7
The State Wields its Power
Early modern Eurasian empires were capable offlexing their power across the
realm. But in doing so, they sought power more than cohesion. Cohesion was to be
deliberately managed. Certainly imperial imaginaries strove to disseminate a vision
of cohesion: rulers and elites broadcast their ideal image of legitimacy in hopes that
subjects would accept and even identify with it. Cohesion within the elite was a
positive goal: rulers certainly intended that their imperial elite should be cohesive,
forged from multiple groups and united around loyalty to ruler and empire. But
linking the entire empire in some sort of united identity was not a goal or practice,
nor was standardization of administration or cultural homogenization. To some
extent cohesion was to be avoided.
Karen Barkey speaks of early modern Eurasian empires as“strong states”com-
posed of“weak societies,”weak because the composite societies of an empire were
not linked“horizontally”across territory or across class. Rather, such empires are
linked vertically, from community to center. Barkey uses the analogy of spokes on a
wheel: everyone has a direct relationship to the center, be it the imperial elite or
local societies, but the outside rim of the wheel is missing. Jane Burbank’s model of
Russia’s “imperial system of rights”expresses this verticality: everyone related
directly to the Russian emperor with a different package of“rights.”Early modern
empires tolerated difference across their realms, imposed little on colonial subjects
in daily life, and limited their demands to those goals that were most lucrative or
most central to the state—extracting and maximizing human andfiscal resources,
defending and expanding the realm and rendering high justice.
Certainly such an approach suited Muscovy. As Muscovy developed empire, it
faced challenging circumstances. By climate and geography, most of the empire
before the eighteenth century could support neither dense population nor surplus
agrarian production. Communications in the empire’s vastness were physically
difficult, with spring thaw and autumn rains creating weeks of impassible roads
(rasputitsa; Figure 7.1); travel was best when rivers were clear of ice or when the
ground was covered withfirm snow and ice (providing forage could be found for
horses in winter). Dearth of bureaucratic personnel also challenged communications,
as officialdom always stood in low priority to staffing the army and maintaining the
ranks of taxpayers. Thus, the state’s presence was light in the provinces through the
early modern period. Some have called the Russian empire“under-governed,”but
perhaps the term is not so much under-governed as lightly governed.
Governing lightly, however, does not mean passively. As much as early modern
empires tolerate difference, they did not hesitate to intervene in society where