ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the conversation between two composite-character boyars: Vasilii Ivanovich and lurii Borisovich. It discusses their lives, careers, and the changes both have seen over the course of decades. Together with the tsar they served, the boyars dominated the court, ran the army, and governed the central and local administrations. Nonetheless, boyar status was not hereditary. One might well be born of a boyar and, by the nature of things, be assured a good run in the service of the tsar. But birth did not make one a boyar. Only the tsar made boyars. He did so in recognition of a number of things, including: a man's heritage, his service, his loyalty, his mind, his abilities, and his political position. Few were chosen at the beginning of the seventeentn century, and most were the sons of well-known boyar families. As the century wore on, though, the number of boyars ballooned.
