Jahrbcher fr Geschichte Osteuropas, 42 (1994): 119.

Martin Malia, Comprendre la Rvolution russe, (Paris: Seuil, 1980): 43.

Paul Avrich, Russian Rebels, 1600 1800, 2 ed., (New York: W. W. Norton and Company,

1976): 116.


3/23

430 C.S. Nun-Ingerlom / Russian History 40 (2013) 428450

By conating the modern concept (state) the elaboration of whichstarts with Hobbes and materializes institutionally with the French

Revolution and the older word.State, which is used to convey theconcept, these authors apply a modern juridical category to an earlierform of government and endow the rebels with intentions that theycould not have had. It is enough to consider the meaning of against thestate (protiv gosudarstva) in the language of the seventeenth century tounderstand the extent to which the expression against the state is atthe same time anachronistic and impossible to translate in the contextof Razins Muscovy.

Reinhart Koselleck, III. Staat im Zeitalter revolutionrer Bewegung, in Staat und

Souvernitt, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, Reinhart Koselleck, Geschichtliche

Grundbegrife. Historisches Lexicon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. VI,

(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990); Quentin Skinner From the state of princes to the person of

state, in, Idem, Visions of Politics, vol. 2: Renaissance Virtues, (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2002); Sandro Chignola, Giuseppe Duso, Storia dei Concetti e Filosoa

Politica, (Milan: Franco Angelli, 2008).

Let us remember that until the 17th centurygosudarstvo the rst form of which was

gospodarstvo was used rst and foremost in two ways: the dignity of the gosudar(domi-

nus,Master), rst the grand prince and later the tsar, and the lands that belonged to him. It

follows the model of the Polish panstwowhich copied the Latin words dominumand domi-

natio, Zoltan Andrs, Fejezetek az orosz skkincs trtnetbl, (Budapest, 1987): 14-50. The

word gosudarstvo was understood at the time as the sovereigns property (gosudarskaia

votchina), see A. I. Zaozerskii, Tsarskaia votchina XVII veka, (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi

sotsialno-ekonomicheskoe izdatelstvo, 1937 [1 ed., 1917]): 43). It also denoted the power of

the gosudarover that which belonged to him, hence its meaning of government (pravle-

nie) and possessions of the gosudar, over all the land and those living on it. During the

Times of Trouble, when there was no stable gosudar, gosudarstvo also designated the

population of a certain territory;Slovar russkogo iazyka XVIII veka

, v. 4: 135; v. 5: 198-9;

Etimologicheskii slovar russkogo iazyka, ed. N. M. Shanskii (Moscow: MGU, 1968), v. 3: 196;

A.V. Tolstikov, Predstavleniia o Gosudare i Gosudarstve v Rossii vtoroi poloviny XVI

pervoi poloviny XVII veka, Odissei, (Moscow: Nauka, 2002): 295-6. Gosudarstvocould also

signify the throne: M.M., Rozhdenie gosudarstva: iz istorii moskovskogo politich-

eskogo diskursa XVI veka, inIstoricheskie poniatiia i politicheskie idei v Rossii XVI XX veka,

ed. N.Koposov, St Petersburg: Aleteia, 2006): 60-1. The rst meaning of gosudarstvo, in the

general sense, was empire or kingdom (tsarstvo). Gosudarstvowas also understood as coun-

try (strana) but also a part of the country, a particular region, a province of the Russian

Empire, For example, it was common to say in thegosudarstvoof Siberia:Pisma i bumagi

imperatora Petra Velikogo, ed. B. B. Kafengauz, 9 vols, (Moscow: Gosudarstvennaia TipograiaSankt Peterbourg, 1887-1952), v.9/1: 291. See also: Bog dal nam na vse gosudarstva

Rossiiskogo tsarstviia gosudarem, tsarem i velikim kniazem vseia Rusii, Gramota

announcing the election of Mikhail Romanov, in Irina V. Pozdeeva, Pervye Romanovy i


4/23


2. For Malia, this movement is purely destructive, purely negative, itproves to be incapable to create anything. According to Avrich, Razin

was resisting the modernization and secularization of Russian life; hisprogram was essentially destructive. He argues that it was a conictbetween growth of the state on the one hand, and a reluctant peoplewho remained deeply conservative and steadfast in their resistance tochange on the other. Yet, in contradictory fashion, Avrich adds to hisargument about Russian revolts in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies that despite their traditionalist framework and backward look-ing orientation, in their determination to sweep away the existing orderthey were profoundly revolutionary.

3. Ethnologists have undertaken the study of the magic component thathas been largely ignored by historians in their interpretation of theinsurrection. The latter tend to consider magic as superuous, as part ofthe backward-looking orientation they ascribe to the Razin revolt. Thus,Philip Longworth reviews the magical powers attributed to Razinwhile Avrich recalls that Razin was regarded as a sorcerer and that heoperated by magic. He concludes that these legends gave rise in turnto the legend of his immortality. But Avrich brings up magical thought

only in order to argue that it awakened, however dimly, the social

tsaristskaia ideia (XVII vek), Voprosy istorii, 1, (1996): 48. Other examples can be also found

inPolnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii. Sobranie pervoe s 1649 po 12 dekabria 1825g., 45

vols, (St Petersburg: Tipograia II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoi Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva

Kantseliarii, 1830), v. 1, no.114: 308 and in Viktor M. Zhivov, Iz tserkovnoi istorii vremen Petra

Velikogo, (Moscow: NLO, 2004), 82, n. 5. On the absence of the concept and of the institution

of a state in the 17th 18th century and on the debate around the concept in Russia, see

Claudio Nun Ingerom, Novoevropeiskaia paradigma Gosudarstvennost: teoreticheskie

predposylki i kognitivnye nesootvetstviia,Rossiia XXI, 2, 2011: 110 127 and Loyalty to theState under Peter the Great?, in Loyalties; Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society,

History and Culture, ed. by G. Hosking, C.S. Ingerom and allii, (London: SSEES, University

College London, 2012), p. 3-19

Malia, Comprendre, 43-44.

Avrich,Russian Rebels,117, 118.

Ibid., 256.

Ibid., 258.

See the work of L.S. Sheptaev, Rannie predaniia i legendy o Razine, Slavianskii folklor i

istoricheskaia deistvitelnost, (Moscow: Nauka, 1965); Skazy o Stepane Razine XIX veka,

Uchenye zapiski, Leningradskii pedagogicheskii Institut, 275, (1966); Pesennyi razinskii tsikli istoricheskie pesni XVIII veka, Uchenye zapiski, Leningradskii pedagogicheskii Institut, 321

(1967).

Philip Longworth, The Subversive Legend of Stenka Razin,Russia(Torino, 1975), 2: 21.


5/23


consciousness of the poor, gave them a new sense of power, and madethe upper classes tremble for their lives and possessions. Moreover, it

left a myth of rebellion that would inspire future generations whosememory was preserved in ballad, lore, and epic. Magic then appearsas a means to agitate the poor, frighten the rich and feed the memory ofrebel tradition through legend and myth. For the historian of anar-chism, the function of magic is located in the realm of afect and emo-tions. Its results are, at best, an unexpected gain produced by theirrational. It is then possible to exclude magic from historical researchat no cognitive expense. Randall Styers warning highlighting the wayin which modern theories of disavowal of magic are used to stigma-tize the practices of groups on the margins of social power istotally justied.

4. Michael Khodarkovsky considers that on the part of the rebels, apolitical discourse in seventeenth-century Muscovy could only takeplace in terms of restoration of justice, before concluding that Razinand Aleksei Mikhailovich were not competing for diferent concep-tions of sovereignty and social values, instead they were vying for thesame source of legitimacy. But it is certain that if we seek among

the rebels what would be just a primitive version of a reexive speech ofthe kind developed in western universities of the time to nd their aconception of sovereignty and a political discourse diferent from those

Avrich,Russian Rebels,119-120.

Randall Styers,Making Magic. Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World, (Oxford:

Oxford Universty Press, 2004): 222-223.

Of course, Razins understanding of freedom was not dened in terms of social justice.

His was a Cossack freedom, and every non-Cossack, peasant or townsman, rich or poor, wasconsidered enslaved to the state, Khodarkovsky, The Stepan Razin Uprising, 12-13. It is nec-

essary, however, to note that we are dealing not with legal texts but with pamphlets written

by an ocer in the middle of the insurrection. Under these conditions, the content of a

slogan like the conquest of freedom becomes dynamic, and is less that meaning attributed

by Razin than that given to the idea of freedom by the participants in a collective action

covering an immense territory and uniting thousands of people from diverse social, reli-

gious and ethnic groups. Concerning the expression enslaved to the state, see note 7. On

the promise of volia and the appeals to various social and ethnic groups to join the rebel-

lion, see Krestianskaia vojna pod predvoditelstvom Stepana Razina. Sbornik dokumentov,5

vols., (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk, 1954), I: 183, 212, 235-236; (1957), II, 1: 62, 91,106, 341, 407.

Khodarkovsky, op. cit, 17.


6/23


of the monarch, we shall not nd them. It takes a diferent approach torebel speech and another reading.

I argue that, within the uprising, magical thought creates the possibility fora form of political thought still expressed in archaic language but headingtowards an immanent legitimation of power. It requires us to conceive ofthe radical separation between magic and politics as illusory, and not toapproach mythosas a thought process that could be superseded by a morecorrect one, the logos.

III. A Precedent: The History of Science

The debate on the relationship between magic and science has alreadytaken place. In the twentieth century, science was rst considered asopposed to magic, as an evolutionary stage both superior to and independ-ent from magic. Then there was a period in which the emphasis was put onthe similarities between magic and science; I am thinking here aboutFrances Yates work. Today, a consensus seems to have emerged. The

radical novelty of modernity in the West is asserted, without failing toacknowledge its ties to magic, or relegating the latter to the realm of thepurely irrational or incorrect knowledge.

Myth is understood here as what is real and belongs to realm of fact (in speech,

of course!).Speech which gives indications about reality, or notes something that,

once declared, can only become real: it is speech which objectively informs or functions

as authority.True speech of what is revealed, whereas the logos refers to speech as

it is weighed, carefully considered, in that it is meant to convince. W.F. Otto, Essais sur

le mythe, (Mauzevin: Ed. TER bilingue, 1987): 26-27. It interests me to underline the

creative role of action in the possibility of which humans pass from myth to logos, in a

displacement that does not exclude either the contemporaneity of the two or the reversibil-

ity of the shift.

See among others, her books, Giordano Bruno and the Hermenetic Tradition, (Chicago

London: University of Chicago, [1964] 1991); The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age,

(London/Boston Henley: Routledge and K. Paul, 1979).

Paolo Rossi, Franceso Bacone. Dalla magia alla scienza, (Torino: Einaudi, [1957] 1974.

Nuova edizione riveduta ed ampliata): XVIII XIX; Henry John, Knowledge is Power. How

Magic, the Government and an Apocalyptic Vision inspired Francis Bacon to create Modern

Science, (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2002).


7/23


IV. Razin the Sorcerer

In seventeenth-century Muscovy, magical processes could be interpreted asinterventions in domestic and international policy. The secondchapter of the Ulozheniefrom 1649, on the honor (chest) of the monarch,is dedicated to the protection of his person, his health, and his dignity(velichestva), against speech, betrayal, and collective unrest. The rst articleof this chapter was meant to protect the monarch, above all else, againstmagical practices expressed through speech. In the chapters very title, theverb to protect (oberegat)included all magical procedures. Obereg is aspell, in the rst place intended as a protection against sorcery and otherdangers.

See these cases in N.Novombergskii, Koldovstvo v Moskovskoj Rusi XVII-go stoletiia,

(Saint-Petersburg, 1960; reprint, Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kultury, 2004): 112-134; N. N.

Ogloblin, Gosudarevo velikoe verkhnee delo, Istoricheskii vestnik, 65 (1896): 137-157;

Rozysknye dela o Fedore Shakhlovitom i ego soobshchnikakh, Arkheogracheskaia komissiia,

vol. 2 (Saint-Petersburg: Ministerstvo narodnogo prosveshcheniia, 1855); A. N. Truvorov,

Volkhvy i vorozhei na Rusi, v kontse XVII veka,Istoricheskii vestnik, 6 (1889). The heir to the

Danish throne, whom people in some circles viewed as a possible successor to Mikhail

Romanov, was to marry the tsars daughter but refused to convert to Orthodoxy. Simon

Streshnev, Tsar Mikhails cupbearer, charged with persuading him to convert, sent a couple

of healers to bewitch the prince. S. V. Bakhrushin, Trudy po istochnikovedeniiu, istoriograi i

istorii Rossii pokhi feodalizma, (Moscow: Nauka, 1987): 110.

According to Vladimir Toporov and Vsevolod Ivanov, in ancient juridical texts the rep-

etition of words before the same root, in the interior of a phrase (syntagme) are somewhat

reminiscent of folkloric texts. By the same token, fragments of texts of ancient law, charac-

terized by a key word that runs through them and determines their theme, are reminiscent

of folkloric texts, in the rst instance magical spells.The authors give an example from the

Ulozhenie of 1649 of words having the same root (of the type: tem zhe sudom sudit: to be

tried by that same judge); V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporov, O iazyke drevnego slavjanskogo

prava, Slavianskoe iazykoznanie. VIII mezhdunarodnyi sezd slavistov, doklady sovetskii dele-

gatsii, (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR. Otdelenie literatury i iazyka, 1978), 229-230. This

arrangement of words is common in the Ulozhenie, as is attested by article 1 of chapter 2.

For example: Budet kto kakim umyshleniem uchnet myslitna gosudarskoe zdorov zloe

delo, i pro to egozloe umyshlenekto izvestit, i to tomu izvetupro to egozloe umyshlenesysh-

chetsia dopriama, chto on na tsarskoe velichestvozloe delo myslil, i delatkhotel, i takova po

sysku kaznit smertiu,Rossiiskoe zakonodatelstvo X XX vekov,9 vols.Akty Zemskikh soborov

(Moscow: Iuridichskaia literatura, 1985), 3: 6. The same linguistic structure is found in therecords of trials: the accused Andrei Bezobrazov vymysly vymyslil, vorovskim svoim vymys-

lom,Truvorov, Volkhvy i vorozhei, 702. In 1663 a formula for conjuration was sold for a

price of six silver rubles. For such a sum one could have acquired a Nogay horse, a famous


8/23


The rebels claimed that magical incantations protected (beregut) themfrom their enemies weapons. Such spells were taught as part of their

training. According to Prince Dashkov who was present on the battleeld,the rebels believed that their spells had silenced the cannons of the armyprotecting the city of Tsarytsin, while neither projectiles nor blades coulddo Razin any harm. At one of the battle sites, a few hundred insurgentsseemingly served under the command of a witch (baba-vedun). The Tsarsarmy captured (was it the same person?) a criminal (vora) nun (staritsu)leading some of the insurgents (numbering up to 7000 according one of thesources). This woman, who had bewitched many individuals and taughther craft to one of the Cossack leaders, was burnt alive with her books ofmagic (i s neiu vorovskie pisma i korenia). After his capture, Razin waskept in chains in the outer narthex of the Starocherkasskii episcopalchurch, where his magical powers were to be neutralized by divine force;during his transfer to Moscow he remained in physical posture similar tothat of a sorcerer represented in a well-known seventeenth-century lubok.Razin and his men were accused of seducing (prelshchati refers at thesame time to the action of the devil and that of his sorcerers). The upris-ing was presented as apostasy, but the magical practices in its midst were

also emphasized. The words of its leaders were considered as seducing

breed, or two Russian mares, or three cow, or ten pigs, or thirty sheep, or one hundred geese,

already slaughtered. Sheptaev, Rannie predaniia, 91.

Ibid., 97-98.

We know that a cleric rallied to Razin, having previously learned the art of incantations,

and then distributed these spells to the combatants.Krestianskaia, II, ch.1, doc. n 285.

Ibid., I, doc. n 106; Russkie istoricheskie pesni, (Moscow: Vysshaia Shkola, 1985): 120. Cf.

M. Zabylin,Russkii narod, ego obychai, obriady, predaniia sueveriia i poeziia,(Moscow: Kniga

Printshop, 1990 [1880]): 440; T.A.Martemianov, Iz predanii o Stenke Razine, Istoricheskii

vestnik, (September 1907).

Krestianskaia, II, ch. 1, doc. n 110, 293 and p. 572.

Sheptaev, Rannie predaniia: 87; Ibid., Skazy o Stepane Razine XIX veka: 319.

The term is employed in connection with Satan in Apoc. XX, 3, 10, concerning false

prophets in Matth.,XXIV, 4, 5, 11, concerning sorcerers (k koldunam)in a decree (ukaz) of

Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (here, as in the examples that follow, I give a literal translation):

seducers of the masculine and feminine sex in the towns with magic and spells, and

who seduce with their sorceryandChristians are inclined toward diabolical seduction

( a inye prelestniki muzhskogo i zhenskogo polu v gorodakh i v uezdakh byvaiut so mnogim

charodeistvom i volkhovaniem i mnogikh liudei tem svoim charodeistvom prelshchaiut .

ukloniaiutsia khristiane k besovskim prelestiam), quoted by S.I.Kotkov, Lingvisticheskoe

istochnikovedenie i istoriia russkogo iazyka, (Moscow: Nauka, 1980): 108-109.


9/23


(prelestnye pisma). It became a leitmotif: Razin, apostate and villain(vor)seduces (obolstia, to deceive through the act of speech, also refers to

the action of the devil and its sorcerers) the inhabitants. He sends hisdeceiving spellsto seduce you (prelshchat).Do not fall for any of thecriminal seductions of the villain Stenka Razindo not fall for any of hiscriminal seductions and do not trust any of his deceiving letters. Somehave argued that the Tsar might also have believed that Razin was asorcerer.

V. Fear-inducing Speech

According to the 1649 Ulozhenie, even if a defendant never moved beyondthe simple intention (golyi umysel)stage, his crime was real and he wasliable of the death penalty. Failing to denounce a magical act was alsopunished by death. To speak of or plan (to think about and wish to real-ize) an act against thegosudar(na tsarskoe velichestvo zloe delo myslyt idelat khotet) was, in itself, a crime. Since the criminal intention wasrevealed by speech and deed, the juridical formula was slovo i delo gosu-

darevy (sovereigns word and deed). One of the recurring indictmentsagainst those who were convicted under this second chapter was the enun-ciation of incantatory speech. The Russian formulation (zagovornye slova)reinforces the meaning of speech, because the semantic root of the signi-er zagovor(incantation, conspiracy) is speech. The modicationsintroduced under Peter the Great to the gosudarevo delo i slovo formulareinforced the connection between the speech crimes and the health/

vor i bogootstupnik i izmennik Stenka Razin obolstia v Astrakhani i na Tsaritsyne i

na Saratove i na Samare tutoshnikh zhitelei I posylaet prelshchat vas, vsiakikh chinov liudei,

zlymi svoimi vsiakimi vorovskimi prelestmi I vy b ni na kakie vorovskie prelesti vora Stenki

Razina s tovarishchi ne prelshchalis I vam by ni na kakie evo vorovskie pismam ni v chem ne

verit.Krestianskaia,II, ch. 1, doc. n 93.

T.A. Martemianov, Iz predanii o Stenke Razine, 851.

In Spain, similarly, the Church and the Inquisition condemned esencialmente la inten-

cin, The degree of punishment could be proporcionado a la calidad de la imaginacin of

the sorcerer; Ricardo Garca Crcel, Hereja y sociedad en el siglo XVI. La Inquisicin en

Valencia 1530 1609, (Barcelona: Ed. Pennsula, 1980): 244-5.

At the end of the nineteenth century incantations or spells (zagovory) were still called

words (slova), often to distinguish them from prayers (molitvy). This archaic link is not

exclusive to the Russian linguistic arena. See N. Kharuzin, Iz materialov, sobrannykh sredi


10/23


dignity of the monarch, showing that such was the intention of the personswho drafted the law.

Acts of speech considered as indecent or improper (nepristoinye) couldalso be endowed with magical power and have a political connotationwithout the existence of a collective plot. In 1723, an individual was whippedbecause upon hearing that new peasants would be sent to the army, heexclaimed: if the hand of our emperor were to become ill, our brotherwould not be drafted. Magical conspiracy is obvious here, and thedefendants attempts to deny the malignity of his speech were not takeninto consideration because, as Eleonskaia noted about conspiracies in sev-enteenth and eighteenth century Russia, speech was ascribed a singularpower, the efects of which could be independent from its authors will.This particular belief explains that the authors of denunciations andreports sent to the court regularly wrote that they could not repeat whathad been said about the Tsar.

Besides having the faculty to harm the Tsars health, speech couldalso afect his dignity by leading him to act against his will, because the

krestian Pudozhskogo uezla Olonetskoi gubernii (oscow:n.p., 1889: 12, n.; N. Poznanskii,

Zagovory: Opyt issledovaniia i proiskhozhdeniia zagovornykh formul (oscow: Indrik, 1995

[1917]: 94. V.N.Tporov studied the terms vcas (zagovor, slovo) in the Rig Veda:

O drevneindiiskoi zagovornoi traditsii, in Malye formy folklora (oscow: Vostochnaia

literatura, 1995), 46. E. Benveniste reported that the Slavic forms baju, bajatito recite or

utter spells (behind which is the Latinfor[to speak], the Armenian bay[to speak], respond-

ing to the Greek phtis [word], etc.) becomes baliji (doctor, sorcerer) who has at his

disposal this inspired power of speech, of incantation. E. Benveniste, Le Vocabulaire

des institutions indo-europennes, t.2, (Paris: Minuit, 1969): 136-9.

Article 1 of Chapter 2 does not mark the word as criminal, but rather the deed. In the

same chapter, it is Article 14 on the libelous denunciations of attempts against the health of

the Tsar that introduced the formula word and deed, which was already in common use.

Alarmed by the popular use of this penal gure (often invoked by people accused of various

forms of abuse (zloupotreblenie) in order to defend themselves against local authorities,

Peter I issued an ukaz of 9 February 1705, destined to remain without efect, which separated

crimes against his health, communicated under the formula speech about the sovereigns

word, from other ofenses. N. N. Pokrovskii, Zakonodatelnye istochniki petrovskogo vre-

meni o slove i dele gosudarevom, in Publitsistika i istoricheskie sochineniia perioda feodal-

izma, (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1989): 81-5.

Razve imperatoru nashemu ruka zabolit, to obrekaetsia nashu bratiu v soldaty ne brat.

N.Novombergskii, Slovo i delo gosudarevy, 2 vol. (Tomsk, 1909) 2: 53-5.

E. N. Eleonskaia, Skazka, zagovor i koldovstvo v Rossii(Moscow: Indrik, 1994): 101. N. N. Pokrovskii, Sibirskie materialy XVII-XVIII vv. po slovu i delu gosudarevu kak

istochnik po istorii obshchestvennogo soznaniia , in Istochniki po istorii obshchestvennoj

mysli i kultury epokhi pozdnego feodalizma, (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1988): 43.


11/23


conspiracys speechwas viewed as performative. When, in 1689, walking onthe path just traveled by Tsar Peter, the sorcerer Dorofej pronounces a spell

against the monarch, by saying he does, his speechpretends, by thefact(gosudarevo slovo i delo) of its very existence, that the emperor will now actaccording to the desires of Bezobrazov the stolnik(steward) who orderedthe spell. This speech is a deed, which makes it possible to understandwhy, in the context of the vague formulation of the 1649 Ulozhenie, espe-cially in regard to crimes perpetrated against the monarch, the worddeloseemed sucient for the individuals who drafted the rst article of thesecond chapter, without any further denition of the word slovo.

VI. A Peculiar Insurrection

The Uprising Before the Rumor

By claiming that Tsarevich Alexis had joined the insurrection, Razinre-actualizes the procedure of self-appointment (samozvanstvo). Yet, heefects a double separation from the preceding collective movements. On

the one hand he innovates in regard to the numerous urban and ruralrevolts of the preceding decades (1634, 1638, 1646, 1648, 1650, 1662), in thatthey had not practiced self-appointment. On the other, his insurrectionprofoundly difers from the ones of the Time of Troubles. The latter haddeveloped following a three-stage pattern. First, the rumor claimed thatTsarevich Dimitri was alive. Then, the pretender made himself known.Finally, the troubles broke out. The decisive link between the rumor andthe uprising happened to be the embodiment of the Tsarevich by a fake sonof Ivan IV. The same sequence can be found in the other episodes of the

Time of Troubles: the public exhibition of the saved Tsarevich as requestedby the population or the Cossacks was indispensable to the undertaking.

Rozysknye dela o Fedore Shaklovitom, op. cit., A. Truvorov, Volkhvy i vorozhei na Rusi v

kontse XVII veka, op. cit.

The Ulozheniepresents contradictions between various articles. The text does not list all

the punishments applied. Sometimes the punishment is absent from the grounds for con-

viction. See N .N. Pokrovskii, Sibirskie materialy, op. cit., 57-58; V. Zhivov, Istoriia russkogo

prava kak lingvo-semioticheskaia problema, Semiotics and the History of Culture, in honor of

Jurij Lotman, (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1988):passim.

See note 33.

The Terek Cossacks had taken the eld after electing their companion, Ilya, Tsarevich

Peter. Despite the eforts of Poland and the commitment of a number of Russian nobles,


12/23


In Razins case, the events sequence is diferent. The uprising breaks outin the name of the reigning Tsar when the Ataman calls upon his men to

march against the boyars, traitors to the Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Thereference to the Tsar is constant in the public addresses to the commonpeople (chernye liudi) until September 1670, after which it fades. In May ofthe same year, after the beginning of the uprising, Razin publicly discussesthe successive deaths, in 1669 and 1670, of the Empress and two Tsareviches,Simeon and Aleksei. He argues for the necessity of going after the traitorsand restoring freedom to the common people, making use of the associa-tion of two popular themes the Tsar wants to make us free, but theboyars prevent him from doing so and attack his family. No sooner thanAugust does Razin announce that Tsarevich Aleksei is by his side. He con-tinues nonetheless to recognize the Tsars legitimacy. Furthermore, Razinstates that the Tsarevich joined his ght following his fathers orders. Thelatter is not considered a false Tsar, as had been the case with BorisGodunov and Vasilii Shuiskii. Later on, in September and October, theinsurgents swear an oath to the Tsarevich, which could possibly have dealta blow to the Tsars legitimacy, as the population was asked to pray forAleksei, for Razin, and sometimes for the former patriarch, Nikon, a trilogy

that efectively excluded Aleksei Mikhailovich. In 1670, then, the uprisingprecedes the rumorabout the Tsarevich, reversingthe order that had beenestablished during the Time of troubles.

The Tsarevich Remains Invisible

During the Time of Troubles, false tsareviches had been publicly show-cased. Yet, Razin announced the presence of Aleksei by his side, withoutshowing him. Again, in October 1670, the Cossacks promised all the

peasants that they would to show the Tsarevich after the capture of NizhniiNovgorod, which all but demonstrates that he had remained invisible to

the army that fought Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii could not be formed before the public appearance

of the second false Dmitrii.

Krestianskaia, I, doc. n 171, II, ch.1, doc. n53, 60, 63, 64, 78 92, 277, 121, 124; II, ch. 2, doc.

n 92, 127, 143. Before his death, Aleksei had been proclaimed heir to the throne and had

cosigned several documents with his father.

Was Alekseis double the ataman Osipov? See Sergei Solovev, Istoriia Rossii s drevnei-

shikh vremen,15 vols. (Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1961), III: 419. According to another version, the

role of the tsarevich was played by the young Caucasian Prince Cherkasskii. Razin was inter-

rogated about his relations with Cherkasskii, but his response has not been preserved.

V.I.Buganov, Rozysknoe delo Stepana Razina, Otechestvennaia istoriia, n1 (1994): 30-1.


13/23


that point. According to the sources, the populations living in the insur-gent territories never caught a glimpse of him. No ocial document gives a

clue on who might have played this role.

VII. The Function of Magical Speech

The authorities asserted that Razin lies in writing or speech. But theyhad to admit that the people take as the truth (stavit v pravdu) Razinsseducing lies (prelestnym gramotam) about the Tsarevichspresence. Thepeople were shaken (poshatalis)and many joined the rebels. Razinsparticular speech-lie is referred to as a great deed (velikoe delo), an expres-sion which, when coupled with slovo, represented a juridical formula ofprime signicance. Razins speech performs, fullling the same role asmagical speech, similar to the form of speech condemned by the Ulozhenie,because it presents a threat to the physical and moral integrity of the Tsar.Once said, it is sucient for the Tsarevichs presence to be admitted.A speech-myth: it is by itself an act of showing. Making Aleksei present was

Krestianskaia, II, ch. 1, doc. n124.

An account attributed to the Dutch ambassador reported on the severed head of the

person whom Razin had presented as the tsarevich.Posolstvo Kunrada fan Klenka k tsariam

Alekseiu Mikhajlovichu i Feodoru Alekseevichu(Saint-Petersburg, 1900), 446. No ocial docu-

ment conrms this testimony which at any rate does not change the fact that the tsarevich

remained invisible to the populations that were in revolt.

It is interesting to note that in the speech of the region of Vladimir and Iaroslavl, to the

northeast of Moscow, poshatkameant a belief, a superstition. See V. Dal, Tolkovyi slovar

zhivogo velikorusskago iazyka, 3 ed. (Moscow- Saint-Petersburg, 1905), 2: col. 975.

By the end of September, ocials admit that the assertion of the presence of the tsarev-

ich is very efective. The texts from the court denounced lies; the tsar invites the towns to

send their delegates to visit the grave of the tsarevich.Krestianskaia, II, ch. 1, doc. nn 83, 171,

277, 327.

Krestianskaia, II, ch. 1, doc. n 63, 119, 124, 171, 277; III, doc. n 81. The expression great

deed is a translation ofvelikoe(great) delo(work, accomplishment, afair). The term slovo

(word) does not gure in the reply of the court. But in other sources, court records, for exam-

ple, the same crimes lies, ofense are encompassed by the category slovo. The absence of

any of the words provided by the prescriptive formulas designating the monarch is a

crime called indecent word or indecent speech in writing (na pisme). See G. G. Telberg,

Ocherki politicheskogo suda i politichekih prestuplenii v Moskovskom gosudarstve XVII veka,

(Moscow: Tipograia imperatorskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1912): 323, footnote 42.

This use of slovoas a category designating the same crimes as those which were charged

against Razin authorizes us to use it in regard to his lie.


14/23


a fact. The Tsarevich was afact, but he only existed through an act ofspeech. It is worth noting that some languages have preserved the link

between speech and its efects, bewitching, considered as a deed (fact). InSpanish, bewitching translates as hechizo, which also means hecho(done),the past participle of the verb hacer(to do). It is then possible to describe aprocess that has remained mysterious for a particular historiography,which continually tries to understand it through modern concepts andjuridical categories. The lexicon preserved in the sources and the cognitivecategories of the period open up possibilities to understand a diferent wayto think about mankind, language, and nature. The Tsarevichs presencewas afact, it was sustained by speech onlywhich did not have to be incar-nated, and Alekseis body did not have to be publicly showcased. Herelies Razins novelty: a Tsarevich under two hypostases, present through thespeech that names him, but corporally absent.

Why did the rebels not need the Tsarevichs body? The belief in thepower of instantiating speech already existed in the beginning of the sev-enteenth century, but it had not been sucient to mobilize populationswho required the physical presentation of the pretender. During the Timeof Troubles, those who were asked to follow a false Tsarevich were guided

byvision-based-thought; they forced each false Tsarevich to prove his physi-cal existence before them. Why then were the 1670 insurgents in a speech-based-thought mode? In other words, why is the Tsarevich verballynecessary but physically excluded? Forwhatand forwhomis space createdby making the body of the future gosudar(Aleksei) inaccessible, beyondhuman reach?

In order to answer this set of questions, one needs to consider the factthat the discourse on the Tsarevichs presence is not systematic and that it

is attested only in the ghting areas surrounding Moscow. It seems to bedirectly linked to the insurgents will to capture the capital city. It is notabsurd to think that the rebel leaders not only attempted to capture provin-cial cities, but Moscow as well. In this situation, how could they notthink about the throne? The Tsarevichs presence appears to be invented in

We have here a procedure familiar to historians. Reinhart Koselleck has shown that

when recalling that when one analyzes facts that have already been expressed before ,

concepts inherited from the past serve as heuristic devices to capture past reality.Le Futurpass, ( Paris: Editions EHESS, 1990): 15.

I borrow the expressions in italics from the anthropologist Remo Guidieri,La Route des

Morts, (Paris: Seuil, 1980): 403.


15/23


anticipation of Moscows capture. The possibility of this outcome may havesignicantly varied depending on time and place, which could explain the

non-systematic nature of the discourse on the Tsarevich in historicalsources. The prospect of the capital citys capture can be retrospectivelyexplained through the presence (verbal) and the absence (physical) ofAleksei. It was clear, ever since the insurrections of 1648 and 1662, whatwould happen when Moscow was seized during an insurrection. In bothcases, the decisive moment was the meeting with the tsar. The victoriousinsurgents addressed the one who remained their reference, a limit theydid not trespass: they wanted to be heard by their Master (Gosudar). Thishearing, simply because it came to pass, put them in a situation of failure.They established, within the palaces court, a specular relationship thatrearmed the Tsars authority. They had just enough time to think theircomplaints had been heard and disband before the Tsars army was alreadyslaughtering them.

What do Razin and his men do? On one side they relegate AlekseiMikhailovich to a distant mental horizon, or exclude him from it, bytaking an oath of loyalty to the Tsarevich. For instance, when theyaccuse a priest of refusing to join the insurrection of treason against the

gosudar Aleksei Alekseevich, Patriarch Nikon and our little fatherStepan Timofeevich [Razin], the insurgents pass over the Tsar in silence,despite the fact that the insurrection had been launched in his name.Historians have already noted the absence of any direct reference to TsarAleksei Mikhailovichs namein the rebels documentation.

On the other side, the rebels erect a dually inaccessiblegosudar: Alekseialready dead, Aleksei corporeally invisible. Agosudarthen totally subordi-nated to the insurrection goals. Alekseis physical absence allows them not

only to avoid any encounter with him, but with anygosudarat all, with thisreference which was at the same time a dam towards which all urban

V.A. Kivelson, The Devil Stole His Mind: The Tsar and the 1648 Moscow Uprising,

American Historical Review, 98 no. 3 (June 1993), 733-756.

Razin and Razins propaganda avoided calling him [the tsar], specically by name. The

term great sovereign (velikii gosudar) was transformed into a purely symbolic, mystical

formula, dissolving a real person in an abstract concept. M. Sokolskii, Nevernaia pamiat.

Geroi i antigeroi Rossii (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1990): 260. Quoted by Vladimir M.

Solovev,Anatomiia russkogo bunta. Stepan Razin. Mify i realnost(Moscow: Timr, 1994): 155. Chistov,Russkie narodnye, 84, sees in this oath an overtly anti-tsarist act.

Krestianskaia, II, ch. I, doc. n 124.

Solovev,Anatomiia russkogo bunta, 155.


16/23


revolts had rolled and against which they had inexorably collapsed. Inopposition to previous Muscovite revolts, Razins insurrection allowed

itself to avoid, in case of victory, any specular relationship with the Tsar.It proved to be possible within the framework of magical thought, a speech-based-thought that emerged after decades of public disorder and, moreimportantly, two uprisings that failed when faced with the Tsars body.

VIII. A Sovereign without a Body

The rebels device (dispositif) is directly related to the collective representa-tions of the Tsars body. The simple mention of the Tsars natural body wasoften punished. There is probably no single explanation to this prohibi-tion. One can think about the fear of magical speech as a threat to the mon-arch, but also to the increasing sacralization of the Tsar. During his reign,Aleksei Mikhailovich emphasized, on diferent occasions, his terrestrialand material nature, a concession to the church, opposed at it was to asacralization of the Tsar, which tended to obliterate his distance from God.But this concession did not deter attempts to sacralize the Tsar, because

the metaphor perishable (tlennyi) did not necessarily imply the absolutedistinction between his bodys nature and the dignity of his power. A fewdecades earlier, the deacon Ivan Timofeev had already opened the way bysuggesting that the Tsars body was unlike that of other human beings,because, chosen by God, it was infused with the dignity of his function.This infusion is present in the mind of those who, in 1649, elaborated aunique system, the second chapter of the Ulozhenie, associating the protec-tion of the Tsars health to speeches concerning the Tsars honor.

Despite Aleksei Mikhailovichs words on his tlennyinature, the custom of

Sources published by N. Novombergskii, Slovo,t. 1, doc. nn 18, 43, 79, 135. See also Pavel

Lukin,Narodnye predstavleniia o gosudarstvennoi vlasti v Rossii XVII veka(Moscow: Nauka,

2000), passim.

This was one of the arguments used by Timofeev to justify the election by God through

the agency of humans united in the Zemskii Sobor of Mikhail Romanov, who was not

himself the son of a tsar: Ivan Timofeev, Vremennik, (Moscow-Leningrad, 1951): 11, 14, 16-17,

33, 88. C.Ingerom, T. Kondrativa, Sans Tsar la Terre est veuve: syncrtisme dans le

VremennikdIvan Timofeev, Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovitique, XXXIV, 1-2 ( January-June1993): 257-266.

Gosudarskaia/oe(sovereign): The adjectival form confers to the attribute more density

than the nominative form (for example: the health of the tsar).


17/23


calling the tsars holy during the oces starts with his reign, which marksthe beginning of a movement which progressively gains steam and peaks in

the nineteenth century, when all that concerns the Tsar (the empressblood, the Tsars will, etc.) is considered as saintly.

Razin and his followers confront Aleksei Mikhailovich with his discur-sive double, the non-body of the future master (gosudar). Non-body:as if they had chosen to act in conformity with the norm by making anexaggerated show of deploying the ocial forms developed in legalpractice, that is, the ban, in efect for half a century, on forms of speechrelating to the physical, human body of the Tsar. By making the Tsarevichsbody invisible, the insurgents go well beyond simply conforming to theinterdiction; they outank Aleksei Mikhailovich, who explicitly insisted onhis being a material Tsar, to arrange their ownsovereign gure shelteredin the triple void: they ignore the Tsar on the throne, deny him a name, andshape a body-less master, whom they themselves create.

This new sovereign gure belongs to them not only because theyinvented it, but also because they gave it a new name. The insurgentspretend that Nechai-Tsarevich Aleksei Alekseevich marches with themas a voevoda (general) recalls. Nechai is also the rebels leitmotif

(iasak). Nechai participates of the Tsarevichs name, forming a newcategory -Nechai-Tsarevich-Aleksei by the corresponding attribution ofthe semantic properties of Nechai to the Tsarevich Aleksei. The adjectivenechaiannyi signies arrived earlier than expected, the one who wasnot expected, but also revealed, as one of the Virgins icons, the popularcult of which is well attested. As a foreign witness observed: they calltheir Tsarevich Nechai, as if he had been unexpectedly sent from the heav-ens. By naming him, the rebels instantiate the Tsarevich, but by giving

him a diferent name, they broaden his semantic scope. An unexpected-non-body, sent from heavens, the invented gure creates a void his bodyis invisible and simultaneously rearms the myth he is here. The rebelsdisqualied the Tsar on the throne and at the same time invented for himan heir who could not be incarnated.

Boris Uspenskij, Viktor Zhivov, Tsar i Bog, Iazyki kultury i problemy perevodimosti

(Mscow: Nauka, 1987), 73-74.

Aleksei is called gosudar by the rebels:Krestianskaia,II, ch.1, doc. n 124.

Iasakalso means a war cry or rallying cry. Ibid., doc. nn83, 124.

This icon is called Unexpected Joy (Nechaiannaia radost), Dal, Slovar, col. 1407.

Quoted by Chistov,Russkie narodnye, 87, footnote 177.


18/23


IX. A New Way to Legitimize Power

A void then, but as the Russians say sviato mesto pusto ne byvaet(A sacredspot is never unoccupied; meaning, there will always be someone to step inand ll a vacancy). What role did Razin intend to play in the future? Onthis point, the thin sources do not contain any direct information.Nevertheless, we know of the goals that were attributed to Razin. Accordingto Swedish language press published in Riga (19 November 1670), Razininsisted on being recognized as the Tsar of Kazan and Astrakhan. Thesetwo tsardoms had previously existed, governed by the Tatar Tsars beforefalling to Ivan IV in 1552 and 1556. Ivan IV had been crowned in 1547, but infolkloric tradition he was only attributed the title of Tsar only after the con-quest of the Kingdom of Kazan. The Polish-Lithuanian ambassador followsthe account in the Riga press: the goal of the uprising he writes onOctober 31, 1671 to his minister is not only to obtain freedom for the Volgaand Don regions [], but also to set up a new tsarstwothere. Razin as thefuture Tsar? That is what Jans Janszoon Strauss, a Dutch adventurer, wroteafter meeting with the Cossack chief: Razin never doubted the fact that hewould soon be on the throne. It is indisputable that when the population

was instructed to pray for Nikon, for Aleksei (who could not have botheredanyone) and for Razin, the latter was the only one in the position to act inthe event of a nal victory.

Yet, Razin was not self-appointed (samozvanets). This is an essentialpoint. He did not assert himself as Gods elect. He did not accuse AlekseiMikhailovich of being a false Tsar in order to assign himself the role of thetrue Tsar. After speaking in his name, he progressively ignored him, nothingelse. The populations reception, especially in the folklore, does not make of

Razin a self-appointed claimant. The people do not endow him with dynasticorigins. In order to better understand this fact, we must think of Pugachev,who was to remain in folklore as he presented himself in reality: Peter III.On the contrary, songs about Razin highlight his popular origins neither

N. N. Bantysh-Kamenskii, Obzor vneshnikh snoshenii Rossii po 1800 g.(Moscow: Komissiia

pechataniia gosudarstvennykh gramot i dogovorov pri Mosk. Gl. Archive pri ministerstve

inostrannykh del, 1902), ch. 1, p. 190-191; cited by Sheptaev, Rannie predaniia i legendy o

Razine, 82.

Iu.Mytsyk, Moskovskie voiska i kazatskie zadneprovskie stiagivaiiutsia pod Romny.Dokumenty po voennoi istorii Rossii XVIIv iz polskikh arkhivokhranilishch, Istoricheskii

Arkhiv, 4, (2002): 209.

Puteshestvie po Rossii Gollandtsa Striuiisa,Russkii Arkhiv, I, (1880): 97.


19/23


Tsar nor noble. Razins gure later inuenced a general folkloric theme: theconfrontation between the Tsar and the Cossack, with the latter emerging

as the victor. The songs make the Cossack say: neither of the Tsars nor theboyars, I am born/Of Stenka Razin, I am the son (Ia ne tsarskikh ne boiar-skikh, / A ia Stenki Razina syn). His might, he does not draw from God,but from the human assembly. It amounted, in matters of legitimacy, to theoverthrow of a constitutive tradition of tsarism.

X. The Possible Outcome of Popular Action: Political Modernity

How to think about the rebels system, instantiating speech and body-lessmyth, together with the attempt to take power? Precisely together, as it wasthe separation and coevality of the two that was made possible by action:by combat, by discourse, all together. By tossing the immateriality of themythical body of Aleksei (the ocial heir) in front of the reigning materialTsar, it is paradoxically, a complex materiality that the insurgents brandish.Materiality is at issue, because the natural body had already replaced themystic/mythic body of theirsovereign as their leader, and in the event of a

military victory they would have had to replace the void they created witha natural body possessing a form of power legitimated through social repre-sentation, rooted in this world and not in the other. This materiality is thenthe triumphant uprising and its discursive apparatus, an immanent move-ment because it seeks power in the name of the people, harboring a mod-ern political tendency.

Let us summarize. With their Tsarevich corporeally invisible, the rebelsreduce the Tsar to a non-body. The Tsar becomes literally inaccessible, as if

radically disconnected from the real. By helping the monarch move beyondthe transcendent, the insurgents free up a space where the concept of sov-ereign political power, based on social representation far from being lim-ited to the Cossacks alone, it also included the Russian common peopleand the allogenic populations and therefore based also on immanent

These songs of the eighteenth century were recorded in the nineteenth century,

Sheptaev, Pesennyi razinskii tsikl, 13, 22.

The rst tsar, Ivan IV, recalls his superiority as chosen by God in comparison with the

King of Poland, chosen by [his] nobles. The diference, Ivan arms, is in the nature of theirpower: the sovereignty of the tsar is unlimited (volnoe tsarskoe samoderzhstvo), while that

of the Polish king depends on humans.Poslaniia Ivana Groznogo, ed. D.S.Lihachev, Ia.S.Lure

(Moscow Leningrad: Akademiia Nauk, 1951), 259260.


20/23


legitimacy, became possible. The policy which tended to sacralize theRomanovs had produced an unforeseen efect: the Tsars inaccessible body

became a possible gateway into the modern political conception of power.The God-chosen father ignored, and his son nonexistent: the throne is

made empty for a popular leader who does not pretend to be Gods lieuten-ant, imagined within collective representation of power resting upon a legiti-macy founded on immanence (on the social, on this terrestrial world, andnot on transcendence). It is as if the rebels wrote their own variation on theproverb sviato mesto pusto ne byvaet (the holy spot [the throne] is never

vacant, which originally pertained to the throne. The rebels variant has tobe understood without the irony that a Russian reader would associate withthe phrase today , but with the historical distance which sets it apart from therst expression:pusto mesto sviato ne byvaet (No empty place is ever sacred).

XI. When Concluding Does Not Mean Closure

I do not forget the thinness of our sources, nor the frailty of our data,nor the short duration of the rebels system. In approaching the end of this

article, it is tting to be prudent.

The Rift in Russian Political Culture

This rift can be perceived through linguistic diversity. The words of powersignify the insurrection taking place within the framework of thinkingabout the transcendent (words and concepts such as apostasy, devilishseduction). The rebels identify their foes according to their social func-tions and denounce the exploitation of the common people (chernye

liudi). In the use of symbolic references, seventeenth-century Russian cul-ture was still uniform. Yet, the rejection of serfdom, of colonization, of thelimitations of Cossack tax exemptions, as well as the religious and ethnicclaims led to a rst breach. It brought about a frail and imprecise attempt todissociate the business of the earthly administration and politics from thatof God, and to ascribe human agency a political dimension in the modernsense of the concept.

Sketching Out an Alternative Modernity through Archaic Language

The novelty reported above must immediately be qualied, because secu-lar language coexists among the insurgents with the one that conveys a


21/23


belief in revelation. Indeed, the insurgents political endeavor was efec-tively dissimulated by the widespread belief in the transcendent origin of

power, as was brightly exposed in the oath to Nechai, the Tsarevich sentfrom Heaven. It is possible to see in this set of words Tsarevich, loyaltyoath, and prayers a representation of power conforming to the tradi-tional gure of the Tsar. Although the Russian monarchs declared them-selves chosen by God, they did not claim to be sent explicitly by Heaven.But, the insurgents went too far. With their Nechai, they break the learnedconstruction of political theology. The image of the Tsar grasped withintheir discourses moves away from the traditional conception; its radicaliza-tion makes it impracticable.

In 1671, the traditional order prevailed. The breach did not become abreak. Nevertheless, a newpresentation of power was sketched out, one dis-tinct from the ocial conception. Historians often perceive uprisings as apopular aspiration for a return to an idealized past, without serfdom, colo-nial, or religious oppression. It occults the fact that, in Muscovy in the lastthird of the seventeenth century, the dual idea of a monarch emerging fromthe people without any claims of royal ancestry, and of a form of monarchi-cal power anked or even controlled by a popular assembly (the Cossack

and peasant systems of self-governance) could not practically function fol-lowing the model of a mythical past. This mode of the representation wasnot completely modern either. The rebels aspirations were diverse enoughnot reduce them to a single meaning, but, among these signications, theycarried with them a modernizing alternative to Muscovite autocracy. Localassemblies functioned in the towns that were conquered by the uprising,such as Tsaritsyn, where a local merchant or, according to other sources, agunner was elected chief. It was such a short-lived practice that it is di-

cult to know what would have been its future or that of the peasant com-munes had the uprising prevailed, just as it is not possible to know for surewhether Razin would have efectively abolished serfdom. Nevertheless,

Philip Longworth is right in pointing out the democratic nature of the practice of power

established by Razin in the towns he conquered: The Cossack krug, for example, which the

historical Razin introduced as the organ of self-government into the towns he captured,

clearly represented an idea of a democratic social order (which is also referred to in the

songs). Moreover, this democratic social order, however primitive it may have been in prac-

tice, was implemented in a suciently systematic a way during both the Razin and Pugachevrevolts as to justify its being interpreted as at any rate one plank in a program. Longworth,

The Subversive Legend, 32.

Solovev,Anatomiia russkogo bunta, 83.


22/23


imposing through the action of thousands of women and men, the peoplesright to speak their minds in matters of political power, social structure,

and religious tolerance, as well as governing cities in this spirit, despite allthe imperfections of a new power, was not in 1670s Russia a return to agolden age, but an idea tending towards an alternative to Muscoviteautocracy.

We usually think of the people in the role of receivers of ideas producedby the elites, and furnishing the action necessary to realize those ideas. Ithas been shown at times that the people could transform reception byusing the dominant culture for its own interests. In this historiographicalvision, the people reclaim and reshape the dominant culture, inventingwithinthe text at hand, without any invention extraneousto the text.Yet, the rebels invented theirextra-textual. Is it right to consider that thecommon people embodied a modern-leaning tendency, despite theabsence of an explicit philosophical and political discourse? As a means tosharpen the contrast let us recall that Hobbes, the one who conceptuallyaccelerates modernity, was a contemporary of this Muscovy where thewordpolitikaseemed to belong exclusively to foreigners. However, to give anegative answer to this question would mean that the western path to

modernity is the only possible gateway to the only possible modernity,therefore fully colonizing the political imaginary of humanity. It isnot about building a simple opposition between archaic autocracy andmodernizing revolt, but rather to identify a tendency conveyed by theuprising. An insurrectionary movement carried on by thousands of menand women always creates a new dynamic, introducing a gap with thenorms of the past. The anti-noble character, the condemnation of serfdom,and the call to non-Russian populations signied a move towardsthe disap-

pearance of the juridical fragmentation of the population into orders. Theway was then opened for a possible unitary notion of a people made of freeindividuals conceiving of themselves as the source of legitimacy for politi-cal power. This dynamic was more than a possibility: it was the driving forcebehind the uprising. The scarcity and non-conceptual nature of the evi-dence is not sucient to question the fact that the uprising drew from anotion of power moving against Russian autocracy and towards the repre-sentation of a new form of legitimacy. What the shallow nature of the cluestends to indicate is a subsequent loss of sources. The lack of conceptual

thought, far from being a monopoly of the poor and downtrodden, was anendemic character of Russian political culture in seventeenth century. Thislack forces the historian to look for other forms of thought, in order not to


23/23


think that the people did not think or that they went to battle and deathwithout knowing why they did so, or again that action does not generate

meaning.

The Need for Magic

Lacking a reexive discourse on the political, but pushed by the scale oftheir collective action to imagine outcomes of the insurrection, forced tond a unifying goal within the social, religious, and ethnic heterogeneity ofthe movement, the rebels drew from their own rationality. In it they foundthe instantiating speech of magic they already knew, the only one thatallowed them to think their action into ecacy, because this speech, whichwas still that of myth and magic, was also and already that which rid themof the physical presence of the traditional Tsar.

Translated by Bertrand Metton

Philip Longworth has identied the meaning of this use of magic in the later legends.

After listing the magical powers attributed to Razin in folklore, he concludes: These attrib-

utes would seem to reect the peasant inability to account for the historical Razins unex-

pected successes other than by reference to magic, Longworth, The subversive legend, 21.

0 published how old

Documents