Putting Kurbskii in His Rightful Place

Historical knowledge is a paradoxical thing.¹ For more than 200 years, the work of the fugitive prince Andrei Kurbskii and his polemical exchange with Ivan the Terrible have been a major source for the history of Russia's first tsar. The importance of these works is a function not just of the completeness and veracity of the information they contain—indeed, there are major issues here—but of the insights they offer scholars. Without too much distortion, one could say that even now scholars and ordinary readers look at the Russian 16th century through the lens given us by Andrei Kurbskii, political émigré. Likewise, there are adherents of the diametrically opposite view, who take their perspective from Ivan the Terrible.

Soviet historians' intense reaction to the work of the American Slavicist Edward Keenan—in which he rejects the authenticity of Ivan the Terrible's correspondence with Kurbskii as well as Kurbskii's other texts—may well have been elicited by precisely these circumstances.² Keenan's hypothesis destroyed basic perceptions of the Russian 16th century, eroded its foundations, and, instead of an orderly sketch of Ivan's reign, left behind only ruins. It was entirely unacceptable, because it eliminated the whole of the Russian historical tradition, beginning with Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin.

Why do we bring together Karamzin and the Soviet historiographical tradition? Kurbskii laid out, in his works, the concept of "two Ivans": the good ruler assisted by the virtuous advisers Aleksei Adashev and the priest Sil´vestr, the "Chosen Council"; and the terrifying tyrant who appeared after their exile from the court under the influence of "evil counselors"—the Basmanovs, heading the oprichniki. Historians' views varied considerably. Some considered the Chosen Council a progressive government; others regarded its members as traitors to the state. Some unmasked the oprichniki, whereas others, following Stalin, wrote about the "progressive army of oprichniki." But without question, a single thread connected Nikolai Karamzin to the Soviet historians Aleksandr Zimin and Ruslan Skrynnikov: the history of Ivan the Terrible was a history of the "two Ivans." We might argue that Kurbskii defeated Ivan in their famous debate, because for 200 years historians have viewed the second half of the 16th century through Kurbskii's glasses.

In this context, we must revisit Keenan's deconstruction of the myths about the Correspondence of Ivan the Terrible and Kurbskii. Soviet historians harshly criticized his work, because it questioned the authenticity of the main source available for studying the government of Ivan the Terrible and, in doing so, destroyed existing historical models. Had Keenan concentrated on critiquing the Correspondence as a historical source and proved the mythical nature of many of its constructions, founded solely on the "testimony" of Ivan the Terrible or Andrei Kurbskii, it would have been much more difficult to criticize his work. But he hypothesized the complete falsity of the Correspondence, which he attributed to 17th-century authors. This hypothesis had many weak spots that attracted the attention of Keenan's critics in reviews and debates. In the struggle with Keenan, Soviet historians missed the rational core of his argument: a critical reassessment of the myths generated by the Correspondence. In this sense, Russian historians have undervalued Keenan's work.

As a result, despite criticisms of the Correspondence as a historical source, most historians and philologists still consult these texts—which are known to be far from flawless. But few scholars actually work from the manuscripts; most use the published works of Groznyi and Kurbskii. At the same time, there is no guarantee that the existing publications correctly represent the authentic texts or accurately convey the words that emerged so long ago from the pens of the first Russian tsar and the first Russian dissident. Nor is it certain that, from them, one can adequately and fully reconstruct the creative personalities of...