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The Eurasian perspective on early modern history proposed by Victor Lieberman provides a useful context for understanding state formation in Muscovite Russia, suggesting similarities as well as differences from other European states. An effective administrative system was created by the Russian state between the 10th and early 18th centuries. However, Muscovy differed from other European monarchies in maintaining a more localized, personalized, apolitical system, without the discourse on rights and the formation of legislative bodies that occurred in the rest of Europe.

Political thinkers in the 18th century were preoccupied with replacing the rules of primogeniture with a more democratic system called equal partition. The Muscovite nobility had been advocating partible inheritance long before it was instituted in the US. However, instead of promoting democracy and fostering a viable republican egalitarianism, partible inheritance flourished accordingly with autocracy. The absence of primogeniture sealed the subservience of the nobility to the tsar.

Ivan the Terrible: Profiles in Power, by Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie. New York, Pearson-Longman, 2003. ix, 234 pp. $16.95 US (paper). Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie have produced an [...]

The Russian sketch maps of the seventeenth century show the defining character of Orthodox theology and the nature of popular religion and spirituality. Originally drawn to record property rights and boundary lines, the maps also define the complex cultural and political interrelations between various levels of society. Moreover, they present images that characterize landscapes and icons such as architectural ensembles, churches, trees and forests. Thus, Russian maps manifest the affirmative notion of interwoven biblical and earthly themes.