By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia

by Nancy Shields Kollmann

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. Here one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized codes that made up this culture. Nancy Shields Kollmann describes how these codes were manipulated to construct identity and enforce social norms―and also to defend against insults, to pursue vendettas, and to unsettle communities. She offers evidence for a new view of the relationship of state and society in the Russian empire, and her richly comparative approach enhances knowledge of statebuilding in premodern Europe. By presenting Muscovite state and society in the context of medieval and early modern Europe, she exposes similarities that blur long-standing distinctions between Russian and European history. Through the prism of honor, Kollmann examines the interaction of the Russian state and its people in regulating social relations and defining an individual's rank. She finds vital information in a collection of transcripts of legal suits brought by elites and peasants alike to avenge insult to honor. The cases make clear the conservative role honor played in society as well as the ability of men and women to employ this body of ideas to address their relations with one another and with the state. Kollmann demonstrates that the grand princes―and later the tsars―tolerated a surprising degree of local autonomy throughout their rapidly expanding realm. Her work marks a stark contrast with traditional Russian historiography, which exaggerates the power of the state and downplays the volition of society.

Genres: History, Russia, Russian History, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Nancy Kollmann has taught early modern Russian history at Stanford University since 1982. Her research has focused on the problem of how politics worked in an autocratic state; she has studied how the great men of the Moscow court received and enhanced their political positions through marriage and kinship, how the tsar's government supported litigations over personal honor for all social groups as a means of social integration and how criminal law was applied in practice. She has also focused on the image of Russia conveyed to Europeans in contemporary engravings, maps, and books.

Reviews

[Hang On · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been a much shorter book.

[Erin Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. One of my favorite academic books so far. The organization is amazing -- she has a clear sub-thesis for each chapter, and the chapters are outlined clearly with subsections. Her writing style is great, and it's full of great stories from real petitions (such as the prince who refused to be seated at a "lesser" position at the tsar's table, and kept sliding off the bench when he was forced to sit down). If you're interested in early modern Muscovy from an academic standpoint, you want this book. Really glad I picked this book to review for one of my classes. I'm totally a Kollman fan now.