ABSTRACT
In the words of historian Vasilii Kliuchevsky, the distinctive features of the Muscovite state were its “military system” and its “taxation system.” Landowners thus were required to perform military service, and their peasants were obliged to maintain the military service class with their labor. In the sixteenth century, peasants had the right to transfer from one landowner to another. The Russian colonization of Siberia successfully combined the individual initiative of enterprising social groups with the activity of the military and administrative apparatus of the government. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the sovereign appointed namestniki in the cities and volosteli in rural areas as local administrators and judges. Within the tax system of the Muscovite state, the elected authorities of the peasant “republics” were responsible for satisfying the needs of the township, and those of the state in general, especially the careful collection of the sovereign’s taxes.
