Abstract: The subject of the study is the multifaceted and long-popular historiographical theme of comparing the political structure of the Novgorod Republic with that of the ancient Greek polis and the Northern Italian city-state during the Middle Ages. Despite the frequent use of both Italian and ancient Greek analogies in the study of Novgorod's political system, a comprehensive and in-depth comparison utilizing extensive source and historiographical bases has yet to be conducted. The article pays special attention to analyzing the evolution of political regimes in both the ancient Greek polis and the medieval city-states of Italy and Northwestern Rus. The political structure, examined not in a static but in an ever-changing form, allows for unexpected and non-obvious conclusions. The method of broad historical comparison used in this work, not with one state in a randomly selected era, but rather with a multitude of polities over a broad historical interval, allows for a new understanding of the structure of pre-industrial society in general and the Novgorod Republic in particular. The research reveals that all the key features of the political system of the Novgorod Republic had analogies in similar states of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Novgorod shares several key characteristics with the ancient Greek polis. Firstly, the very notion of a state as a collective of citizens possessing political rights and forming an army. Secondly, the type of political power exercised by the civic collective: in both Novgorod and the ancient Greek polis, governance was conducted directly by the civic collective through the veche or ekklesia. An essential feature that unites Novgorod and the Italian city-states is the urban nature of the polity. In both cases, power belonged to the urban citizens, while the rural population possessed no political rights. All of this allows for a new perspective on the history of the Novgorod Republic.

Abstract: The article is dedicated to identifying the common patterns of political system development in the city-states of medieval Italy and the urban republics of the Russian Northwest - Novgorod and Pskov. Alongside the Novgorod Republic, which existed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, trading city-states flourished in Northern Italy during nearly the same chronological period (from the late 11th century to approximately the mid-15th century). These included not only the well-known Venice or Genoa but also hundreds of larger and smaller republics, the history of which demonstrates similar processes to those occurring in the Russian popular governments, hundreds of kilometers away from them. Based on specific historical material, the evolution of these republics is examined, and comparisons are made with the well-known republic of Great Novgorod. The method of comparative historical analysis, utilizing a broad historical material, allows for conclusions to be drawn about the common laws of evolution in the political entities being examined. For the first time in the historiography of this problem, the method of comparative analysis is applied to a wide range of material, meaning that Great Novgorod is compared not exclusively with Venice or any other single Italian republic, but simultaneously with many of them, which allows for a broader view of the picture and helps to identify regularities in political development and understand the current place of the Novgorod Republic in European and world history. By examining the political evolution of the Novgorod Republic and a significant number of city-states in northern medieval Italy, a conclusion is made about the identical nature of changes in the power structures of Italian and Russian republics, based on which the commonality of the evolutionary path of medieval republicanism is asserted. Numerous differences in the political systems of Italian city-states and Great Novgorod do not allow for judgments about the backwardness or any other "defects" of the Novgorod polity.