Russia under the Old regime

DVORIANSTVO

stopped only by Peter; but even after him and throughout the eighteenth century, it was quite customary for great and small lords in addressing the crown to continue referring to themselves as slaves by another name, raby.

Corporal punishment was applied indiscriminately to dvoriane and commoners: a boyar or a general was lashed with the knout exactly as the meanest serf. Peter in particular liked to show his displeasure by beating his associates. The upper class was exempt from corporal punishment only in 1785 by terms of the Dvorianstvo Charter.

The status of a dvorianin was always insecure. Even in the eighteenth century, when the fortunes of the dvorianstvo stood at their zenith, a servitor could be demoted into the ranks of commoners at a moment's notice and without the right of appeal. Under Peter, a dvorianin who failed to educate himself or who concealed serfs from the census-takers was cast out of the ranks of his estate. A dvorianin enrolled in the civil service who after a five-year trial period proved unsuited for clerical work was sent to the army as a common soldier. In the nineteenth century, as the number of dvoriane swelled from the influx of commoners and foreigners, the government conducted occasional 'purges'. In the 1840s, for example, Nicholas 1 ordered 64,000 members of the Polish szlachta, previously admitted into the ranks of Russian dvorianstvo, to be reduced to the ranks of commoners. Under this ruler deprivation of noble status was a common punishment for political and other offences.

The institution of mestnichestvo, on the face of it, reflected a spirit of corporatism, but over the long run it contributed heavily to the undermining of the corporate position of the upper class vis-a-vis the monarchy. Mestnichestvo accounts did compel the crown to take account of boyar wishes in making appointments. Yet the net effect of the elaborate inter-clan and intra-family 'placement' ladders was to promote rivalries within boyardom. The endless petitions and suits lodged by boyars against one another made it impossible for them to combine forces against the crown. Mestnichestvo was only in appearance an instrument of boyar control over the state. Its actual result was to eliminate the possibility of any internal cohesion within the Muscovite upper class.

The monarchy never allowed the boyars and dvoriane to form a closed corporation. It insisted on keeping the ranks of its service class open to newcomers from the lower classes and from abroad.

We have noted the effect of the elevation of ordinary dvoriane to the privileges of the boyar class which occurred in the latter phase of the Muscovite state. The Table of Ranks merely perpetuated this tradition, emphasizing more than ever the element of merit over ancestry. The influx of commoners into the ranks of dvorianstvo by way of service promotion greatly displeased those who enjoyed their title by right of