Zemtsov B.N. The Social Consequences of the Wars of the 16th–17th Centuries (the Origin of the Socio-Political Specifics of Russia)

Abstract: The article is focused on determining the degree of influence the wars of the 16th–17th centuries had on the social processes in Muscovite Rus. The detection of this degree is rather difficult due to the lack of sources, which would reveal the operational mechanisms of legislature. Consequently, the author constructs his hypothesis on the basis of comparing the date of appearance of key normative and legal acts, related to the social sphere, and the more difficult periods in the country's foreign policy history. The historiographical base of this research is the works regarding military and social history by pre-Revolution, Soviet, and modern scholars. The main research method is the comparative approach, which allows to identify the development dynamics of social groups, such as the service class people "by patronymic", service class people "by patronymic", and the groups that served them. On all stages of Russian historiography's development (pre-Revolutionary, Soviet, and modern) social strata and groups have been analysed separately from each other. The analysis of the country's social processes in general reveals that during the 16th–17th centuries the social system experienced significant changes: social relations began to be built not on the European (private law) principle, but on the service-hierarchical principle. That is, the position of a social stratum or group became determined not on its possession and size of private property, but on its place in the government system: the higher it was, the bigger was the volume of privileges. This did not rule out private property altogether, but the significance of that property weakened: the government deprived property-owners of political and judicial positions and began to control their economic transactions.

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