| Abstrakt: |
This review article examines the historiographic analysis of the circumstances under which appeared the reference guide by D.V. Liseitsev, N.M. Rogozhin, and Iu.M. Eskin, Prikazy Moskovskogo gosudarstva XVI–XVII vekov: Slovar'-spravochnik [ Governmental Chancelleries of the Muscovite State in the 16th–17th Centuries ] (Moscow and St Petersburg, 2015). This analysis has uncovered two tendencies in the study of Muscovite chancelleries: the formal-legalist, and the practical, which respectively can be attributed to old and new approaches to the study of institutions. The former tendency focuses on formal institutions with precise legal foundations and their particular structure, range of functions, and jurisdictions. The latter treats the Muscovite chancelleries as a dynamic system formed and changed by practical interactions. The authors of the reference guide used the formal-legalist approach to the study of the chancelleries developed by the State School of Russian historiography and were faced with the inherent limitations of its methodology, which works better in the study of rational bureaucratic institutions than in the study of old institutions that arose before the Muscovite administrative apparatus was rationalized. This article argues that the study of old pre-rationalized institutions requires a new institutional approach focused on practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
