Respublika mechei ili torgovaia respublika ?

• Published in: Cahiers du monde russe
• Main Authors: Bugrov, Konstantin D., Sokolov, Sergei V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Éditions de l’EHESS 2018
• Subjects: hist; class; Republic of Novgorod
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/monderusse.10259; http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/10259

The authors analyze how the powerful Republic of Novgorod was represented in Russian historical and political writing between the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the European tradition, a republic typically was military and modeled on the Roman Republic and its military strength. In contrast, the trading republic was considered a small state, militarily inferior to great monarchies. Russian social thought, starting with A.I. Mankiev’s, identified Novgorod with a military republic while remaining ambivalent in assessing its military might. The influence of Roman imagery and the general discourse on “glory and grandeur” of the late eighteenth century brought about the emergence of a model of old Novgorod as a military republic and set aside the trading republic as a conceptual toolkit for studying the town’s future historical development. Recognition of military power in the Republic of Novgorod undermined one of the key arguments in favor of monarchy – the claim that monarchy alone is able to effectively control and protect a vast territory. Thus, viewing Novgorod as a military republic was an important step towards the rise, in early‑nineteenth‑century Russian society, of a republican alternative to a seemingly immutable monarchy. Les auteurs analysent la représentation qui est faite de la toute puissante république de Novgorod dans les écrits historiques et politiques russes du xviiie – début du xixe siècle. Dans la tradition européenne, la république classique est une république militaire, qui s’appuie sur le modèle de la république romaine militairement puissante. En opposition, la république commerciale est considérée comme un petit État, inférieure militairement aux grandes monarchies. La pensée sociale russe, à commencer par celle développée par A.I. Mankiev, identifie Novgorod à une république mais demeure ambivalente dans l’évaluation de sa puissance militaire. Sous l’influence de l’imagerie romaine et du discours général « de gloire et de grandeur » de la fin du xviiie siècle, un canon ...