Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/54

28 relationships very different from those which obtained between the European vassals and their feudal lords.

The development of the executive in the Muscovite great state led to the abolition of that general assembly of the people which in earlier days had been necessary not in Moscow alone but in other towns as well. In Moscow the function of the věče lapsed in the fourteenth century, and in the other towns the věče was abolished by the grand princes of Moscow, notably in Novgorod in the year 1478, and in Pskov in the year 1510—the work of centralisation being thus carried through deliberately and with foresight.

Nevertheless the people of the capital possessed here, as everywhere, certain prerogatives, especially in troublous times. For example, as late as the year 1682 Peter and his brother John were elected by the (unorganised!) "people" under the leadership of the patriarch.

The new and difficult administrative tasks of the centralised great state called into existence, side by side with the duma, the peculiar institution of the territorial assembly or provincial council (zemskii sobor). The first zemskii sobor was summoned by John the Terrible in 1566; the earlier assemblies established by this ruler having, it may be presumed, been purely deliberative. The institution persisted only until 1653.

This territorial assembly had no political significance. It met purely for administrative deliberations on the part of the government and of the monarch. It had no legislative powers, and was not popularly representative. The members of the assembly came together as private persons, so that the sobor was not a continuation of the věče. The outcome of the consultation was definitely and legally formulated by the duma and the monarch, the sovereign deciding for himself whether and to what extent he would be guided by the decisions of the provincial council. Even the enlarged duma, being a central organism, proved inadequate for the needs of the great state. Moscow had to deal with matters of local administration, and this was the origin of the sobor. The councillors, on their return home, became as it were inspectors of local administration or local instruments of the executive. In many cases the territorial assembly had to support the duma, or even to supersede the duma when that body was out of its depth, the functions varying according to circumstances. Ključevskii maintains that the sobor consisted of