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Garskova was the most austere. Densely quantitative and restricted in its immediate subject matter, it is particularly far-reaching in its implications. The authors themselves underline one of these implications when they emphasize their finding that patrimonial estates (votchiny) proved to be more vigorous and viable in the 1630s than estates held on service tenure (pomest'ia). Historians have long conceived votchiny to be losing out to the pomest'e form, and particularly in the period in question, during the period of recovery from the Time of Troubles. The supposed superiority of the pomest'e form is closely linked to the rise of absolutism, the development of serfdom, and other major issues of Russian political, social and economic life. On two other counts, Milov's and Garskova's findings confound our expectations. One is the major contribution that bobyli made to the restoration of the manorial economy after the devastating calamities of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. A bobyl' was a pauperized, ruined peasant (in the usage of the time, he did not even count as a peasant) who was granted relief from taxes and dues in recognition of his economic incapacity. It would appear-at least, in the area to the southwest of Moscow that the authors studied-that although today the term connotes helplessness and hopelessness, bobyli were by no means a burden on the estates where they lived and that the presence on an estate of workers not subject to taxation gave the landowner a crucial advantage. Even more remarkable is the relative advantage that Milov and Garskova show accrued to smaller estates, especially votchiny. The second quarter of the seventeenth century was a period of painfully slow recovery from economic and political collapse. Commerce was seriously disrupted, and the effective authority of the new government in Moscow was limited. To judge by the political documents of the period, the country was dominated by "the powerful"-politically well-connected holders of large pomest'ia. Lesser pomeshchiki, votchinniki, and townspeople were (or so they complained) unable to resist the depredations of the powerful. The victims beseeched the central government for help, by and large in vain, until 1649. The Law Code issued in that year represented a significant attempt by the government to interpose itself between the powerful and the rest of the population in the interests of securing the flow of tax revenue and maintaining the service system. The form of serfdom and the rigid system of estates of the realm (sosloviia) that derive from the code and would dominate Russian life for more than two hundred years represent, so to speak, recognition of the power of the powerful. Yet Milov and Garskova show that the larger estates were comparatively sluggish in their economic recovery and that smaller units were more flexible and more viable-at least, in the circumstances of the 1630s. The few dense pages that follow, therefore, constitute a restrained but well-grounded appeal for a reappraisal of the Russian economy-and, by extension, of political and social institutions-in the seventeenth century and beyond. Those who dislike quantitative methods in history usually motivate their dislike either by saying that the findings of the quantifiers must be wrong or that they confirm what we already knew. Garskova's and Milov's work will have its critics, but none of them, it is safe to say, will offer the latter objection. The article also presents a challenge to the humble translator. The variables the authors analyze are derived from cadastral books and often employ a terminology that is distinctive to seventeenth-century Russia. Rather than conjure up archaic and imperfect English equivalents for |
