Principles of inheritance of power in Russia of the 14-15 centuries in the national historiography

The article describes the hereditary principle of the Grand-Duke (VelikyKnyaz) title in Russia of the 14th-15th centuries. It contains the review of historiographic research of this problem in Russia. It isparticularly focused on the thesis of opposition between two hereditary principles - the so-called "old" one based on the ancestral seniority,and the "new" one based on the direct descending line. The idea of these two "laws" in opposition belongs to N.M. Karamzin. Itis to be noted that as a support to the new hereditary principle of the Grand-Duke title he refers to the text of the Agreement, which saysnothing of heredity. The disciples of the so-called state school developed this idea, referring to their distinguished predecessor amongothers. M.S. Solovyev believed that the traditional relations among Grand and appanage dukes disappeared in the 1280s-1290s, as ancestralseniority was substituted by the law of might. Only at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries the new principle was formed. Thistheory raises two crucial questions. The first is how the society could exist in the state of anarchy described by the author. The second iswhy under such circumstances the process of developing of the new hereditary principle of the Grand Duke title took about 150-200 years. This classical theory finally established due to V.O. Kluchevsky, who believed, that within 100 years since the time of IvanKalita (the Moneybag) the Dukes of Moscow acquired a tradition to heir the seniority on the direct line descending. However, the analysisof certain cases when the Grand Ducal power was handed over in the period from 1340 to 1420 and even to 1460 gives no ground forthis conclusion. The conservation of the theory of struggle between these two tendencies can be observed in the research byA.E. Presnyakov, who, though criticizing S.M. Solovyev, accepted his general scheme. Soviet historians did not pay much attention tothe problems of succession to the throne in the medieval Russia, but describing the process of formation of the unified Russian state onthe social and economic basis, they relied mainly on the previous theories. Similar to their predecessors they took it for granted that bythe end of the 14th century the new hereditary principle of the Grand Duke title had become "legitimate". It leads to the question of howsuch a repetitive violation of law could become a new law. Another thing, which attracts attention, is the lack of the ground for such aconclusion in testaments and agreements of the Dukes of Moscow. In the post-Soviet period this scheme underwent no principle change.Some historians treat the political relations in Rus in the traditional historiographic sense paying no significant attention to the problemof enthronement. Others try to develop new approaches to the political history of the Medieval Russia. In the latter case they either meanthe problem definition or reproduction of the old schemes of the state historical school with cultural annotations added. To sum it all up,we can say that nowadays the political history of the North-Eastern Rus of a certain period is based on the same grounds as 100-150 years ago. This recurrence from Marxist principles to even older ideas is a sign of stagnation in research of Russian history of the14th-15th centuries.

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