Illegitimate violence in ancient Russia

Legitimate violence is one of the most important characteristics of the governmental authority. According to the generally recognized concept of M. Verber only the government has a right (recognized by the population) to use the violence in order to protect the interests of a person, communities or the whole population. This concept concerns an established government. In the communities where the governmental structures are in the process of forming (like ancient Russia in X-XII centuries) the situation is more complicated. The government does not appear with no base. It substitutes the structures of a tribal society. During the substitution period, in the collective consciousness of the population exist two contradicting authority models and two models of violence respectively: a tribal model and a governmental one. In ancient Russia this models were «veche violence» and «knyaz violence». Both of them had been recognized as natural (legitimate) until the knyaz violence model became the only one considered as a right one and reflecting the type of new formed nation state. Several types of Non legitimate violence existed in ancient Russia. First type (by the time of appearance) was the violence between a knyaz and a local society (collisions: Igor-Drevlians, Jaroslav-Novgorodians). Second type: violence between knyazes (blinding of Vasiliko Trebovalsky). Third type: violence of governing elite members towards the knyaz (Andrey Bogolyubsky murder). The first type of non-legitimate violence was liquidated while the sphere of legitimacy of grand knyaz was spreading. The forms of cooperation between government and population regulated by the law were protected from non-legitimate violence by both parties. The second violence type (between knyazes) was not (and couldn't be) regulated by law. Therefore the violence between knyazes was practiced on a regular basis in the XII-XV centuries. During XIII-XIV centuries there were no conditions for initiation of 3 type of violence due to the change of the of knyazes' government functioning terms. That time knyazes were under the political influence of Orda and struggling for legitimacy they had to rely on the elite stopping the conflicts with it.

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