Welcome to a slap shot edition of the Russian rulers podcast. Today we're going to go over

Moskavite Thought and Literature.

In addition to the issue of the true faith, the issue of the proper form of government preoccupied certain Muscovite minds.

It concerned essentially the nature and the new role of autocracy.

And discussion of it continued the intellectual trend clearly observable in the reigns of

Ivan III and Vassily III.

Such publicists as Ivan Pervestov, who wrote in the middle of the 16th century, upheld the new power and authority of the Tsar.

While the events of the time of Troubles provided variations on this theme of proper government and seemed to offer

to the Russians unwanted political experience.

The most famous debate on the subject took place between Ivan the Terrible and Prince Andrew Kerbsky, and two letters from the SAR, and five from the fugitive

noblemen, written between 1564 and 1579. The Sovereign's brilliant letters strike the reader by the

sweep of their assertions and a grandiose tone. I've in the terrible believed in the divine foundation of autocracy and he declared that even if

he were a tyrant, Kibsky's only alternative as a Christian and a faithful subject remained patient suffering.

But Prince, on his part, proved to be stronger in his criticism of the SARS conduct and in personal andvective than in political theory. Yet his views too presented

a system of belief. They hearkened back to an

earlier order of things, when no great gulf separated the ruler from his chief

lieutenants, and when an aristocrat enjoyed more freedom and more respect

than Ivan the fourth wanted to follow.

In foreign relations, as in domestic matters,

Ivan the terrible and other Tsars reiterated the glory of autocracy

and demanded full respect for it. They considered the Polish

kings degraded because the latter had been put on their throne by others, and thus could not be

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